Thread by @aprildunford

My first job out of engineering school, I worked at a startup. We repositioned a product from a lightweight personal database to an embeddable database for mobile devices. Our growth exploded and we were acquired. My eyes were opened to the power of positioning. (thread) 1/

I spent a couple of years at the big co. then moved to the next startup. We repositioned that product too - from an enterprise CRM to a CRM for investment banks. Big growth followed again and we were acquired for $1.3B. /2

I ended up working on 16 products as an executive - across 7 different startups, and the big companies that acquired them. We repositioned every single product at some point. /3

Because I hadn’t studied marketing at school, early in my career I read stacks of marketing books and took dozens of courses. I learned a lot but one thing really bugged me - why didn’t we learn how to do positioning? /4

Although positioning is the starting point for almost everything we do in marketing + sales (it defines our competition, differentiated value, target segments) there didn’t seem to be a process for actually DOING it. /5

At least not one that made sense. I was taught the Positioning Statement - a laughably vague fill-in-the-blanks exercise that relies on voodoo+intuition to choose what market you should be positioned in. This exercise offended my engineering sensibilities! /6

Every product can be positioned in multiple different markets - so how do we choose the best one? Surely we don’t just write down whatever pops into our heads!!? /7

I figured positioning could be broken into parts - competitive alternatives, unique capabilities, differentiated value, target customers, market category - essentially the “blanks” of a positioning statement. Get the best answer for each and voila, you've got great positioning /8

But when you think about it you realize that the components have a relationship with each other. Value depends on your capabilities, which are only differentiated when compared to alternatives. Our target segments are defined by who cares most about the value we deliver, etc. /9

If you want to get to positioning that’s really differentiated, you have to work through the pieces in the right order (and yeah that's another concept missing from the stupid ol' positioning statement) /10

So I developed a process for doing positioning - first for my own use as an exec and later I taught it to startups in one-on-one workshops and group classes at accelerators. The process became more refined (and battle-tested by skeptical startup founders). /11

Today I'm a consultant (for tech companies looking for positioning help). But I can't help everyone that calls me. My calendar gets full and some companies are too far away (sorry Australia). I decided to write the process down and just let folks have at it /12

And today, for about the price of a beer (OK, 2 beers if you want a paperback), you can read the result of my years-long deep dive into the guts of how I believe startups should tackle positioning. I hope folks find it useful /end amazon.com/Obviously-Awes…