In this episode of the PodStorm. let’s talk about how to discover a category, create massive differentiation, and build a super valuable company, particularly in challenging times.
Designed, Not Discovered
Christopher gets all sorts of questions such as “how do I know if I have a category?” “I think I might have something, how do I discover a category?” “How do I know if this is a new category?” “How do I redesign an existing category, etc.” The first thing Christopher shares to us is: categories are not discovered.
“They are created, they are designed and legendary entrepreneurs, legendary marketers, legendary innovators, teach the world how to see things the way they do. And so that category is not discovered like a new piece of land. It’s created, you’re bringing something new forward.” – Christopher Lochhead
Future of Our Choosing
Christopher points out that designing a market category is like choosing the future. Legendary marketers are like visitors from the future, moving the market into a certain point of view they choose, in order to solve a certain problem,
“The first thing I’d point you to, is, what is it the insight that you’re differentiating on? What’s what we call missing in the market category that you see? And sometimes that missing is giant, we discover some kind of plutonium of sorts.” – Christopher Lochhead
Technical and Market Insights
In the book Play Bigger, Christopher wrote about his learnings from Anne Miura-ko, Co-founder of Floodgate Capital. He gives out examples to identify and differentiate the types of insights.
“What Anne says essentially is that there are two kinds of insight: there’s a market insight where you see a missing in a market and there’s a technical or innovation insight.” – Christopher Lochhead
After identifying what kind of insight you have, Christopher advises that you must be able to explain the problem you are solving to a three-year-old.
“Because clarity of focus, clarity of thinking, clarity of language, is critical if you’re going to do pretty much anything legendary.” — Christopher Lochhead
To know more about how to discover and design a category, download and listen to this episode.
Bio:
Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger.
He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur.
Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist.
In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion.
He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.
Lochhead on Marketing