I’m so privileged to have been able to interview Eddie Yoon, one of the original Category Pirates.
Eddie, together with Christopher Lochhead, not only wrote the playbook on Category Design, but introduced a new type of marketing: Lightning Strike Marketing - the inspiration for Strike Marketing (a category I’m championing).
Though Eddie won’t be speaking at the upcoming summit, it was thanks to Eddie and Chris that I even launched the event!
What if your company’s biggest problem isn’t competition…but your mindset?
That’s how Eddie Yoon, author of Superconsumers: A Simple, Speedy, and Sustainable Path to Superior Growth, co-author of Play Bigger, and co-founder of Category Pirates, frames the challenge for entrepreneurs who want to grow without fighting endless zero-sum battles.
“Business and life are hard,” Eddie told me. “So you have to choose your hard.”
In our conversation for the Viral Genius Podcast, Eddie unpacked the three classic growth paths:
Compete to take market share (a zero-sum game).
Innovate to make the existing market bigger (better, faster, cheaper).
Or…create an entirely new pie.
That third option is Category Design. It’s about becoming different and “the only,” not just better and faster.
Eddie calls it “the easiest hard.”
Competing drains resources.
Incremental innovation keeps you dependent on others.
But creating your own category? That’s how you escape the gravity of comparison.
When I asked how small, bootstrapped founders can play this game, Eddie didn’t hesitate:
“Every big company started small. The question is: are you a missionary or a mercenary?”
Missionaries, he explained, are obsessed with solving a specific problem for a specific tribe - their superconsumers.
Mercenaries chase money and trends. Missionaries create abundance; mercenaries fight over scraps.
He told the story of Lydia Flocchini, a legal-tech consultant in their Category Design Academy.
Once she realized she was underpricing her outcomes, she quadrupled her fees, and her clients gladly paid.
Why? Because she owned a category inside a category.
Eddie and Christopher Lochhead’s Category Design Academy exists to help founders make that leap: from mimicry to mastery, from competing to creating.
His final advice hit me hard:
“If you’re a second-act founder, launch a digital business before a physical one. Build your signal, your network, and your courage to be different.”
A reminder worth repeating: The future belongs to those brave enough to reject the premise.
Best,
Fernando Labastida
Strike Marketing Summit
