The founders of a respected Silicon Valley advisory firm study legendary category-creating companies and reveal a groundbreaking discipline called category design.Winning today isn’t about beating the competition at the old game. It’s about inventing a whole new game—defining a new market category, developing it, and dominating it over time. You can’t build a legendary company without building a legendary category. If you think that having the best product is all it takes to win, y...

To read this "mini-book," as well as our entire archive of writing on Category Design, subscribe to Category Pirates here: categorypirates.substack.comAs a category designer, you must develop a sense of radical resilience in order to bring about a different future.Hold fast. It means holding tight to the rigging to ride out a storm. You don't let go or give up. You bear down. You stay the course. As a result, you not only survive the storm-you come out of it stronger. We're...

To read this "mini-book," as well as our entire archive of writing on Category Design, subscribe to Category Pirates here:categorypirates.substack.comCategory Design is about educating the world on something that doesn't exist or isn't commonly understood.This means educating people on something they don't know anything about-yet. But in order to properly teach people, you have to ask the right questions.In 2022, category designers like you sent our team at ...

To read this "mini-book," as well as our entire archive of writing on Category Design, subscribe to Category Pirates here:categorypirates.substack.comYou are an Intellectual Capitalist-and you might not even realize it.Anytime you create a process for yourself, you are an Intellectual Capitalist.Anytime you execute your own problem-solving framework, you are an Intellectual Capitalist.Anytime you create an asset (even an Excel spreadsheet) ...

To read this "mini-book," as well as our entire archive of writing on Category Design, subscribe to Category Pirates here:categorypirates.substack.comIf you want to have any hope of remaining relevant in the working world, you need to understand the difference between Native Digitals and Native Analogs.Native Digitals are a new category of human, and Native Analogs are the last of their kind to walk the earth. It's why Boomers (Native Analogs) call Millennials & Gen...

In 1973, Martin Cooper invented the cell phone.How?He started with a problem (the Chicago police needed an alternative to bulky 2-way radios)He synchronized the Magic Triangle (product, company, & category design)He executed a Lightning Strike (a publicized call to his competitor)And he won the category.In this "mini-book" you will learn:How Martin Cooper led the creation of the world's first cell phone at Mot...

To read this "Pirate Profile," as well as our entire archive of writing on Category Design, subscribe to Category Pirates here:categorypirates.substack.comIf you want to change your behavior, you have to change the situation around your behavior.Let's say, for example, that you want to eat healthier food. You can modify your circumstances in three ways:PreparationAccountabilityMindsetThis is just one of the techniques...

To read this "mini-book," as well as our entire archive of writing on Category Design, subscribe to Category Pirates here:categorypirates.substack.comThere isn't a tech executive on planet earth who hasn't seen the chart from the book Crossing The Chasm that separates early adopters from later-stage customer segments.Author Geoffrey A. Moore describes (languages) the "chasm" innovative startups must cross to move their prod...

To read this "mini-book," as well as our entire archive of writing on Category Design, subscribe to Category Pirates here:categorypirates.substack.comHuman beings are not brands.Listen closely...Oprah Winfrey is not a brand. Oprah is a Black woman who was born into poverty in Mississippi to a single teenage mother who used her challenging and troubling childhood to inspire her to create a new category of television talk show that evangelized...

To read this "mini-book," as well as our entire archive of writing on Category Design, subscribe to Category Pirates here:categorypirates.substack.comIn the summer of 2021, Netflix announced its plans to offer gaming products on its streaming platform.The first games launched on Android in early November 2021 and are included alongside the streaming service's movies and TV offers, bundled within the same monthly price. But this category adjacency strategy (growing i...

To read this "mini-book," as well as our entire archive of writing on Category Design, subscribe to Category Pirates here:categorypirates.substack.comMost entrepreneurs and business strategists believe Cirque du Soleil created something new by doing what had come before in new & different ways.But that's not really what happened.The untold story of Cirque du Soleil reveals the importance of staying focused on creating a different future (rather than competin...

To read this "mini-book," as well as our entire archive of writing on Category Design, subscribe to Category Pirates here:categorypirates.substack.comOne of the most common questions entrepreneurs and small business owners ask is, "How do I create a category if I'm not a heavily funded startup or some massively successful company? How can someone like me create a category of my own?"This reveals maybe the single greatest benefit of category design:Anyone can...