September 2022

Play Bigger, by Al Ramadan, Dave Peterson, Christopher Lochhead, and Kevin Maney, is probably the best book on the market teaching innovators how to create new product categories and become the category king. It’s not a perfect book, and I don’t agree with everything the authors say, but if you are wondering whether or not you should be creating a new category, I’d recommend you read this book so that you understand what it would take, and then make your decision.

If you do decide to go for it, Play Bigger does a good job of explaining how to go about creating a new category and what to do after you’ve successfully done so.

The biggest issue I have with Play Bigger is that it seems to present the whole process as simply a matter of following each step contained in each chapter. They don’t hide the fact that some of those steps are really hard (which is good), but I honestly don’t think that’s how it works. I get the sense that the Play Bigger team never walks into a company and says “okay, here’s the project plan. We’re going to make sure you follow all these steps and, at the end, you’ll be king of a new category.” I think that every company and every situation is unique. What you do when and how varies dramatically from case to case. The reason the Play Bigger team is so good at what they do is because they sense and respond to each unique situation, and they work with their clients to do what’s needed to be successful. It’s not “paint by numbers” but the book makes it feel like it is.

Bottom line, Play Bigger provides an excellent guide to what is involved in creating a new category and owning it. While I seriously doubt that any company could simply follow the steps outlined in the book and be successful, laying it out in this structured way makes it easy to get a sense for the level of commitment required to be successful. Most companies will need to work with someone who can help them navigate the still uncharted waters of their new category. The stories throughout the book help the reader sense both the excitement of what is possible and the complexity of achieving it. I heartily recommend Play Bigger to anyone considering creating their own product category.

Read my full review here.

If you need help with your category strategy, I’d be happy to talk.

The concept of category making is popular amongst tech innovators, and for good reason. So, it’s not unusual for startup leaders to be asked whether or not they are going to create a new category. It may be tempting to quickly answer “of course”, but I’ve written the article linked below to help you understand what that even means and what’s involved in category making.

Read the full article or watch me present the content as a video tutorial here.

HYPERGROWTH by David Cancel teaches the Responsive Development (RD) methodology the author pioneered at Performable, scaled at HubSpot, and now has built into products at Drift. 

The book provides an unexpected answer to a common question. Leaders want to know — how do we grow our business. Cancel’s answer, at least for SaaS companies, is to let (or perhaps force) the engineers building your product to regularly talk to customers, and then trust them to do what is right for the customer. Responsive Development is an approach to software product development that challenges the traditional Waterfall and newer Agile approaches. 

The book is short, with large font, so you can easily read it in a couple of hours. If you are responsible for software product development, especially at a SaaS startup, it’s worth a read. 

Read the full review here.

According to Fierce Wireless, T-Mobile has agreed to sell the wireline business the company gained as part of its acquisition of Sprint to Cogent Communications for $1. In 2004, when I was director of strategic planning for the division of Sprint that managed the wireless business, we first seriously looked at selling this asset. Over the next 10 years in that role and as vice president of corporate strategy, we considered the possibility of selling Wireline several more times, even going so far as holding exploratory conversations with potential buyers.

Each time we backed away, ostensibly because the business and the underlying assets were too essential to Sprint’s overall business. However, I think we simply suffered from some of the most common cognitive biases that lead many businesses to make bad decisions. Over the past 18 years several things have changed that enabled T-Mobile to finally make the right decision. 

For starters, the wireline industry has continued to decline, and Sprint/T-Mobile’s wireline business with it. So, the wireline business, which once had been the largest and most profitable part of Sprint, had become a tiny and unprofitable part of T-Mobile. Second, the powerful individuals who strongly identified with the wireline business and challenged any attempts to divest it have moved on. Finally, and probably most importantly, I’m guessing T-Mobile’s leadership brought an outsider’s perspective that was able to cut through cognitive biases and make the right decision.

Read the full story here.

Yesterday, Queen Elizabeth II passed away after a historic reign. The world mourns. The news brought me back to my one brief close encounter with Her Majesty and caused me to reflect on three different snapshots of leadership that have stuck with me throughout my life and impacted my own leadership style.

Read the full story here.

Many entrepreneurs have great product and business ideas but have never really had to learn what it takes to make people aware of what they’re building. They know that the strategy of “build it and they will come” is flawed, and they’ve heard of marketing, but they don’t really know what it is or how to approach it. If that describes you, then I think the article liked below will be especially helpful for you. I can’t magically turn you into a marketing expert, but I hope to at least help you understand what’s involved and help you work intelligently with marketing professionals.

My definition of Marketing is “everything you do to make potential customers (and existing customers) aware of, and desiring what you have to offer.” The article covers the buyer’s journey, brand, and the marketing mix (product, price, distribution, promotion, and positioning) to flesh out the “everything you do” and “aware of and desiring” elements of that definition. I hope the it’s helpful to you.

Read the full article here.