Category design is a strategy for creating and leading entirely new market categories, rather than competing in crowded existing ones. It emerged from patterns seen in successful tech startups and was popularized by the 2016 book Play Bigger. By aligning product, company, and narrative around a bold new market vision, businesses can shape how people think – and set the stage for long-term category leadership.
What Is Category Design?
Let’s define it.
Category Design is a Business Strategy.
It helps your team understand what products to build, how to go to market, how to pitch investors, even how to hire.
This is why creating a category – rather than trying to win someone else’s game – is so powerful. Strategic category design gives your team a shared language and creates a North Star for your company; a flag on the hill. It frames a vision in a real-world context, so you know what to do now to get to where you want to go. Importantly, it sets your company apart. In most categories today, one winner takes most of the economics. So why would you want to compete in a space that already has a dominant player? Instead, design and develop a new category in a way that makes sure YOU win.
“Different” Creates New Categories.
Most companies just try to be better than competitors – fighting for market share.
You can find new categories in problems that need to be solved – or emerging problems you see that no one else sees yet. We call that a “missing.” Category design helps a leadership team clearly see an important missing, define it, and show the world why you exist to solve it. When you define the missing in a clear, compelling way, you make space for category creation – and establish yourself as the leader from day one.
Our Category Design Methodology
First, the questions:
1
What’s the problem you solve?
As technology and society change, new problems emerge…or new technologies make it possible to solve old problems in entirely new ways. Spotting one of these “missings” is the first step toward identifying a new category creation opportunity. But creating a new category is harder than you might think.
2
What solution must exist?
Once you see a “missing,” the next step is to define a solution to that missing that must exist in the world, whether or not your company builds it. If you can make others see that this must exist, you can make customers, investors, analysts, employees and the media see the new category on your terms.
3
Why are you that solution?
If you do a great job defining the problem and the solution, people will believe you know how to build that solution. The third step in category design is showing why your company is uniquely positioned to own and lead the category you're creating.
Then together, we turn strategy into category leadership magic.
4
Develop a Unique Point of View (POV)
Once we can answer the three questions, we work closely with your team to develop a POV – some might call it a manifesto – that tells the story of the problem, the solution and your company’s unique ability to be the solution. The POV defines the category on your terms, setting the rules that others will have to follow – so you always have an advantage.
5
Evangelize your Category
After locking down the POV, together we plan how to take it out into the world. The POV is your internal story, but its language and narrative get translated into marketing, sales decks, ad campaigns, investor pitches, an S1 filing, job descriptions, product roadmaps, stump speeches and whatever else you might need. If you need help bringing your POV to life, we have partners that understand category design strategy that can jump in.