category-design

What this skill does

# Category Design - Create and Dominate New Markets

> Become the Category King by creating new markets instead of competing in existing ones

## When to Use This Skill

- **Launching a company or product** that doesn't fit cleanly into existing categories
- **Stuck in commodity competition** where you're compared feature-to-feature with competitors
- **Redefining your market position** when "better" isn't working as a strategy
- **Planning a major market announcement** or product launch
- **Escaping price pressure** by creating net new demand instead of fighting for existing pie
- **Building your company narrative** for investors, employees, and customers
- **Feeling like you're losing to entrenched incumbents** despite having a superior solution

## Methodology Foundation

| Aspect | Details |
|--------|---------|
| **Source** | Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets (2016) |
| **Experts** | Al Ramadan, Dave Peterson, Christopher Lochhead, Kevin Maney |
| **Core Principle** | "Companies that design and dominate new categories capture 76% of the total market value. Being better isn't enough—you must be different." |


## What Claude Does vs What You Decide

| Claude Does | You Decide |
|-------------|------------|
| Structures analysis frameworks | Strategic priorities |
| Synthesizes market data | Competitive positioning |
| Identifies opportunities | Resource allocation |
| Creates strategic options | Final strategy selection |
| Suggests implementation approaches | Execution decisions |

## What This Skill Does

This skill helps you escape the trap of "better" and create something "different." Most companies fail because they try to out-compete entrenched incumbents on their terms. Category Design flips the script.

Instead of fighting for scraps in existing markets, you'll:

1. **Find problems others don't see** - Identify costly problems hidden in plain sight
2. **Design the category** - Create the rules that favor you
3. **Condition the market** - Make your problem feel urgent and your solution inevitable
4. **Execute Lightning Strikes** - Launch in ways that change how people think
5. **Become the Category King** - Capture 76% of market value, not 24%

The result: You stop competing and start creating markets where you make the rules.

## How to Use

### Prompt Examples

```
Help me identify if my product/company is a true category creator or just a "better" competitor.
Here's what we do: [description]. Walk me through the category design diagnostic.
```

```
I'm competing in [existing category] against [competitors]. Help me find a new category
framing that makes our competition irrelevant. Use the Play Bigger methodology.
```

```
Write a POV (Point of View) document for my company using the category design format.
Our product: [description]. Our audience: [audience]. The problem we solve: [problem].
```

```
Plan a Lightning Strike for launching our new category. We have [budget] and [timeframe].
Include event strategy, PR, content, and sales enablement components.
```

```
Create a Category Blueprint for [my product/service] that shows how all the components
work together as a unified category solution.
```

## Instructions

### The Category Design Framework

```
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│         THE THREE PILLARS OF CATEGORY CREATION              │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                             │
│    PRODUCT DESIGN     COMPANY DESIGN     CATEGORY DESIGN    │
│    ──────────────     ──────────────     ──────────────     │
│    Solves the         Creates culture    Battle for         │
│    category           and org that       public opinion     │
│    problem            supports both      about the problem  │
│                                                             │
│         ↓                   ↓                   ↓           │
│                                                             │
│                  ALL THREE MUST ALIGN                       │
│                                                             │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
```

### The Five Golden Rules

Before starting, internalize these principles:

| Rule | What It Means |
|------|---------------|
| **1. Fight the status quo, not competition** | Make what competitors do irrelevant, not inferior |
| **2. Know who it's for (and who it's not)** | Narrow focus creates stronger category claim |
| **3. See problems others can't** | The best problems are hidden in plain sight |
| **4. Solve with a vision for the future** | Paint a compelling picture of what's possible |
| **5. Frame it. Name it. Claim it.** | Own the language and definition |

---

### Step 1: Find the Problem

The problem is the foundation. Without the right problem, there is no category.

**Requirements for a category-worthy problem**:

| Requirement | Test |
|-------------|------|
| **Unsolved or poorly solved** | Current solutions have significant gaps |
| **Costly** | Not solving it costs time, money, reputation, or opportunity |
| **Widespread** | Enough people have it to create a market |
| **Creates an "aha" moment** | When framed correctly, people immediately recognize it |
| **Non-obvious** | If it were obvious, incumbents would have solved it |

**Category Potential Formula**:

```
CP = Pr × P

CP = Category Potential
Pr = Number of people/companies with the problem
P  = What they're willing to pay to solve it
```

**Example**:
- 500,000 companies have the problem
- They'd pay $5,000/year to solve it
- CP = $2.5B annual category potential

**Problem Discovery Questions**:

1. What do our best customers complain about that we thought was "just how it is"?
2. What takes our customers 10x longer than it should?
3. What are our customers apologizing to THEIR customers about?
4. What would our customers' CEO care about that their current vendors can't solve?
5. If we could wave a magic wand, what reality would we create?

---

### Step 2: Name the Category

The name unifies all your solution components into a single concept.

**Good Category Names**:
- **Content Streaming** (Netflix)
- **Experience Management** (Qualtrics)
- **Ridesharing** (Uber)
- **Connectivity Cloud** (Cloudflare)

**Naming Principles**:

| Principle | Explanation |
|-----------|-------------|
| **Single-minded** | One name, not a Lego set of features |
| **Searchable** | People will eventually Google this |
| **Ownable** | You can claim it and defend it |
| **Expandable** | Room to grow without renaming |
| **Intuitive** | New people get it quickly |

**Naming Exercise**:
Complete this sentence: "We invented _____________ so that [customer] can [outcome]."

---

### Step 3: Create the Category Blueprint

The Blueprint shows how your category works—not just your product, but the entire category ecosystem.

**Blueprint Components**:

```
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    [CATEGORY NAME]                          │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                             │
│  ┌─────────────┐    ┌─────────────┐    ┌─────────────┐     │
│  │  COMPONENT  │ ↔  │  COMPONENT  │ ↔  │  COMPONENT  │     │
│  │     ONE     │    │     TWO     │    │    THREE    │     │
│  └─────────────┘    └─────────────┘    └─────────────┘     │
│         ↕                 ↕                  ↕              │
│  ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────┐     │
│  │              DATA / INTELLIGENCE LAYER            │     │
│  └───────────────────────────────────────────────────┘     │
│         ↕                 ↕                  ↕              │
│  ┌─────────────┐    ┌─────────────┐    ┌─────────────┐     │
│  │   OUTCOME   │    │   OUTCOME   │    │   OUTCOME   │     │
│  │     ONE     │    │     TWO     │    │    THREE    │