Category creation vs category evolution
(Or how I slightly ripped off a bunch of pirates and will probably have to walk the plank)
Whenever I talk to people about Narrative-Led Growth, one of two things happen.
Either their eyes glaze over and they completely tune me out. Or they say, “This makes so much sense, what made you think of it?”
And my answer is always the same: “I’m a genius.”
Nah, I’m joking. I’m not a genius. I’m a thief. I steal ideas from different industries and sources and people and them combine them together in interesting ways. I truly believe that it’s this remixing that conjures up the most new and exciting developments.
All this is to say, I didn’t dream up NLG all by myself. I didn’t cry eureka, jump out the bath, and run down the street naked. Or at least there’s no proof that I did.
With that in mind I wanted to share more about the inspiration behind NLG.
And it all starts with a bunch of pirates…
What the hell are you talking about?
You know, the pirates. The ones that create categories.
I don’t know exactly how I came across the Category Pirates substack. But I’m glad I did. Because it’s packed full of useful theories and frameworks on how to create your own category.
The only issue? I was instantly sceptical about category creation.
But before I get to that let me briefly explain what it actually is.
So the theory goes, the category leaders take the lion’s share of the market. 76% of it to be precise, according to some research done by the pirates. It’s a big claim, but it’s one that passes the common sense test. If you’re the biggest name in a category, it makes sense that you’d claim the biggest share.
Some of the pirates’ notable examples include Salesforce, Slack, and Hubspot.
The central idea is that you find a problem that people don’t even know they have yet. Then educate them about that problem. Once they’re bought into the problem, you become the default solution.
If we look at Slack through this lens, we’ll see that thy identified a problem with workplace comms: Email was slow and cumbersome. It didn’t reflect how people communicated outside the workplace.
Slack then educated people about this problem, and in the process became the go-to solution to solve it with their messaging platform.
Boom. Category creation.
(Except I don’t think it was. But I’ll get to that.)
Now, I started devouring the Category Pirates stuff. And I discovered they had a book. It’s called Play Bigger.
I read it. And as I was reading it, I was like, “This actually sounds pretty familiar.”
And it was then I realised that my first ever boss gave me this book to read on my first day at work. I remember her saying, “Read this. It’s what we’re trying to do here.”
So I went home. Read it all. And the whole time I was like, “Isn’t this just what marketing is all about? Shouldn’t every business aim to be different?”
It seemed like common sense to my non-marketing-world-indoctrinated brain.
But it turns out there’s a lot of B2B founders (and even some marketers) who don’t think that way. They don’t see the importance of doing something different.
Anyway the reason I’m telling you this is because it turns out my marketing education kicked off with the category creation playbook.
And that’s kinda ironic because I don’t believe in it…
If Slack didn’t create a category what did they do, smartass?
Good question.
So if you asked me to describe the category that Slack sits in, I’d say something like “work comms platform”. You might say the same. You might say something similar. You might even say something different.
Now, that in itself suggests the lack of category creation. If they created a category they should’ve named it. As far as I know, they didn’t. And if they did, it hasn’t worked on me.
But the even bigger issue I have with this category creation success story is that tools already existed for workplace communication. Skype, AOL, Intranets. These all did a similar job. Did they do it as effectively as Slack? Probably not. Which is why Slack didn’t create a new category.
They evolved an existing category.
It’s a subtle difference in language, but I think it’s an important one that explains the hesitance of startups to go down the category creation route.
1: Category creation takes a fucking long time.
Even the pirates suggest around 7 years for your new category to take shape and exist on its own two feet. Most startups don’t have that kind of time for all manner of reasons. Plus, imagine betting 7 years of hard work on something that might not even work.
2: Category creation costs a shit-ton of money.
You basically would have to burn through piles of investors’ cash to flood the market with your new category. Money that most startups don’t have. And probably shouldn’t have if I’m being completely honest. (But that’s a different story for another day.)
Category evolution, however, is much more palatable for founders and marketers.
Sure you still need to invest time and money to make it happen. But we’re talking 6-12 months (if you do it right) and way less expense.
Oh, and you wanted an origin story from this right?
Well, after learning how to create a category, including designing a narrative and POV, I figured you could take that playbook and use it to evolve a category instead of creating one from scratch.
And that’s how the seed of Narrative-Led Growth was sprouted.
And everyone lived happily ever after.
The end.
Wait, hold on. You can’t stop there. How do we actually evolve a category?
Urgh fine. You’re right. I can’t just leave on a cliffhanger…
Let’s go back to the Slack example.
If Slack didn’t actually create a category, what did they do?
Well, they used a strategy that I call Narrative-Led Growth. Now, I know they didn’t see themselves as using an NLG approach. But I think they did. They just didn’t purposefully set out to.
Here’s what Slack did, and how it maps to the NLG playbook:
1: Nail the Narrative
They started by figuring out the narrative they were going to take to market. And like any great narrative, they needed a villain. In this case, the villain was email and other async comms methods.
This narrative then fed into their category POV. Their category (and note that this category ALREADY EXISTED) was “communication software” and their POV was that current methods of workplace comms were too slow and cumbersome and were preventing businesses from working together effectively.
It sounds obvious now. But all great POVs sound obvious in hindsight. At the time, this was a stark difference to what others in that category were saying. Which, to be fair, wasn’t a lot.
2: Convince with Content
Next they started educating the market about their narrative and POV. This meant a lot of content that focused on the core problem they were solving. Not content focused on their product.
In doing this, they began to attract a core group of advocates who keenly felt this problem and aligned with Slack’s POV. They also were able to use their content to convert people to their way of thinking.
3: Amplify with Advocates
Once they had a sizeable audience, Slack could then mobilise that audience to share their cause. This “marketing network” effect helped more people sit up and take notice. Then they would try Slack out for themselves. Become advocates.
And the cycle would repeat.
And everyone lived happy ever after.
The end.
Shouldn’t you have a summary at the end?
Yeah probably.
Okay let’s make this quick.
Category creation is a bit of a myth in my opinion. Most of the examples put forward didn’t actually create a category.
Instead they evolved an existing category.
And this has happened throughout history.
People build on what was there before. And that’s good. That’s progress.
The narrative and POV part of category creation interested me a lot. And so I stole it, adapted and tweaked it slightly, and packaged it up as Narrative-Led Growth.
There was also an example in there of how Slack did this.
Happy ever after. Blah blah blah.
The end.