Buried Treasure: Category Design Lies
Everything is the way it is because someone changed the way it was.
Dear Friend, Subscriber, and Category Pirate,
This weekâs Buried Treasure is all about Category Design Lies.
In case you missed these mini-books, here are 3 especially worth the time that debunk common lies around branding, product, and creating differentiated categories.
And to uncover more gems (our archives are deep!), hop aboard The Pirate Ship and subscribe below:
The Big Category Lie: 8 Reasons Category Creation Is A Bad Idea
Most people believe Category Design is who-ha, malarkey, and/or B.S.
Which is why, in The Big Category Lie, we wrote about the 8 reasons why people believe Category Design doesnât work (and explained that these excuses arenât true).
For example:
#1: âYou canât create demand out of thin air.â
Except everything is the way it is because someone changed the way it was.
In 1997, there was zero demand for âthe Cloud.â
In 1998, there was zero demand for âAthleisure.â
In 2004, there was zero demand for âEnergy Shots.â
In 2009, there was zero demand for âCryptocurrencies.â
The entrepreneur, the creator, and the business owner had to create demandâand move the world FROM the way it was TO a new and different way.
#2: âItâs too expensive.â
The easiest way to sell a $3,000 watch is to put it beside a $30,000 watch.
âExpensiveâ is relative, and 100% based on context.
According to Crunchbase, the average American venture-backed company raised $300 million by their series D financing in 2021 (up from approximately $194 million in 2020). So it turns out, building a startup in America is âexpensiveâ no matter which way you slice it.
Whereas the cost of Category Design is actually radically low when compared to legacy marketing strategies. (Like spending a gazillion dollars trying to convince people to buy your CPG product vs someone elseâsâjust to improve profitability by 1%.)
#3: âItâs not about categories. Itâs about communities.â
What makes a community valuable isnât the number of people. Itâs the shared POV.
If you want proof, go search #NFTcommunity on Twitter.
What marketers, founders, and even very intelligent investors donât seem to realize is that projects like CryptoPunks or BYAC didnât become successful because they had a bunch of people in a Discord channel.
They became successful because they created new categories for themselves.
#4: âPeople donât like change.â
If people donât like change, thenâŚ
How come we all watch Netflix today instead of cable television?
Why do most of us shop online today instead of in stores?
Why do coffee shops today carry Almond, Oat, and Flax milk instead of regular milk?
The truth is, consumers love change. Which is exactly what Category Design is: the business strategy of changing peopleâs minds.
Uncover 4 more reasons in The Big Category Lie.
The Big Product Lie: Why Minimum Viable Product, Product-Led Growth, And Product-Market Fit Are Myths
In The Big Product Lie, we take on the lie perpetuated from Silicon Valley to startup hubs all over the world: âThe best product wins.â
Because guess what? The best product does not always win.
Unfortunately, startup founders, executives, investors, and even artists like to believe the opposite: âOur product is so good, we donât even have to do marketing.â
So we dispel the myths of the 3 most repeated âproductâ phrases in the business and startup world.
Product-Market Fit
Minimum Viable Product
Product-Led Growth
When you set out to âbuild the best product,â you make the assumption the product will FIND its place in the world. In reality, you have to MAKE a place in the world for your product. Category Design is a map to create a category of one.
Discover how Dropbox discredited the lie to become an $8 billion company.
The Big Brand Lie: How Categories Make Brands & Why Brand Marketers Never Believe It
In The Big Brand Lie, we reveal how a meaningful percentage of marketers, entrepreneurs, and executives are in what we like to call âThe Brand Cult.â Theyâve been taught the best (aka: âthe most well-knownâ) brand wins.
Letâs think deeply about this âbrandingâ word the business world loves so much.
BRANDING originally meant âlivestock branding.â So branding is a violent, painful approach to showing a living being as belonging to you.
Are we being cheeky?
No. THINK.
Imagine branding as an idea that doesnât exist.
Imagine youâre a marketing executive at Procter & Gamble and the guy next to you is saying, âMan, everybodyâs detergent is the same. What do we do? I know. Letâs make it look different. Letâs give it a different identity. Letâs make it stand out by giving it unique colors on the box.â This is what eventually becomes âbrandingâ (as a multibillion-dollar industry) and NOBODY goes, âWait, hang on a minute. Maybe the solution to the problem, âWeâre not different,â is to actually get different.
If brand marketing doesnât work, then whatâs a marketer, an executive, or an entrepreneur to do?
We urge you to ask this very important question: What are you DOING with your marketing? Are you forcing a choice? âWe are a different thing altogether.â Or are you inviting a comparison? âWeâre like everybody else, PLUS some more.â
The answer to this question is the seminal difference between brand marketing and category marketing.
See how Ralph Lauren created a successful brand through a differentiated category.
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Arrrrrrr,
Category Pirates
PS: Donât forget to grab a copy (or gift!) of one of our best-selling books:
âď¸ Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One
âď¸ The Category Design Toolkit: Beyond Marketing: 15 Frameworks For Creating & Dominating Your Niche
PPS: We are launching a Category Design Academy & Community!
Please reply to this email if you are interested in being added to the beta launch list and/or any questions or particular topics youâd like us to make sure we include. We are VERY excited about this next evolution of Category Pirates!
I'm interested in the Category Design Academy and Community.
Would love to learn more about the Category Design Academy and Community. Please add me to the beta launch list.