How to Design a New Category

WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.040 --> 00:00:00.250 mhm 2 00:00:05.740 --> 00:00:09.620 Hi everyone welcome back to be to be growth. My name is Olivia Hurley and 3 00:00:09.620 --> 00:00:14.970 today I am joined by josh Lohman who is the founder and chief creative officer 4 00:00:14.980 --> 00:00:20.190 at Gold Front, josh, how are you doing today? I'm doing great. It's nice to be 5 00:00:20.190 --> 00:00:24.890 here. Good. I'm so glad. I'm really excited. We get to talk today. So 6 00:00:24.890 --> 00:00:28.510 you're the founder and chief creative officer at Gold Front, which is the 7 00:00:28.510 --> 00:00:34.810 world's first category design studio. That really begs the question, what is 8 00:00:34.810 --> 00:00:39.910 category design? Okay, well actually it begs the question, what is a category 9 00:00:39.910 --> 00:00:45.010 design studio? Your right, let's start, let's let's start there. What is a 10 00:00:45.010 --> 00:00:49.740 category design studio? Okay, so first of all, I'm here in san Francisco, this 11 00:00:49.740 --> 00:00:53.890 is where Gold Front is my company and we are a category design studio. And 12 00:00:53.890 --> 00:01:00.630 that means that we help startups create and own their own category. Um, we're a 13 00:01:00.630 --> 00:01:05.850 category design studio because we're the first creative company to combine 14 00:01:05.860 --> 00:01:11.470 category strategy with all the creative execution you need to do to launch that 15 00:01:11.470 --> 00:01:17.610 category in the world. Brand design website, design video, et cetera. And 16 00:01:17.620 --> 00:01:24.490 the what the importance of having a category design studio in the world is 17 00:01:24.500 --> 00:01:31.150 that our clients for the most part have been using a very old kind of strategy 18 00:01:31.160 --> 00:01:37.510 called Brain strategy. And it can't get them to where they really want to go 19 00:01:37.520 --> 00:01:43.320 because Brain strategy was invented to help people stand out in an existing 20 00:01:43.320 --> 00:01:48.210 category like cars or cigarettes or something like that. Category of 21 00:01:48.210 --> 00:01:55.450 strategy was invented to help companies create entirely new species of products, 22 00:01:55.460 --> 00:01:59.260 something entirely new. And it's designed around that there's a lot of 23 00:01:59.260 --> 00:02:05.760 overlap with brand strategy, but as long as you're putting your 24 00:02:05.840 --> 00:02:10.880 communications and your ideas and your vision into the world, into the kind of 25 00:02:10.880 --> 00:02:16.380 language of brand strategy, it's going to limit what your company can be. And 26 00:02:16.380 --> 00:02:20.500 that's why we're a category design studio. Well, there you have it. So 27 00:02:20.500 --> 00:02:28.190 brand is becoming antiquated or is not right for startups, especially who are 28 00:02:28.190 --> 00:02:33.110 bringing something new into the world. So can you walk me through what 29 00:02:33.120 --> 00:02:38.970 category creation is in its essence could just ground us in a definition to 30 00:02:38.970 --> 00:02:45.690 start with. Sure, category design was first made popular in the book play 31 00:02:45.690 --> 00:02:51.240 bigger about five years ago. But the idea that People make buying decisions 32 00:02:51.240 --> 00:02:59.480 based on category 1st and foremost has been around for decades. And category 33 00:02:59.480 --> 00:03:08.940 of design is the intentional creation of new market categories so that you 34 00:03:08.940 --> 00:03:16.770 can own a much bigger kind of market then you otherwise would if you were in 35 00:03:16.770 --> 00:03:23.070 an existing category and the word design in there, I think suggests that 36 00:03:23.080 --> 00:03:26.930 it's something that you do thoughtfully, it's something that you do with a lot 37 00:03:26.930 --> 00:03:31.910 of rigor and it's something that you do, bringing together a number of different 38 00:03:31.920 --> 00:03:37.780 elements, all working in concert to get you to your goal. So who might the 39 00:03:37.790 --> 00:03:42.990 people or companies be who need to be thinking about category design is it 40 00:03:42.990 --> 00:03:49.610 for everyone are there? People who would you don't need it? Yeah. Yeah. So 41 00:03:49.610 --> 00:03:55.040 category creation in and of itself has been around forever, you know, as long 42 00:03:55.040 --> 00:04:01.770 as there have been products, but category design has really taken off in 43 00:04:01.770 --> 00:04:07.780 these last 5 to 10 years because we're in this time where there's all these 44 00:04:07.780 --> 00:04:13.180 companies who are innovating people are creating totally new kinds of products 45 00:04:13.190 --> 00:04:19.420 at a much higher rate than they used to. And so category design has been picked 46 00:04:19.420 --> 00:04:26.610 up as this kind of very relevant thing for startups to do and especially for 47 00:04:26.610 --> 00:04:31.900 startups that are, are funded, people are investing a lot of money in those 48 00:04:31.900 --> 00:04:38.420 startups. And so they're shooting for a big acquisition or some some kind of 49 00:04:38.430 --> 00:04:44.500 event liquidity event at the end where they're valued very highly. And the way 50 00:04:44.510 --> 00:04:49.710 to do that is not through competing in an existing category, but it's to 51 00:04:49.710 --> 00:04:56.100 create a category of your own. Okay, so we know why we're doing it, we know 52 00:04:56.110 --> 00:05:03.710 who's doing it. Let's talk about the how, so you bring companies in and take 53 00:05:03.710 --> 00:05:07.300 full assessment and walk with them from start to finish, of course, in this 54 00:05:07.310 --> 00:05:14.030 category design process. But would you mind just kind of sharing the high 55 00:05:14.030 --> 00:05:18.060 level process if somebody wanted to maybe take stock of what that would 56 00:05:18.060 --> 00:05:24.290 look like starting by themselves? Yeah, I'd be happy to. You don't need us, you 57 00:05:24.290 --> 00:05:28.740 can do it yourself and if you were going to do it yourself, here's how I 58 00:05:28.750 --> 00:05:34.110 would do it. First of all, you have to carve out the time in your schedule. 59 00:05:34.120 --> 00:05:39.650 One of the reasons why we are so effective for our clients is because 60 00:05:39.650 --> 00:05:45.960 our clients are busy constantly all day putting out fires, answering emails, 61 00:05:45.970 --> 00:05:50.120 taking care of their to do list. And we carve out time to really think deeply 62 00:05:50.120 --> 00:05:55.490 about category. But you can do the same thing. You have to go to your boss, you 63 00:05:55.490 --> 00:06:00.180 have to say, look, I need at least an hour every morning where I don't have 64 00:06:00.180 --> 00:06:04.820 to do any email, I'm not going to be on slack, I won't be in any meetings. Okay. 65 00:06:04.830 --> 00:06:08.560 Because you're gonna need that time to write and really think so once you've 66 00:06:08.560 --> 00:06:13.320 got the time scheduled, the next thing you're gonna need to think about our 67 00:06:13.330 --> 00:06:20.290 kind of three big buckets or things that we need to define for as category 68 00:06:20.290 --> 00:06:26.850 designers. The first is the gap. What is the gap that you are trying to close 69 00:06:26.850 --> 00:06:33.870 or solve for your customers? Second is what is your vision for the future, 70 00:06:33.880 --> 00:06:38.530 five years down the road, What does the world look like for your customers and 71 00:06:38.530 --> 00:06:42.980 even for the world if you are ultimately successful with what you're 72 00:06:42.980 --> 00:06:49.230 doing. And the third is what's your category idea and the category idea is 73 00:06:49.230 --> 00:06:55.160 best expressed as the name of a category and maybe a single sentence 74 00:06:55.170 --> 00:06:57.850 describing what that what that means. 75 00:06:58.940 --> 00:07:04.840 And so once we, so you start with those three ideas and then I want to talk a 76 00:07:04.840 --> 00:07:09.980 little bit about how you're really actually going to do this. So you get 77 00:07:09.980 --> 00:07:16.100 into your writing time, no one's going to bother, you don't check anything of 78 00:07:16.100 --> 00:07:21.120 all your notifications. And then you're gonna write down, you just start with 79 00:07:21.130 --> 00:07:24.410 the gap and the way that you get to the gap because you're going to start 80 00:07:24.410 --> 00:07:30.730 writing down problems that you uniquely solve for your customer. So you know, 81 00:07:30.740 --> 00:07:34.960 this is all assuming you already have a company and a product and maybe you're 82 00:07:34.960 --> 00:07:39.160 an existing category but you want to be a category creator, right? So you take 83 00:07:39.160 --> 00:07:43.330 that product that you have and you think like what problems do we solve 84 00:07:43.330 --> 00:07:48.300 for customers especially what are we uniquely solve for customers. And the 85 00:07:48.300 --> 00:07:51.290 first thing people will do will be to try to write this in terms of the 86 00:07:51.290 --> 00:07:54.720 features and benefits of their product, but don't do that. You want the reverse, 87 00:07:54.730 --> 00:08:01.020 you want to write it down as problems that your customers have And just write 88 00:08:01.020 --> 00:08:06.690 down a ton of stuff. Uh this is too expensive. It's too hard to do. X. um 89 00:08:06.700 --> 00:08:11.270 just keep writing stuff down. You should get a list of 20 things and 90 00:08:11.270 --> 00:08:16.060 you're gonna look at that list and think about 91 00:08:17.240 --> 00:08:21.470 what are the things that are most valuable that we solve and one of the 92 00:08:21.470 --> 00:08:26.380 things that are most unique most unlike anything else and you're going to start 93 00:08:26.380 --> 00:08:31.050 to think about like, okay, how could I get wrap all this up into one concept 94 00:08:31.060 --> 00:08:34.980 and that one concept is something that we call the gap. You're going to try to 95 00:08:34.980 --> 00:08:40.210 name the gap, We're going to try to name this one concept that is all of 96 00:08:40.210 --> 00:08:45.030 the problems that you uniquely solved. So for example, we just launched a 97 00:08:45.030 --> 00:08:51.430 category for our client visible busy bo was an event management software 98 00:08:51.440 --> 00:08:57.960 platform. They just came out as an event experience. Os and that's very 99 00:08:57.960 --> 00:09:03.620 different than just event management software and for them, the gap that we 100 00:09:03.630 --> 00:09:11.200 helped them land on is the event impact gap. So that's the impact that people 101 00:09:11.200 --> 00:09:16.420 who are putting on events are unable to make for their business and for the 102 00:09:16.420 --> 00:09:20.020 event goers with existing event management software. So that was, 103 00:09:20.030 --> 00:09:23.110 that's an example of one gap, but you're gonna have to name your own gap 104 00:09:23.120 --> 00:09:27.970 and so that's that's the gap part. So I'm curious about the, about the 105 00:09:27.970 --> 00:09:31.760 problems parts. So a couple of important assumptions that need to be 106 00:09:31.760 --> 00:09:36.940 made one, you know, your customer base really, really well, you know what 107 00:09:36.940 --> 00:09:41.430 they're dealing with in their day to day, that's going to help you when you 108 00:09:41.430 --> 00:09:47.500 really think through the getting to an accurate gap, I would assume right and 109 00:09:47.500 --> 00:09:53.180 the second one would be knowing what your competitors are doing, knowing 110 00:09:53.210 --> 00:09:56.450 that your space really well because that's how you're going to be able to 111 00:09:56.450 --> 00:10:02.610 determine, we do this either uniquely or we do it the best. And here's why in 112 00:10:02.610 --> 00:10:03.560 order to 113 00:10:04.640 --> 00:10:10.540 tightly determined at the end of that exercise, what is the gap and even how 114 00:10:10.540 --> 00:10:14.440 do I begin to put language around it? Absolutely. When you say those are true, 115 00:10:14.450 --> 00:10:20.490 Absolutely. That second thing you said, it's that's so spot on Olivia, you have 116 00:10:20.490 --> 00:10:24.120 to have a good, once you come up with all the things that you, the problems 117 00:10:24.120 --> 00:10:27.390 that you solve, you have to have come up with a really good list of what? 118 00:10:27.400 --> 00:10:32.080 Okay, well, which of those things are unique and better than who we perceive 119 00:10:32.080 --> 00:10:36.900 as our competitors are doing this is why you need the notifications off in a 120 00:10:36.900 --> 00:10:41.860 couple more, a couple hours in the per week to really be left alone to figure 121 00:10:41.860 --> 00:10:47.220 it out. Probably some research involved. This, it sounds like creating this list 122 00:10:47.230 --> 00:10:53.480 is the foundation of everything to come. That's right. That's right. Ok. Okay. 123 00:10:53.480 --> 00:10:57.820 So we're putting a lot of thought into this and a lot of that's right. That's 124 00:10:57.820 --> 00:11:03.030 right. And in fact, if you really solve that gap the right way, if you can 125 00:11:03.030 --> 00:11:09.870 really name it, Probably 70% of the way there. If you really nail that, you can 126 00:11:09.870 --> 00:11:13.880 probably get to the rest of it. But we're not going to do that. We're not 127 00:11:13.880 --> 00:11:17.740 going to jump the line. We're going to go to the next thing, which is now, 128 00:11:17.740 --> 00:11:23.790 you're going to write down your vision for the future and when we ask our 129 00:11:23.790 --> 00:11:26.470 clients to talk about their vision for the future a lot of times they'll be 130 00:11:26.470 --> 00:11:32.000 like, well we're super successful and we're making a lot of money and people 131 00:11:32.000 --> 00:11:39.650 love us, you know, and which of course that's sure who wouldn't want that, but 132 00:11:39.660 --> 00:11:44.310 the vision that we're talking about is what specifically does it look like for 133 00:11:44.310 --> 00:11:51.210 your customers if you guys are really successful and the key is that you're 134 00:11:51.210 --> 00:11:55.550 being really specific and you're using your imagination to really imagine what 135 00:11:55.550 --> 00:12:01.560 it might be like five years from now. So for example, Uber is a client of 136 00:12:01.560 --> 00:12:12.190 ours and they have the idea that if we keep going like this in the future we 137 00:12:12.190 --> 00:12:18.430 can take more cars off the road. And so part of their vision is cities may 138 00:12:18.430 --> 00:12:24.190 actually have more space for pedestrians and bicycles and things 139 00:12:24.190 --> 00:12:29.340 like that. That's a really great specific way to talk about their vision 140 00:12:29.340 --> 00:12:32.900 for the future. And so you kind of want to think creatively about that and 141 00:12:32.900 --> 00:12:36.160 really kind of get into the details of like what does that world look like for 142 00:12:36.160 --> 00:12:42.710 your customer? Hey everybody Logan was sweet fish here. If you're a regular 143 00:12:42.710 --> 00:12:46.620 listener of GDP Growth, you know that I'm one of the co hosts of the show, 144 00:12:46.630 --> 00:12:50.540 but you may not know that I also head up the sales team here at sweet fish. 145 00:12:50.640 --> 00:12:54.970 So for those of you in sales or sales ops, I wanted to take a second to share 146 00:12:54.970 --> 00:12:59.110 something that's made us insanely more efficient lately, our team has been 147 00:12:59.110 --> 00:13:02.930 using lead I. Q. For the past few months. And what used to take us four 148 00:13:02.940 --> 00:13:08.790 hours gathering contact data now takes us only One where 75% more efficient. 149 00:13:08.800 --> 00:13:12.640 We're able to move faster with outbound prospecting and organizing our 150 00:13:12.640 --> 00:13:17.450 campaigns is so much easier than before. I'd highly suggest you guys check out 151 00:13:17.460 --> 00:13:23.080 lead I. Q. As well. You can check them out at least I Q dot com. That's L E A 152 00:13:23.080 --> 00:13:33.800 D I Q dot com. Alright, let's get back to the show. I love that. This is a big 153 00:13:33.800 --> 00:13:37.860 goal in the world of like investing. I don't know why that comes to mind right 154 00:13:37.860 --> 00:13:43.310 now, but they call it like the big audacious goal. And I think this is I 155 00:13:43.310 --> 00:13:48.430 love actually when we were talking before we were on this call you had 156 00:13:48.430 --> 00:13:54.730 mentioned companies are interested in doing well. So revenue success very 157 00:13:54.730 --> 00:14:00.300 measured but doing good as well. And I think this is where you get to get 158 00:14:00.300 --> 00:14:07.470 creative. But you also the it sounds like this vision is very large, it's 159 00:14:07.470 --> 00:14:12.350 not unrealistic. It's very connected to the business, it's very connected to 160 00:14:12.350 --> 00:14:16.480 the impact that your product can make or your service can make. How detailed 161 00:14:16.480 --> 00:14:23.070 do you get with this vision any of these for both the problem and vision. 162 00:14:23.080 --> 00:14:27.900 It's really just a series of simple statements. So for vision, you know, 163 00:14:27.900 --> 00:14:31.250 just write down a sentence that says, what does the world look like in five 164 00:14:31.250 --> 00:14:36.860 years and then you don't have to write paragraphs or it's just a list of ideas 165 00:14:37.240 --> 00:14:43.480 And you know, you probably want 10-20 of those. Yeah, okay, 10-20 vision 166 00:14:43.480 --> 00:14:47.410 statements. I'm curious about one thing actually, if we can hop back up to 167 00:14:47.420 --> 00:14:56.210 determining the gap, is there a way that you recommend people test that, 168 00:14:56.210 --> 00:15:01.380 that what they've come up with is accurate? Yeah, best way to test is the 169 00:15:01.380 --> 00:15:06.940 way Quentin Tarantino does. So he writes his scripts and he's obviously 170 00:15:06.940 --> 00:15:13.330 one of the most successful filmmakers in Hollywood and he works really hard 171 00:15:13.330 --> 00:15:17.850 on his scripts and then he invites a person over and he reads them every 172 00:15:17.850 --> 00:15:22.650 part of the script while they stand there or sit there or whatever and if 173 00:15:22.650 --> 00:15:23.460 they go, 174 00:15:24.640 --> 00:15:31.150 wow, that's amazing, I love it. Then he knows that it's ready and I'm sure he 175 00:15:31.150 --> 00:15:36.700 does that to more than one person, but that's the best research you can do is 176 00:15:36.710 --> 00:15:41.650 you take your ideas, you pitch them to people and you wait until you get you 177 00:15:41.650 --> 00:15:44.760 start getting reactions where people are like, wow, you really got something 178 00:15:45.140 --> 00:15:51.560 mm Okay, good way to, good way to test. So then we've written down the problem, 179 00:15:51.560 --> 00:15:56.160 we've established the gap, we know what our vision is, we know our direction 180 00:15:56.160 --> 00:15:59.460 and where we're heading, we know that we're going to be thinking more than 181 00:15:59.460 --> 00:16:04.230 just everyone in the company is driving Lamborghinis and we're just rolling in 182 00:16:04.230 --> 00:16:08.970 it. I don't care about cars at all, but that's, that's expensive and it's far, 183 00:16:08.980 --> 00:16:12.840 it's far more about how are our customers lives being changed or 184 00:16:12.840 --> 00:16:18.210 impacted. So what's next? What comes next? Okay, so then when we get to the 185 00:16:18.210 --> 00:16:23.820 final part, which is your category idea and most, most of the time category 186 00:16:23.820 --> 00:16:29.540 ideas are going to come out as category names and just come up with as many as 187 00:16:29.540 --> 00:16:35.470 you can. Don't worry if they're good, just write stuff down, write whatever 188 00:16:35.470 --> 00:16:43.580 comes to mind. Once you've written down say 50-100, you could go back and you 189 00:16:43.580 --> 00:16:47.810 could bold the ones that you think are most interesting. You want to think 190 00:16:47.810 --> 00:16:52.610 about, You kind of need to think about two things during this stage. You need 191 00:16:52.610 --> 00:16:56.810 to think about what is the idea, like what is the actual concept of this 192 00:16:56.810 --> 00:17:01.220 thing? But then you also need to think about what does the actual name sound 193 00:17:01.220 --> 00:17:06.079 like. And there's a few things about names that are kind of important about 194 00:17:06.079 --> 00:17:12.770 category names. One is that they should be fairly rational. So something like 195 00:17:13.140 --> 00:17:17.950 Nike, just do it, just do it that doesn't work as a category name. Um, 196 00:17:17.960 --> 00:17:22.950 it's a great tagline of course, but it's just not telling you enough about 197 00:17:22.960 --> 00:17:27.750 what the thing is. So a category name should tell you what is it. The other 198 00:17:27.750 --> 00:17:31.290 thing that I would think about is you also want it to be a little bit 199 00:17:31.290 --> 00:17:36.550 emotional or have a little bit of tension, something interesting about it. 200 00:17:37.040 --> 00:17:47.260 So we just named the event experience os for obisbo, that word experience is 201 00:17:47.270 --> 00:17:52.470 more emotional than a word like management. And then also when you say 202 00:17:52.470 --> 00:17:55.780 that it's an os you're really saying like, hey, this is something big, this 203 00:17:55.780 --> 00:18:02.440 is a much bigger play than just a tool or piece of software and so things like 204 00:18:02.440 --> 00:18:07.050 that, give it a little bit of excitement and you know what it is, 205 00:18:07.640 --> 00:18:10.920 That's right, there's obviously intrigue and a hook and you want to 206 00:18:10.920 --> 00:18:15.570 learn more, but you can probably surmise accurately what it is. Other 207 00:18:15.570 --> 00:18:21.470 examples of categories, account based marketing, account based marketing is 208 00:18:21.470 --> 00:18:28.070 the famous category. Yes. What might be a few others? Well, we we created a 209 00:18:28.070 --> 00:18:34.960 category for our clients all day kitchens and all day kitchens came out 210 00:18:35.400 --> 00:18:41.260 as an alternative to ghost kitchens last year. Ghost kitchens were pretty 211 00:18:41.260 --> 00:18:47.340 big. There were this idea that there was this idea that kitchens without, 212 00:18:47.350 --> 00:18:52.620 that weren't restaurants could be rented by restaurants and it would 213 00:18:52.620 --> 00:19:00.080 allow them to increase their delivery footprint. Right? And all day our 214 00:19:00.080 --> 00:19:04.570 clients that all day kitchens came out with some with a kind of different way 215 00:19:04.570 --> 00:19:08.120 of doing this whole thing, trying to get a similar result, but a different 216 00:19:08.120 --> 00:19:14.410 way of doing it, which is to actually run the kitchen's themselves and let 217 00:19:14.410 --> 00:19:21.780 the restaurant make the food at their restaurant and then from there all day 218 00:19:21.780 --> 00:19:26.290 kitchens picks up the food and then makes it at all these satellite 219 00:19:26.290 --> 00:19:32.810 kitchens and there they have expert chefs at the center of their business, 220 00:19:32.810 --> 00:19:38.920 so they know how to take, You know, the amazing food of a great local 221 00:19:38.920 --> 00:19:42.700 restaurant, and then they learn how to make it exactly like that in their 222 00:19:42.700 --> 00:19:48.000 kitchen, and they can take the footprint of the delivery footprint of 223 00:19:48.010 --> 00:19:52.950 a local restaurant and expand it from, you know, maybe two miles to 50 miles. 224 00:19:54.040 --> 00:19:58.310 And so they really wanted to let the world know that they were different 225 00:19:58.310 --> 00:20:03.930 than a ghost kitchen. So we came up with this, this name of a distributed 226 00:20:03.930 --> 00:20:10.540 restaurant platform and we really liked this idea of naming it around the kind 227 00:20:10.540 --> 00:20:15.420 of restaurant because really they're all about championing restaurants, They 228 00:20:15.420 --> 00:20:19.260 saw this moment that restaurants, local restaurants were gonna get steamrolled 229 00:20:19.270 --> 00:20:25.620 by, you know, our delivery future and so they wanted to give restaurants a 230 00:20:25.620 --> 00:20:30.430 chance to transform into something that could win in that future. And the 231 00:20:30.440 --> 00:20:33.170 transformation that they're, they're saying restaurants can make is to 232 00:20:33.170 --> 00:20:36.920 become a distributed restaurant. So that's a great local restaurant that 233 00:20:36.920 --> 00:20:43.390 has the capacity that all day kitchens offers them. Oh my gosh, I think that's 234 00:20:43.400 --> 00:20:47.740 awesome as somebody who loves restaurants and loves probably eating. 235 00:20:47.750 --> 00:20:53.200 I think that is brilliant. So remind me of the category, name, distributed 236 00:20:53.200 --> 00:20:56.590 restaurant platform. And then there's another category name in there, which 237 00:20:56.590 --> 00:21:02.620 is a distributed restaurant. So you've created to it's two categories, right? 238 00:21:02.630 --> 00:21:09.370 Oh my gosh, which is just absolutely wonderful and brilliant tactics. So 239 00:21:09.370 --> 00:21:14.580 then does that allow for other in this kind of thought experiment for a second? 240 00:21:14.580 --> 00:21:19.030 Would that potentially allow for other people, other companies to then move 241 00:21:19.030 --> 00:21:24.280 into that category? That's already been established for them? Yes, that's the 242 00:21:24.280 --> 00:21:28.390 idea is that other companies could move into that category as well and they 243 00:21:28.390 --> 00:21:33.280 will at some point if it's successful. Right? So there's an idea that the 244 00:21:33.280 --> 00:21:38.760 category is a almost like a gift that you give to the world who knew that 245 00:21:38.760 --> 00:21:43.440 this was so benevolent. I mean, that in the truest way, I think that's that's 246 00:21:43.440 --> 00:21:48.710 awesome. So curious about you just mentioned if it's successful, I'm 247 00:21:48.710 --> 00:21:53.240 curious about some of the results that category creation has, has driven that 248 00:21:53.240 --> 00:21:56.870 you've seen personally with your companies and that you've worked with 249 00:21:56.870 --> 00:22:01.680 around, you know, okay, they create the category, they have this vision for the 250 00:22:01.680 --> 00:22:09.300 future, then what? How are they really assessing? Yeah. So the results that we 251 00:22:09.300 --> 00:22:14.460 see our clients getting are kind of amazing. I mean, first of all, almost 252 00:22:14.470 --> 00:22:18.720 all of our clients go on to raise another much bigger round after they do 253 00:22:18.720 --> 00:22:22.820 category creation and that's the number one way that they're going to measure 254 00:22:22.820 --> 00:22:29.160 this? Is, did this raise awareness for their company? Their product, their 255 00:22:29.160 --> 00:22:35.320 category. Did it make people start to convert to become customers did 256 00:22:35.320 --> 00:22:40.000 increase revenue, things like that. And if they can do that then they're going 257 00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:45.310 to be able to get another, you know, additional round of funding that's even 258 00:22:45.310 --> 00:22:49.540 much, much bigger than the previous one. And so that that happens almost like 259 00:22:49.540 --> 00:22:55.120 clockwork for most of our clients. But also there's I mean there's just like 260 00:22:55.120 --> 00:23:02.530 huge potential in this. We worked with another agency played bigger to write 261 00:23:02.540 --> 00:23:09.970 the category P. O. V. For Qualtrics and Qualtrics at the time was a survey 262 00:23:09.980 --> 00:23:15.070 company. They were being lumped in with Medallion and Surveymonkey and the 263 00:23:15.070 --> 00:23:18.000 evaluation was a little bit under a billion dollars. Which was they were 264 00:23:18.000 --> 00:23:22.190 doing great but cool tricks had a vision that was much bigger than 265 00:23:22.190 --> 00:23:28.880 surveys. And so we helped them land on this new category, P. O. V. And then 266 00:23:28.880 --> 00:23:33.740 when they brought that out to the world, their valuation just shot up because 267 00:23:33.740 --> 00:23:38.950 people perceive them as no longer in an existing category. But a really 268 00:23:38.950 --> 00:23:44.170 exciting new category that they were the leader of. And valuations go up 269 00:23:44.180 --> 00:23:49.370 when you're perceived as the leader of an exciting new category. And so today 270 00:23:49.370 --> 00:23:54.350 that was five years ago that we did this work and Now the evaluation is 271 00:23:54.350 --> 00:23:59.860 that I think it's around 24 billion. They're a public company and they still 272 00:23:59.870 --> 00:24:05.570 use um so in their S1 when they filed to go public, they still use all the 273 00:24:05.570 --> 00:24:12.320 same ideas to express their value in the world from five years ago. That's 274 00:24:12.320 --> 00:24:17.000 incredible. One billion. Which is I like you said, sitting pretty up to, 275 00:24:17.010 --> 00:24:24.110 did you say 24 billion? I think that's what it is. Yeah. Yeah. So what was 276 00:24:24.110 --> 00:24:29.470 their new category? Experienced management, experienced management? 277 00:24:30.400 --> 00:24:38.110 They're gap is the experience gap. And so the experience gap is the difference 278 00:24:38.110 --> 00:24:45.010 between the experience that your customers are having and the experience 279 00:24:45.010 --> 00:24:50.990 that your executives think that they're having. And if those two things are way 280 00:24:50.990 --> 00:24:57.000 out of whack and you know, different, then you've got a really big problem in 281 00:24:57.000 --> 00:25:01.220 Qualtrics is the first experience management platform that closes that 282 00:25:01.220 --> 00:25:06.480 gap. This is so interesting to me because I'm sure that that's a 283 00:25:06.490 --> 00:25:11.910 prevalent problem for many companies is the experience you're exactly think 284 00:25:11.910 --> 00:25:15.090 your customers are having versus the experience that your customers are 285 00:25:15.090 --> 00:25:21.370 having. And people can use Qualtrics is a great example of of, you know, that 286 00:25:21.370 --> 00:25:25.640 category has already been created and we could either join in with Qualtrics 287 00:25:25.640 --> 00:25:30.410 if that makes sense, or we can use that as a stepping stone and think, I think 288 00:25:30.420 --> 00:25:35.780 it provides even more guardrails for addressing their own categories. That's 289 00:25:35.780 --> 00:25:42.560 a great example. I love that one. If you were to give a few red flags or 290 00:25:42.560 --> 00:25:46.930 warning signs. As people who take this. Maybe internal assessment or the D. I. 291 00:25:46.930 --> 00:25:51.670 Y route of creating or thinking through a new category for their company, what 292 00:25:51.670 --> 00:25:57.900 would be some of the wrong turns that people might take? Okay? The biggest 293 00:25:57.900 --> 00:26:04.420 thing is people thinking too small, just got to think like how big could 294 00:26:04.420 --> 00:26:13.060 this thing be and can't be too attached to what you have right now. Category 295 00:26:13.070 --> 00:26:18.410 design is not just like a marketing thing, you're not looking at. What what 296 00:26:18.410 --> 00:26:22.790 product do we have now, How do we paint it and how do we show it in its best 297 00:26:22.790 --> 00:26:30.750 light? Category design is a little bit of that but it's also invention. And so 298 00:26:31.100 --> 00:26:36.370 I think what I see is people may be thinking a little too small or thinking 299 00:26:36.370 --> 00:26:40.260 more about what do we need to do in the next couple months as opposed to where 300 00:26:40.260 --> 00:26:44.660 do we need to get to in, you know, four or five years. How do you help people 301 00:26:44.660 --> 00:26:49.920 kind of break out of that, that small mind sound. Yeah, it's interesting 302 00:26:49.930 --> 00:26:55.280 because there's a few ways that I think things that we do that part of our 303 00:26:55.280 --> 00:27:03.150 process that is helpful. 11 thing is that we only work with the Ceo, I mean 304 00:27:03.150 --> 00:27:06.250 we work with the CEO and other executives but if the Ceo is not 305 00:27:06.250 --> 00:27:11.330 involved then we won't do category strategy with them. And so that's 306 00:27:11.340 --> 00:27:18.050 that's one big thing right there and then we're not cheap as a company. And 307 00:27:18.050 --> 00:27:23.660 so our clients put down real money to do this thing and I think just the act 308 00:27:23.660 --> 00:27:28.320 of doing that makes it so that they're going to give it more attention and 309 00:27:28.320 --> 00:27:35.640 really give it their focus. Another thing is we do workshops that are 2.5 310 00:27:35.640 --> 00:27:40.930 or three hours and usually there's four or five of them. So that's a big 311 00:27:40.930 --> 00:27:49.610 investment of time. So when you get the ceo investing money time, getting all 312 00:27:49.610 --> 00:27:56.130 the executives together, then it takes on a different, you know, way that 313 00:27:56.130 --> 00:27:59.370 people are thinking about it compared to some of the other initiatives that 314 00:27:59.370 --> 00:28:03.540 they have going on. And I think that's really important in order to kind of 315 00:28:03.540 --> 00:28:06.910 think big enough about what you're doing, there's some major skin in the 316 00:28:06.910 --> 00:28:12.130 game there, and they want to get the most juice good news as we say. Yeah. 317 00:28:12.140 --> 00:28:16.280 Oh my gosh, that's phenomenal. And then, you know, and then also on our side 318 00:28:16.290 --> 00:28:22.480 it's incumbent upon us to think big to and to be kind of as dramatic as we can. 319 00:28:22.480 --> 00:28:26.060 And I think one thing that's interesting about is when we're writing 320 00:28:26.540 --> 00:28:30.750 strategic narratives and helping our clients figure out the story of this 321 00:28:30.750 --> 00:28:36.090 new category. We're always using this idea that, like, okay, it's got to be 322 00:28:36.090 --> 00:28:39.720 as dramatic as possible, and then we're going back to like, well, what can we 323 00:28:39.720 --> 00:28:44.080 actually approve? Like, what do we actually have? So that this doesn't 324 00:28:44.080 --> 00:28:48.970 just come across as Bs, right? And we're always trying, kind of, going 325 00:28:48.970 --> 00:28:53.030 back and forth between those two things. Be as dramatic as possible. Make sure 326 00:28:53.030 --> 00:28:57.650 it's not Bs be as dramatic as possible. Make sure it's not Bs. And we're trying 327 00:28:57.650 --> 00:29:02.460 to find that connective tissue so that eventually we can get a story that 328 00:29:02.640 --> 00:29:09.040 really is dramatic but also resonates as true for the audience. Oh my 329 00:29:09.040 --> 00:29:13.040 goodness, you have put so much thought into this. Does this work just light 330 00:29:13.040 --> 00:29:17.530 you up? This sounds just my God, It's so fun. It's so fun. And it's 331 00:29:17.530 --> 00:29:24.580 meaningful to, because new technologies are going to decide our fate, it's 332 00:29:24.580 --> 00:29:29.170 going to decide the fate of our species. We may destroy ourselves, we may save 333 00:29:29.170 --> 00:29:33.390 ourselves. We don't know. But these new categories that are being created are 334 00:29:33.390 --> 00:29:38.690 going to be the thing that decides that. And so, you know, you better make them 335 00:29:38.690 --> 00:29:44.400 good. And also we have a particular interest in making sure that those new 336 00:29:44.400 --> 00:29:50.540 categories are purpose driven, humanist, good for the world. So it's very 337 00:29:50.540 --> 00:29:55.850 fulfilling work. That sounds awesome. I'm so glad you're doing that. I'm so 338 00:29:55.850 --> 00:30:00.820 glad so many people have been coming to you and creating these new categories. 339 00:30:00.820 --> 00:30:06.480 You are wicked Good at what you do. Just even from these stories, I'm so 340 00:30:06.480 --> 00:30:11.380 lucky that we've gotten to chat today. If there was one big takeaway you 341 00:30:11.380 --> 00:30:15.730 wanted listeners to come away from this episode. Just one nugget. What would it 342 00:30:15.740 --> 00:30:22.600 be? Believe in yourself if you feel that you've got a better way that your 343 00:30:22.600 --> 00:30:26.870 company could be doing things and people are saying, nah, nah, forget 344 00:30:26.870 --> 00:30:31.350 about it. Just, let's do it the old way. Just believe in yourself. You got to 345 00:30:31.350 --> 00:30:36.470 figure out a way to break out of that and listen to yourself and try to, you 346 00:30:36.470 --> 00:30:41.730 know, do something big for your company. I love it and do the legwork, you know, 347 00:30:41.730 --> 00:30:47.480 do that list, writing of the problems and figuring out the gap like you said, 348 00:30:47.480 --> 00:30:52.200 I, I think that's phenomenal advice. Well thank you so much for joining me 349 00:30:52.200 --> 00:30:57.300 on GDP growth Olivia. I really enjoyed this. It was great talking with you. Oh 350 00:30:57.310 --> 00:30:59.770 awesome, thank you. 351 00:31:01.740 --> 00:31:05.670 Are you on linkedin? That's a stupid question. Of course you're on linkedin 352 00:31:05.680 --> 00:31:10.190 here, Sweet fish. We've gone all in on the platform. Multiple people from our 353 00:31:10.190 --> 00:31:13.920 team are creating content there. Sometimes it's a funny gift for me, 354 00:31:14.030 --> 00:31:18.060 other times it's a micro video or a slide deck and sometimes it's just a 355 00:31:18.060 --> 00:31:22.130 regular old status update that shares their unique point of view on B two B 356 00:31:22.130 --> 00:31:26.370 marketing leadership or their job function. We're posting this content 357 00:31:26.370 --> 00:31:31.150 through their personal profile, not our company page and it would warm my heart 358 00:31:31.160 --> 00:31:35.720 and soul if you connected with each of our evangelists, we'll be adding more 359 00:31:35.720 --> 00:31:40.690 down the road, but for now you should connect with Bill reed, R. C 00 Kelsey 360 00:31:40.690 --> 00:31:45.170 Montgomery, our Creative director dan Sanchez our Director of audience growth 361 00:31:45.340 --> 00:31:49.090 Logan Lyles, our director of partnerships and me, James Carberry. 362 00:31:49.140 --> 00:31:53.010 We're having a whole lot of fun on linked in pretty much every single day 363 00:31:53.100 --> 00:31:54.460 and we'd love for you to be a part of it.