Let's Design Your Category

Do you dare design a category?

When I wrote my first book to establish a category I had designed - the startup book category - I felt major imposter syndrome.

You see, the Category Pirates - Christopher Lochhead, Eddie Yoon, Al Ramadan, Kevin Maney, Mike Damphousse - are these major ivory tower gurus in the category design space.

And I was just some guy.

And then…get this…then I had the audacity, the utter audacity, to ask Christopher Lochhead to write the foreword for my book.

He said yes! Plus he gave me advice on my book title and subtitle.

I’m telling you this because imposter syndrome is real, and I’ve lived it.

I’ve been working as a community manager at a private community for aspiring digital entrepreneurs.

This is a very interactive space, with lots of commenting, sharing, asking questions about the courses, bouncing ideas off each other.

The one thread I’ve seen tying all these people together is confidence. Or lack thereof.

They suffer from major imposter syndrome.

You’re probably going through some of this yourself.

Confidence is a major issue for those of us venturing into new territory - like starting a business, trying out a new technology, or experimenting with a new business strategy.

In fact, I believe the reason many business owners refuse to change the way they do business is not because of inertia, but because of imposter syndrome. They don’t believe they can learn new methodologies or technologies until it’s too late.

When I first started blogging full-time in 2009, I never thought I could achieve the heights of Joe Pulizzi and Brian Clark. I thought they had some kind of special anointing.

But I kept at it. Not because I believed I could be successful at blogging, but because I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try.

And then it started working. I got my first client through a blog post that went viral. I got more than 1500 subscribers to my newsletter (that I didn’t actually send any newsletters to).

And I launched my first marketing agency.

Again, I experienced major imposter syndrome when I told a client, out of desperation, because what I had been doing for him up till then wasn’t generating leads, that we needed to organize a three-day summit.

I immediately regretted telling him I would do it for him. I mean, who was I to think that I could organize a successful, multi-day, multi-speaker summit?

I wasn’t Darrell Vesterfelt, who organized a summit that attracted 101,000 registrants. (Yes, you read that right: a six-figure registration number!).

I wasn’t one of those “summit bros” who were constantly organizing online events, mini-conferences, and huge webinars with thousands of participants.

Who the hell was I to claim I could organize a summit?

But I did it anyway. And we got 904 registrations!

Now you’ve got to understand: I would have been ecstatic if I got 300 people registered. But 904? The number seemed impossible.

But we made it happen.

And how about designing your own business category?

In a 2019 article, David Sacks said that no objective is more important to company founders than early category leadership, because over 75% of the market cap in a business category goes to the category leader.

Most of us reading that would say, “Sure, that’s well and good for David Sacks to say he’s talking to venture-funded startups.”

But that’s the pernicious lie we tell ourselves. We make up some excuse that justifies our imposter syndrome, our lack of belief in ourselves, our lack of self-confidence.

But what’s to stop you from designing your own category - and actually make it an established category, with its own vocabulary that people start using in everyday conversations?

I mean, how cool would that be?

Let me give you the moment when I suddenly realized that my lame excuses for my lack of self-confidence came into sharp relief:

When I was organizing that summit for my client, it started as just a crazy idea.

A few weeks later, we had a website. We had a full roster of speakers who had all said “Yes!” We had their pretty faces plastered across the summit website.

I had interviewed all the speakers, and I had all this content from their video interviews that I was turning into a cascade of content.

People started registering for the event.

I suddenly realized I was like God. (Not really, but you know what I mean).

I could speak things into existence.

I pitched the summit idea to my client, and he said yes, and we created something from nothing. From a seed in my brain to a fully organized, well-attended summit.

What I’m trying to say to you is, you can design your own category.

Because you don’t have to be some anointed guru. You just have to speak it into existence.

My next webinar is April 10th, and I’ll be talking about how you can design your own category. In fact, I’m going to do a live demonstration where I’ll design your category for you, with the help of a Claude skill I created.

Fill out this survey right here - as much detail as you can - and I’ll see you on the 10th at noon CST..

Will you join me on the 10th?