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Chris Messina's avatar

Solid write-up with lots of well-earned insights. Frankly, you had to go through this journey to get to where you are as well as to understand where you've been. It may sound trite to say, but the journey is the message. Appreciate you articulating how far you've come!

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sol s⊙therland 🔸's avatar

Chris I agree, and really enjoy reading it too.

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Harshal Patil's avatar

a lot I learnt from this. i agree with your perspective that it is good to have competition, be like some other companies, and be part of a category, not a new category.

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Oh That’s Good Company's avatar

Technical thinkers oft want to reinvent the wheel before realizing it was fine how it was. It’s great because of the levels of understanding earned but those levels move like molasses when it comes to creating, production, contribution and growth.

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Vivek's avatar

Great write up! Lots of interesting discussions on building vs existing in product categories. Lenny's podcast episode with nubank shares the contrarian view

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Chris Guest's avatar

Thanks for sharing your story so openly, James.

I'm a big fan of Category Design, but I do acknowledge the validity of your concerns. When you try to remove yourself from an existing category, you also step out of the river of inbound demand that flows to that category. So you have to generate all awareness and purchase intent from nothing, and that is hard.

However there is a tactic in Category Design called "Dam the Demand" that is less known than the act of naming a category, but offers a solution. Basically you name and position a new category as a modification or progression of the existing category. Like Horseless-Carriage or e-book. That frames the new in the context of the old, and allows you to better differentiate while also feasting on inbound demand.

I just wrote about this on my Substack and also added my own concept of a "Bridge Category." I'd love to hear what you think and would encourage readers to know write-off category design until you've considered this:

https://tractiondesign.substack.com/p/the-greatest-debate-in-positioning

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