Play Bigger
High-Level Thoughts
The most dominant businesses in the world create new categories and convince the market they are best positioned to provide a service that fills the void.
Summary Notes
The most exciting companies sell us different. They introduce the world to a new category of product or service.
A company that best frames a problem is the company that often comes to define and take the category. Put another way: winning companies today market the problem, not the just the solution.
What does all this mean for the CEO, founder, or category creator of any kind? Your number one job is to change the way people thing. Your product, your company, your culture, your marketing - everything has to be aligned with transforming the way potential customers think.
Category design is the discipline of creating and developing a new market category, and conditioning the market so it will demand your solution and crown your company as king.
Position yourself or be positioned.
Most of the best insights come from what we call a "missing." Basically, someone sees something that they feel is missing from the world, and that person is driven to fill the void.
Dave’s Three Questions - the idea gut check
- Can you explain to me like a five-year old the problem you’re trying to solve?
- If your company solves this problem perfectly, what category are you in?
- If you win 85 percent of that category, what’s the size of your category potential?
Company Interview Questions
Vision mission: What was the original market or technology insight that lead you to create this company?
Customers: Who do you envision buying this product or service? Who will use it?
Problem statement: What’s the problem you think you can solve for your potential customers?
Use Cases: What are the specific ways people will use this product or service to solve their problem?
Product/solution: Give a detailed explanation of the technology behind the solution - what does it do now, and what else is it capable of doing?
Ecosystem: In many cases there are other companies involved in solving the problem or adding additional value. These companies form an ecosystem around the problem and solution. What are all the companies and where in the ecosystem are the control points where one company has leverage?
Competition: Who else is trying to solve this problem - or, if no one else sees the problem yet, who might jump in to compete with you to solve something that couldn’t have been done with prior technology, creating huge value?
Sales and go-to-market: Enterprise companies should articulate how the product or solution will make its way to the market. Through a sales force? Through distribution partners? Both? For a consumer company, how will users find out about your solution? From app stores? Search? Viral adoption? Growth hacking techniques? Advertising? PR?
Organization: How is the company organized? Who are the major influencers on the company? How are decisions made? What kind of culture will work?
Funding strategy: What’s the next funding event? A private financing? An IPO? How much runway does the company have before it needs more money and what kind of funding is in place to execute against the category strategy?
Workshop For a Team
Who Are The Customers?
Identify the kinds of people you’re addressing now and the kinds of people you really want to address. Talk about who they are, what they do, and why they might want your shit.
What’s The Problem They Don’t Know They Have Or Can’t Yet Solve?
This starts requiring some imagination. How do you frame your insight from the customer’s point of view? What would make them have the same aha you had?
Where are the From/Tos?
Once you identify the problem, what’s the solution? What’s the journey customers need to take to reject an old way of doing things and embrace your new way of doing things?
What’s The New “Thing”?
What’s the new thing that every person or company has to make that journey? What’s your new thing that never existed before but that your customers will feel they must have?
Naming the Category
The words shouldn’t describe your specific product - they should describe the category of product you make.
Yet the product you make should be the unique solution to the problem the category identifies.
Combinations of 2-3 words. Never more.
The name might now be perfect, but it is the company’s job to grab ahold of the name it chooses and make it perfect - make it seem like it was inevitable all along.
Packaging The Work To Align An Organizaiton (a short slide deck)
Category Landscape - what the category you create would look like and where it fits.
Category Ecosystem - the customers, competitors, developers, suppliers, analysts, media, and everyone else who would plug into the category.
Frotos - the from/to journey you want customers to take.
Category Name and Description - the final version
The Case for the New Category - write out why the category should exist and what the world will look like if the company creates and dominates the category.
Early Draft Game Plan - a sketch of how the company can create and dominate the category.