Want to talk about designing your category?
Perhaps you've read the book Play Bigger, co-authored by CDA partner Kevin Maney, and have questions about category design. Book a slot on our calendar to bounce ideas off a Category Design Advisors partner – pro bono.
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Ragy Thomas, CEO, Sprinklr

Alyssa Merwin-Henderson, VP Global Sales Solutions, LinkedIn®

Yossi Meshulam, CEO, Ripples



Crowds are good if you want to hide.
Category design puts your company in a unique position – apart from the crowd.
What’s the problem to solve?
What solution must exist?
Why are you that solution?

"We realized very quickly we were able to define the company that way."
Raj Narayanswamy, CEO Replicon
Read more CASE STUDYLearn from the experts
Category Design ResourcesNew Ways to Solve Category Design Problems for Early Stage Companies and Investors
You’re on the leadership team of an early-stage startup. Maybe you got turned on to category design when you read the book Play Bigger.Read More
The Enduring Power of Winning a Market Category
Any ambitious company should want to do everything it can to create and win a market category.
Over the years at Category Design Advisors, we’ve often...Read More
How To Turn Category Design Into a Video: 3 Case Studies
At the heart of category design is a story – a story we call a Point of View (POV). Stories have been an effective selling technique for ages. Don’t just...Read More
What Backcasting and the Adjacent Possible Can Tell You About an Innovation (Like ChatGPT)
Put two category design concepts together – adjacent possible and backcasting – and you can get an interesting way to look at the meaning of and prospects for ChatGPT.
And,...Read More
Kevin Maney joins Larry Olsen on the MindSet Playbook Podcast

Play Bigger

How Category Design Drives Decisions and Alignment

How Category Creation Can Win New Attention for an Old Company

How category design mobilizes employees and helps the board

IKEA’s Category Formula: How to See New Categories During Great Change
To spot an opportunity to create a new market category, look for the intersection of context, missing and innovation.
In category design, we think of it as a formula: f (category) = context + missing +...Read More