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I think the power of market categories isn't always well-understood by startups. Declaring that your offering is in a certain category sets off a chain of assumptions in the minds of customers that have a big impact on marketing/sales (thread) 1/
Declaring that your product is in a certain category - i.e. Our product is "email"/"analytics"/"CRM" - firstly tells customers who your competition is. If you are a CRM, you compete with Salesforce, if you are email, then Outlook/Gmail is the comparable. But that's not all 2/
Customers will also make assumptions about features based on your declared market category - if you are a CRM, you probably track deals and accounts, if you are email, you probably have an inbox and spam filtering, etc. 3/
Your market category also sets an expectation around pricing, as well as who your expected buyer is, etc. If your solution is a CRM, for example, I would expect you to charge less than Salesforce, who is the leader in that market 4/
If you declare your product is in a certain category and the assumptions it triggers in buyer's minds are true, that's cool. I saved myself a lot of work. I don't have to list every feature, many are assumed. I don't have to call out my competitor explicitly, it's assumed 5/
Unfortunately, if the assumptions your market category triggers in the mind of customers are false, your marketing and sales teams are going to have to make a significant effort to undo the damage your positioning has already done 6/
You could fix this by qualifying your market category - a CRM for banks won't be expected to have every feature Salesforce has for example. Or you could consider that maybe your product has outgrown its category completely and there is a better one for it 7/
If your sales folks are spending a lot of time backing out of your market category when they pitch - i.e. "We're email but not like any email you have ever seen before!" - it's possible you might be better positioned as chat, or team collaboration or something else entirely. 8/
Your best market category takes your unique strengths and puts them right at the center so that they are obvious to your best prospects. If your category doesn't do that, then you probably need to pick a new one. /end
