Play Bigger — A Must-Read for Startup Founders
How Play Bigger put us on a trajectory to become the next email security unicorn.(yes another F$ck$ng unicorn!)
In 2016 I joined a startup called IRONSCALES.
The company was disrupting the email security space and we needed a way to differentiate amidst giants aka the incumbents.
I was fortunate to have been introduced to this book a few months after joining.
The rest as they say is history.
The idea of this article is not to document my/our journey but rather to share with you the book that helped us.
However… I’m open to chatting and consulting on matters related to growth and strategy.
Play Bigger
How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets
By Al Ramadan, Dave Peterson, Christopher Lochhead and Kevin Maney (2016)
A Brief Introduction and History Courtesy Of Play Bigger
Creation Wins:
The most exciting companies create. They give us new ways of living, thinking and doing business. Many times they're solving a problem we didn’t know we had or a problem we didn’t pay attention to because we never thought there was another, perhaps better way.
These companies don’t only invent something to sell us. They're not making products or services to incrementally improve on what came before.
They don’t just sell us better, the most exciting companies sell us different.
The Discipline of Category Design
Category Design is a discipline of creating and monetizing new markets in a noisy world. The journey starts first with understanding the problem that you desire to solve. The problem is the proxy for the category and is the strategic element you see missing in the world. That unsolved problem is what keeps you up at night, and drives you to build a product, company and category to solve it.
Category Design Has Existed for Decades
In fact, many of the greatest category leaders have been practicing this discipline at an instinctual level. These legends made sure that the world understood why their breakthrough innovations mattered. They educated the market about why they should consider doing things in a new way with a new product. They intuitively lead their markets by teaching customers why they should abandon old ways and embrace the new world.
https://www.playbigger.com/category-page
Synopsis:
7 Key Steps in the Category Journey
1.Identify the Problem
Articulating the problem and your unique technology or market insights is the first step of your category design journey.
2.Define the Category Name
Defining the name of the category is a big step to helping the world understand the container for the problem. The category name is often comprised of the market type, the nature of the problem, and the audience who has the problem. It’s a name that will evolve over time as your category expands.
3.Publish Your Category Blueprint and Ecosystem Map
Sharing your category vision requires a visual blueprint and ecosystem that maps out the people, processes, and products required to fulfill the category potential. Your blueprint represents what solution you have today and what you will build in the future to solve the category problem.
4.Create Your Point of View
Sharing your category vision with a powerful point of view (POV) is the next step. Your POV frames the category problem, explains the ramifications for not solving the problem, presents your vision for the future, and declares your unique answer to the problem.
5.Mobilize the Entire Company
One of the most powerful steps in category design is mobilizing the entire company, and in some cases the entire industry, to solve the category problem. Mobilization is the step that unifies every single person in your company around your company, product, and category goals.
6.Execute Lightning Strikes
Lightning Strikes condition the world to see what you see. Lightning strikes target the cognitive biases of the entire category ecosystem helping you to anchor your agenda, create group-think, drive conformity and commitment to picking your company as the category king. The Lightning Strike playbook aligns every function of your business to work together as a signal unit in a concentrated period of time.
7.Spin the Flywheel
Your category journey is ongoing and your category flywheel will gain momentum with every lightning strike. This flywheel allows you to expand your category potential, expand the scope of problems you solve, and creates long term unfair competitive advantage.
And if you're still not convinced…
Lately, entrepreneurs have been hearing a lot about category design. AND many would like to learn more. But, with so much bad advice on the Internet it can be hard to know who to trust.
Marc Benioff says, "Every entrepreneur looking to alter the landscape can learn from this book."
Play Bigger has become must reading for entrepreneurs, marketers and VCs in the know - in #siliconvalley
Here’s A Special Montage Of Category Design Quotes To Wet Your Palette👄
by Christopher Lochhead, aka The Godfather Of Category Design.
Every $1 of revenue growth a category designer produces equals $4.82 of market cap growth. That’s 3x more than other, high-growth non-category designers.
We analyzed the Fortune 100 fast-growing companies list from 2009 to 2018.
Using our Category Design Scorecard, we found only 19 percent of the fast-growing companies were actually category creators. But stunningly, the category creators captured the vast majority of the growth: 51 percent of the prior three years cumulative revenue growth, and 80 percent of the prior three years market capitalization.
Did you know 60% of IPOs are failures? The culprit?
Sameness. Savvy investors know, the company that designs the category is most likely to dominate it. And earn 76% of the value. In the entire space.
The most valuable companies are DIFFERENT.
They break and take new ground. They are not competing. They are creating. They are not monetizing the past. They are creating a different future.
To learn how pirates IPO, subscribe to Category Pirates (link in comments 👇)
It's in the top 0.5% of paid business newsletters for a reason.
Why most marketing fails.
When people say “marketing” often what they mean is:
1) We’re going to compete
2) For existing demand
3) With a better product
4) And a better brand
5) In an existing market category
Despite what we get taught, 👆 this is a bad idea.
We did a data science project. 🔬
(published in Harvard Business Review)
We discovered in tech categories, on average,
the winners earn 76% of the total value created.💰
In the entire category.📈
That makes most “marketing” a fight for 24%.🤬
And that’s why most marketing fails.
"I want to be famous!"
(brand)
"For what?"
(category)
People need to know what it is,
before they care about who it is.
That's why categories make brands. 🚀
SEO.
Most marketers work hard on it.🤬
And yet few ask💡👇
“What makes people Google something
in the first place?”
There is a massive distinction between demand capture.
(Marketing)
And
Demand creation.
(Category Design)
She who frames the problem, owns the solution.
There comes a time in every startups life, where they face an epic 18-24 month battle. For who will dominate the category. This is when most most founders fail. ☠️
And the winner earns 76% of the total value created in the category.
Last week I had multiple conversations with a startup in this phase.
It's down to two major players.
And their primary competitor is beating them more often than not.
(I'm sure you've had the experience of someone explaining their plan to you, and automatically knowing it's a really bad idea. Like, the little hairs on the back of your neck standup, kinda bad idea!?.....)
Keep reading 👇
Their strategy for winning is to launch a brand marketing campaign.
I explained the #1 category design marketing strategy is to MARKET THE CATEGORY, not the brand:
- With a powerful point of view.
- Centered on a problem.
- That potential customers need to solve.
The big problem with marketing your brand instead of your category:
🏴☠️ Categories are about customers
(their problems/opportunities)
🏴☠️ Brands are about us
(our solutions/products)
🏴☠️ Customers care about themselves
(Not us)
And customers assume that the company promoting the category, must be the leader.
Because the only company any of us have ever seen marketing a category, is the category leader.
So when you market a category POV, customers automatically assume you're leader.
This is how legendary category marketing works. By creating a self-perpetuating, fly-wheel of viral word of mouth.
I explained all of this.
They didn't want to hear it.
The brand cult is a powerful cult.
The data proves most brand marketing is a waste of 💰
But, most people have been downing brand cult kool-aid so long, it burned a whole in their brain.
Please don't make this mistake.
What you do during the 18-to-24 month epic category battle will determine the trajectory of your company.
And your career.
🏴☠️👊
7 Lies About Category Design:
1. Creating a category is hard
2. Creating a category is expensive
3. It’s all about branding, not categories
4. Only big companies design categories
6. Only VC-backed companies design categories
7. The best product wins, just build more product
Every time you say “better,” you’re asking to be compared.
#categorydesigner #marketing
Competing for market share, with a “better product” or “better brand” is not a strategy. It’s a race to the bottom.
If your reference is "the competition," you are done before you’ve begun.
Most marketing invites a comparison.
Legendary marketing forces a choice.
Conventional startup "wisdom"...
1) Target a big market
2) Embrace a “Be The Best” product strategy
3) Create an MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
4) Load up on funding & out-spend your competitors
UN-conventional startup thinking...
1) Target a big problem
2) Embrace the magic triangle (product, company & category design)
3) Create an MVC (Maximum Viable Category)
4) Load up on funding & market a radically different point-of-view
When most people say “marketing,” what they mean is:
“We’re going to launch a product or service in an existing market category, and then we’re going to market why ours is BETTER than the competition.
Once the world sees that we’re better, they’ll stop buying from the current category leader and start buying from us.”
Everything about this 👆 "strategy" is not true. 👊🏴☠️
Why being DIFFERENT(standing out), not better (fitting in) matters in #marketing - It’s estimated that, back in the 70s, the average person saw between 500 and 1,600 ads per day. By 2007, that number had climbed up to 5,000 ads per day.
And in 2021, it’s now estimated “the average person encounters between 6,000 and 10,000 ads every single day.”
Legendary Marketing Plans include 3 strategic components:
1) The Information War: What you’re saying (POV), how (Languaging), to whom (your Superconsumers).
2) The Air Wars: How you are taking your unique and differentiated POV & Languaging and educating your Superconsumers at scale.
3) The Ground Wars: How you are empowering yourself, your team, and your Superconsumers to educate and enlist other potential Superconsumers to BUY NOW and become loyal supporters of your new and different category over time.
This is your marketing strategy.
Always and forever.
A simple test to know if you’re talking to the wrong VCs: If they think success is about "product-market-fit" and “go-to-market” RUN (do not walk). Why?.....
1) Legends stand out, they do not “fit” in.
(PMF is one of the most damaging ideas in entrepreneurship, because it tricks founders into believing their job is to find an existing market category to “fit” into.)
2) Legends do not “go-to-markets”. They create categories.
(And as a result, they compel the market to come TO them.)
3) Legendary VCs are contrarian. They don't automatically accept, the accepted. They have the courage to THINK.
Thinking about thinking, is the most important kind of thinking.
Consider, most of what we're taught about #marketing and #entrepreneurship is wrong.
PMF & GTM expose themselves as weak thinking, the second you start questioning and actually think about the implications of the words.
Say them slowly.
And think.
"Product-market-fit".
"Go-to-market".
Often when we introduce newcomers to the concept of Category Design, the response we hear is, “How do we create something out of nothing? Creating demand out of thin air sounds hard and risky.”
That's right.
Which is why a “DAM the demand” strategy is so powerful.
It’s about interrupting customers when they are shopping, and then educating them on the advantages of heading in a new and different direction. (“You think you want that, but you really need this!)
This is the Aikido (Japanese martial arts) move of category design, using the momentum of the legacy category to your advantage.
When you’ve successfully DAMed the demand, you have raised an urgent question in the customer’s mind:
“I thought I wanted X, but maybe what I really need is Y?”
And it’s in this question, this gap between what they thought they wanted and what they didn’t know they needed, where you have the opportunity to educate customers on the differences between the old category and the new one you are creating/designing.
DAMing the demand is not a product-to-product comparison.
It is a category vs category debate.
- You thought you wanted "CRM", but you really need "Cloud-CRM". (Salesforce)
- You thought you wanted a "Database Platform", but you really need a "Data-to-Everything Platform". (Splunk)
- You thought you wanted "Sushi", but what you really need is a "Sushi-Burrito" (Sushirrito)
- You thought you wanted a "Book Store", but what you really need is an "eCommerce Book Store" (Amazon.com)
- You thought you wanted a "Social Media Network," but you really need is a "Real Relationship Network" HalloApp
DAMing the demand is like writing the RFP for the space.
The company that educates the world on the new thing wins, by making the old thing obsolete in the consumer's mind.
Once this category design strategy "tips", the brands in the old category, become trapped on a ship they can't stop from sinking.
Because you changed the flow of demand.
You created a different future.
And became a legend.
14 Reasons You Should Not Create A Category
1) You believe in hustling
2) You believe the best brand wins
3) You believe the best product wins
4) You like to change “strategy” often
5) You are a mercenary, not a missionary
6) You think “re-branding” will drive growth
7) You believe in “achieving product/market fit”
8) “Go-to-market” sounds like a smart thing to do
9) You think category design is a marketing exercise
10) Category Designers are expensive and hard to find
11) You think you can win on quality, features and price
12) Marketing products is smarter than marketing problems, right?
13) You think asking customers what they want, is the best strategy
14) Creating demand takes a lot more thinking than capturing demand
Typically the last company to adopt a new category paradigm
is the number one company in the old category.
Many marketing leaders think branding is smart. Competition is the goal. And creativity is award worthy.
That’s why so many of them sit at the kids table. Are disrespected as executives. And get fired faster than their peers. (harsh but true)Case in point: The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. They shower awards on Burger King.
Giving them stuff called the “Titanium Grand Prix” and “the very first Creative Brand of the Year.”
Burger King has 1.16% market share. McDonald’s 21.4%.
Burger King does $10 billion in sales. McDonald's $37 billion.
Burger King has been stuck in the “Better Trap” for about 24,647 days, AKA 67 years. (More on the “Better Trap” in comments 👇)
Burger King features McDonald's in an insane percentage of their ads. Which serves to educate consumers that McDonald’s is the category king.
Burger King might as well Venmo their marketing budget to McDonald’s.
Yet “creative marketers” give Burger King “creative brand” awards.
This shows how deeply disconnected some marketers are from business outcomes that matter. Like revenue, marketshare and market cap.
Legendary marketing is not about creative. Legendary marketing is not about branding.
Legendary #marketing is about designing and dominating a category that matters.
Customer are never buying “the thing” your product or service does.
What they’re buying is the outcome or result of them using “the thing.” For example, readers don’t buy books—they buy answers, captivating stories, and unique insights. CIO's don't buy "the cloud". They buy business outcomes.Students don’t buy online courses—they buy acceleration in their careers.
The benefit of your product or service is not the sum of its features.
It’s the transformation it unlocks in the customer as a result.
When you market your category (not your brand) people assume you are the category leader.
There are two types of marketers.
Those who fight over old things.
And those who create abundance.
Most leaders want to drive revenue and lead their categories.
But #demandgeneration is expensive and hard. That’s why “DAM the demand” is a powerful idea. When some hear about #categorydesign they think, "Creating demand out of thin air sounds hard and risky.” And it is.A DAM the demand strategy is about interrupting customers when they are shopping, and educating them on the advantages of heading in a new and different direction. This is the Aikido of category design.
Using the demand of the legacy category to your advantage. When you successfully DAM the demand, you have raised an urgent question in the customer’s mind:
“I thought I wanted X, but maybe what I really need is Y?”
And it’s in this question, this gap between what they thought they wanted and what they didn’t know they needed, where you have the opportunity to educate customers on the differences between the old category and the new one you are designing.
DAMing the demand is not a product-to-product comparison. It is a category vs category debate, and involves telling the truth about the existing category and using the enemy’s strengths against them.
More in Category Pirates 🏴☠️ (Link in comments ⚓️)
While most "go-to-market".
Legends teach the market to come to them.
Everything is the way it is.
Because someone replaced the way it was.
Pay close attention to "languaging". The strategic use of language used to design categories.
The languaging used to describe something, changes the thing. And the way people value the thing. On October 23, 2001 when Apple launched iPod, there were many “MP3 players” (as the category was known) on the market.“MP3 player” is techno-babble....category carbadingulator speak. They named the category after a file type.
Apple re-designed the category by putting the technology in a context people could understand. A customer context. With one sentence.
1,000 songs in your pocket.
Steve Jobs made it very clear, that Apple was designing a new category. From the press release launching iPod and the new category:
“With iPod, Apple has invented a whole new category of digital music player that lets you put your entire music collection in your pocket and listen to it wherever you go,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “With iPod, listening to music will never be the same again.”
Many in marketing are sloppy and unintentional with their language. Legends are different. They pay close attention to “languaging”.
Because, a demarcation point in language, creates a demarcation point in thinking, which creates a demarcation point in action.
And…1 More For Good Luck 🍀💰
The Big Product Lie.
The 3 most repeated “product” phrases in the business world—specifically the startup world are: 👇
• Product-Market Fit
• Minimum Viable Product
• Product-Led Growth
⚠️ Unfortunately, all 3 are very misleading startup frameworks to follow.
Here's why:
Myth #1: Product-Market Fit
Listen to the words. 👂
You think your job is to FIT:
• A new product
• Into an existing market
Your thinking immediately starts sprinting in the direction of “what currently exists.”
Not what market COULD or SHOULD exist but doesn't yet.
No legendary company ever created a product that FIT into an existing category:
• There was no “smartphone” category before Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone.
• There was no “ride-sharing” category before Uber came along.
• There was no “video doorbell” category before Ring.
Myth #2: Minimum Viable Product
Put these words in front of any other phrase.
Maybe we should also build:
• Minimum Viable Cars?
• Minimum Viable Bridges?
• Minimum Viable Buildings?
• Minimum Viable Heart Valves?
A better initial metric to focus on is:
Minimum Viable Traction
• Is the new category name “sticking?”
• Is your new & different POV being internalized and repeated by your Superconsumers?
• What % of people who hear your POV start a free trial / buy the product?
Myth #3: Product-Led Growth
This way of thinking is asinine.
Entrepreneurs think PLG means "give users the ability to invite other users and growth will be parabolic."
But PLG is just Digital Word-Of-Mouth.
And it's the customers who drive the growth.
Not the product itself.
Entrepreneurs love pointing to "PLG" companies like:
• PayPal
• Dropbox
• Slack
What they fail to realize, however, is it wasn't "the product" that ignited the growth.
Category Design Marketing = Languaging + Superconsumers
Not the "invite a friend" product feature.
Silicon Valley loves to chant:
"The best product always wins."
But again, listen to the words.
"Best" in relation to... what? (Another product? An existing Category King?)
Business is a winner-takes-all game.
The Category King who invents a New & Different category owns 76% of the economics.
And everyone else with a "better" product competes over the remaining 24% of the market.
The best product does not always win.
This is The Big Product Lie.
*To go deep on this read Category Pirates.
I hope this post provided you with a new lens to reevaluate traditional marketing and startup wisdom.
Good luck 👊
🔗https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendonrod/