Article · 8 min read

Don't let Customers Decide What Your Product Is

April Dunford · aprildunford.com Free Beginner

Explains why the category word next to your name does more work than the name itself: call yourself email and you inherit email's competitors, price and expected features. This is the argument for spending your effort on the descriptor.

  • Most companies never position at all, which means customers position the product for them.
  • Customers are experts on their own pain, not on your product, so they slot you into the nearest category they know.
  • A winner in one category is a loser in another, on identical features.
  • If your best capability is irrelevant inside the category the buyer assumed, it is simply invisible.
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The question it answers

  1. Does our name actually matter? We keep arguing about it and I cannot tell if it is important or a distraction.

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