Hopefully, by now, you’ve introduced the theory of category design to your students. They understand it conceptually, and maybe you’ve done an event or exercise using category design to get them thinking outside the box. Now it’s time to take this entrepreneurial practice to the next level. The Techstars Entrepreneur’s Toolkit “Creating New Markets with Category Design” can help. Consider showing the Replicon case study and assigning students the worksheet exercises.

When your students get stuck or are reverting to ideas that have “been done” or are better, versus different, encourage them to ask the following questions from Category Design Advisors (CDA):

1. What problem are you solving? Is it a market or technology insight? Ex: Uber was a market insight that solved the problem of not having transportation when/where you need it. VMware is a technology insight that addresses the issue of unused computing power. Next, challenge your students to identify the emotional Aha! moment customers feel in their gut when thinking about the problem.
   
   

   The CDA “Point of View” exercise involves writing a 500-600 word story following this structure: Frame the problem > Identify its ramifications > Explain your vision for the category solution > Describe Outcomes of this new reality.

2. What is the name of your category? Strong category names (containers people use to store the solution to their problem) are impactful and memorable. Consider cognitive biases to help people understand and remember the category name. For example, “noise-canceling headsets” sticks in your mind in part because it describes opposites - silence and sound. Most likely, that category label makes you immediately think of Bose. Don’t let your students worry about protecting their category name. Give that category name to the market. Down the road - you want competitors to use that category term because it has become so accepted.

Start the Conversation

CDA refers to this next step as “froto’s” (from-to’s). Example: Uber wants people to go from talking about “taxis” to talking about “ridesharing”. Students should aim to get people to use their category design term. This word-of-mouth mobilization certainly can be achieved through a big, splashy, expensive advertising or event spend. But that’s how massive corporations do it.

Startups should take a more gorilla marketing approach. Starting the conversations on a small scale can be as simple as hosting a dinner or giving a presentation and putting out a press release. The goal is to shift how people think and talk.

“Marchitecture”

Showing, not just telling, your customers how you’re solving their problem can be an effective way to communicate your category design vision. Four strategies CDA recommend are:

• Blueprints: Graphic illustration of the category problem and how your solution solves it.
  Module example: The category “time intelligence” visually shows all elements of time tracking, how insights are developed based on this data, and the business recommendations that arise as a result of that.

• Ecosystems: Shows how customers, developers, etc. interact within the category.
  Module example: The category is “marketing signals measurement” visually shows the agency sector, custom development sector, and dynamic marketing sector, and how they all interact.

• Personas: Describes the audience of your category - whom you are talking to, their problems, etc. and allows you to address concerns and challenges.
  Module example: Hubspot has mastered persona templates and helps businesses think about how and what they communicate their category to different audiences.

• Roadmaps: Translates the business plan over a multi-year horizon into a story.
  Module example: Facebook started with nailing their relationship database for the first three years. They then expanded focus to include messenger, multimedia, groups, etc. in the next two years. Finally, up to ten years and beyond, they are considering smart connectivity, AI, and VR products, etc.

Further campus leader reading: In 2016, the book “Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets” by Al Ramadan, Dave Peterson, Christopher Lochhead, and Kevin Maney introduced the idea of category design. The book explains how innovators can create new demand where none existed.