Category Products Vs Additive Products
Entrepreneurship
When you create a category product — a new way of doing things — expect it to be hard and uphill. But isn't everything new and trailblazing hard, and ultimately worth it?
When you create a category product — a new way of doing things, something that didn't exist before, or a redefinition of an old process — expect it to be hard and uphill. But isn't everything new and trailblazing hard, and ultimately worth it?
The simpler solution is to get in where you fit in. Slot into existing processes and solutions. But you will almost certainly end up competing with a part of someone else's flow, or be forced to narrow your product offering so much that it is no longer a product but just a tool.
That is not always the case. Sometimes additive products serve genuinely underserved areas and become invaluable. You just have to know what you have created, because the strategies are completely different. One, for example, may respond well to partnerships and integrations. The other may not.
Category-defining products are the big bets, the exciting journeys, and the cultural changemakers. But no such product was ever made easy, because you are selling today what you have dreamed people will use by default in the future. You need to catch people up — not just customers, but investors, partners, and organisations — because people love the status quo.
This is where integrating cool is important. There is a strong link between innovation makers and culture shifters. If you want to create a category, make it a cool one. Make your product look beautiful, because design is critically important for products that sit in the category space. Apple didn't just make a phone — it made every other phone look like it belonged in the past. Tesla didn't compete with car manufacturers — it made electric feel aspirational. Notion didn't improve project management — it made the workspace feel like a canvas.
Cool shifts culture, culture makes innovation welcome, and design bridges the gap.