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Category Design / Category Creation

Category Design, from the book 'Play Bigger' by Al Ramadan, Dave Peterson, Christopher Lochhead, and Kevin Maney, is the discipline of creating and developing a new market category — and positioning your company as the category leader ('category king'). The key insight: category kings capture 76% of the economics in their category. You don't win by being 'better' in an existing category — you win by defining a new one where you set the rules.

When to use this framework

  • →You're creating a genuinely new type of product that doesn't fit existing categories
  • →You're stuck being compared to larger competitors in their category
  • →You want to shift the conversation from features to a new way of thinking
  • →You need to educate the market about a new problem or solution approach
  • →You want to become the category-defining company, not a 'fast follower'

Before you start

Category creation is a multi-year commitment. Ensure you have leadership alignment and the patience to invest in market education before revenue materialises.

Related:Positioning Statement Template Blue Ocean Strategy Canvas The Brand Key

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Worked Example

Gong.io (Revenue Intelligence)

1. The Category Problem

What category should exist but doesn't? What do people call your product because they have no better word?

Before Gong, there was no category called 'Revenue Intelligence.' Sales tools were either CRMs (data entry), sales engagement (outreach automation), or conversation intelligence (basic call recording). None of them answered the CEO's question: 'Why are we winning or losing deals — and what should we do about it?' Gong created a category that sits above all these tools.

How does the world work today? What's broken, inefficient, or outdated about the current approach?

Sales leaders rely on reps' self-reported data in CRM (which is 50% fiction). Deals are managed by gut feeling. Coaching is based on ride-alongs and anecdotes. Revenue forecasting is 'art not science.' When a deal is lost, no one really knows why — the rep says 'budget' or 'timing' but the real reasons are invisible. The VP of Sales reviews pipeline in a spreadsheet and guesses which deals will close.

How should the world work? Paint the picture of the future where your category exists.

Every customer interaction (calls, emails, meetings) is automatically captured, transcribed, and analysed by AI. Revenue teams get real-time insight into why deals win or lose, which rep behaviours drive conversions, and which deals are actually going to close. Revenue decisions are based on reality (what customers actually said) not opinion (what reps reported). Revenue becomes predictable because it's based on signal, not noise.

2. Category Definition

Name the category. Great category names are 2-3 words, descriptive, and memorable. The name should frame a new way of thinking, not a product feature.

Revenue Intelligence

Define the category in 1-2 sentences. What is it? Who is it for? What problem does it solve?

Revenue Intelligence is the category of solutions that capture and analyse every customer interaction to deliver insights that help revenue teams win more deals, coach effectively, and forecast accurately. It transforms revenue operations from art to science.

Who else exists in this category (or would exist)? Analysts, partners, complementary products, media covering this space.

Analysts: Forrester recognised 'Conversation Intelligence' but Gong pushed for the broader 'Revenue Intelligence' framing. Competitors: Chorus (acquired by ZoomInfo), Clari (revenue operations), People.ai. Complementary: Salesforce CRM, Outreach (sales engagement), Zoom (meetings). Media: SaaStr, RevGenius, LinkedIn sales community. Gong positioned itself as the category definer — competitors are described as 'Gong alternatives.'

3. Lightning Strike Plan

A lightning strike is a coordinated event that announces the category to the world. It's not a product launch — it's a category launch.

A strong, provocative POV about why this category must exist. What's the burning platform? Why now?

Revenue is too important to run on opinions. Every other function has been transformed by data: marketing has analytics, engineering has monitoring, finance has real-time dashboards. But the largest line item in most companies — revenue — is still managed by gut feeling and self-reported CRM data. That's insane. Revenue deserves intelligence. The companies that win in the next decade will be the ones that replace revenue opinions with revenue intelligence.

How will you announce the category? Think: keynote, manifesto, category report, event, PR push — all coordinated.

1. Gong Labs: Launch a data research arm that publishes insights from millions of sales calls (e.g., 'The best sales calls have a talk-to-listen ratio of 46:54'). This establishes Gong as the authority on sales data. 2. Revenue Intelligence Summit: Annual event that brings together CROs, VPs of Sales, and revenue leaders — not as a Gong product event, but as a CATEGORY event. 3. Category-defining content: 'Revenue Intelligence Manifesto' published on the blog and distributed at events. 4. Analyst briefings: Brief Forrester and Gartner on why 'Revenue Intelligence' is a new category, not a feature of CRM. 5. Coordinated launch: blog post + PR + event + social campaign + analyst relations — all in the same week.

How will you become the intellectual leader of this category? Speaking, publishing, analyst relations.

1. Gong Labs publishes weekly data-driven insights (becomes the most shared sales content on LinkedIn) 2. CEO and CRO speak at every major SaaS and sales conference 3. 'Reveal' annual event positioned as the 'revenue intelligence industry event' 4. Customer Advisory Board with iconic sales leaders who validate the category 5. LinkedIn strategy: every Gong executive posts about revenue intelligence, not about Gong features

4. Category Maturity Assessment

How ready is the market for this category? Is there latent demand?

9

How strong is your position as the category leader?

9
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