Breaking into GTM

What does category actually mean in go-to-market, and why does everyone keep telling me to pick one?

The short answer

A category is the mental shelf a buyer puts you on before they judge anything else about you. The moment someone hears what you do, they reach for the closest thing they already understand, and every assumption about your price, your competitors and your feature list flows from that shelf. If you do not choose the shelf, the buyer chooses one for you, and it is usually the wrong one. So picking a category is not branding fluff, it is deciding which comparison you are willing to be judged against.

Go deeper, your way

3 hand-picked resources, 3 link-checked. Pick how you want to dig in.

📄 Article
✓ Link checked Free Beginner

Why we picked it The clearest short explanation of why market category is one of five interdependent positioning pieces, with a real repositioning story attached. It is also where Dunford makes the case that most companies should not invent a category.

A Quickstart Guide to Positioning

From aprildunford.com by April Dunford 12 min read

Open aprildunford.com →

The same ground, at another level

How category design reads from a different seat.

How do I test whether a category name lands before we commit the whole website to it? Put the words in front of real buyers before you put them in a headline. Run the line past twenty people who match your ICP and ask them what they ... Doing the work 4 resources → When is category creation the right call for us, and when is it just an excuse? It is right when your buyer feels a real pain that no existing category addresses, and when the existing frame is actively making senior people ign... Leading a GTM team 4 resources → How did Gong actually create revenue intelligence, step by step? Gong started life as conversation intelligence and found that senior revenue leaders heard that phrase and mentally filed it under sales enablement... How the best do it 3 resources →

Terms in this answer

Go-to-Market

People also ask

Should we create a new category or just say we are a better version of something that already exists? For almost everyone at the start, the answer is the existing category. April Dunford's own count is that around 90 percent of recently public tech ... Breaking into GTM 4 resources → How do I write the one line that says what category we are in? Write it as a comparison, not a description. The formula that works is simple: who it is for, what kind of thing it is, and why it beats the altern... Breaking into GTM 5 resources → Buyers keep comparing us to a big incumbent. How do I even respond in a first call? Do not dodge it and do not claim you beat them everywhere, because the buyer knows you do not and you lose credibility instantly. Name the incumben... Breaking into GTM 3 resources → How do I test whether a category name lands before we commit the whole website to it? Put the words in front of real buyers before you put them in a headline. Run the line past twenty people who match your ICP and ask them what they ... Doing the work 4 resources → We named the problem instead of the product. Is that a positioning mistake? It is usually the right instinct, badly executed. Naming the problem is what makes a category feel inevitable, because the buyer recognises the pai... Doing the work 4 resources → Our competitor's category is bigger and better funded. How do I carve out a segment we can actually win? Find the buyer who feels one specific pain more sharply than anyone else and build the whole story around them, even if that shrinks your addressab... Doing the work 4 resources →

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Should my brand name be a made-up word, or should it actually describe what I sell? Made-up or arbitrary names (Kodak, Apple-for-computers) are the strongest legally and scale best across categories later, but they need real market... 3 resources → Who counts as my competitor - only brands selling the exact same product, or more than that? Track three tiers: direct competitors (same product, same customer), indirect competitors (different product solving the same customer need - a mea... 3 resources →
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