YouSaid · the spoken record

Christopher Lochhead

lines on the record: 117
first: 2023-09-17
most recent: 2023-09-17
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“You can make your place in the world. And fundamentally, that's what category design is about. It's about making a distinct, unique place in the world for yourself, for your product, and for your company because the people who are different make the biggest difference. And so the great thing that people can do for me is to go into the world. And make a different place for themselves in a way that delivers massive value to others.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And we live in a world where we are rewarded for our sameness, for fitting in, our education system teaches us what we're trying to do is find our place in the world. And listen, some of us do. I know people who wanted to be a vet from the time they were kids, and that's the path they chose, and they became vets, and they love it, and they're wonderful people, and they have great careers, and they make a giant difference, and they've always known. And fucking A. And so if you're somebody for whom you have found your place in the world, congratulations. That's awesome. And we also know, particularly in the innovator, entrepreneur, creator, marketer world, many of us. There was no place And so my hope is that you either find your place or if you realize there's no place for you, that you further realize.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Probably categorypirates.com is the simplest spot to go. And how listeners can be useful to me? It's what we talked about a moment ago. The future needs you. And the future needs the people. Have the courage to make a difference Because the people who are different are the ones who have made the biggest difference every time.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so, in our world, get right up on it has become an expression for kind of go for it. Heed the words of Doris and get right up on it.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I have actually a lot of favorite pirates. I'll tell you about one of them. His name is Tony Etherington, but virtually nobody calls him Tony. Virtually everybody calls him Doris. And Doris is a legendary surfer and surf explorer from the Gold Coast of Australia. And I went on my first ever boat tour surf adventure in Indonesia with Tony. There's a horrible story I'm thinking of telling you right now. Anyway, you haven't been with a real pirate until you've been in stormy seas at night with Doris smoking cigarettes, drinking Jack Daniels in the bridge, thinking maybe we're going to die, but this guy's probably not going to let that happen. And so Doris Etherington would be one of my top pirates of all time. And he's got the voice and he's got the attitude. When I was having problems surfing, he would say to me,”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If you're lucky enough to make it to the top of a mountain, throw down a fucking rope. And for me on that, Lenny, I'm somebody who has had and continues to have a radical amount of love and support in my life. When I was young, I started with nothing and I got thrown out of school and I didn't know until I was 21 because when I was young, learning differences weren't a thing. And by the way, the way most of the world and education system deals with learning differences is completely fucked. But that's a different conversation. It's definitely improved, but it's nowhere near what it needs to be. And so I just think that we should never be held back by those views of others. And so we need to be unencumbered.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is always radically illustrative. I'm not looking for anything. I'm looking for your answer. Some people will say yes, and they'll tell you why. Some people will say, well, you know, that's a big word. Or whatever they're going to say. But it is a purposely provocative question with one of, I think, the most powerful words in the English language because I want to get a read on that person and how they respond to a purposely provocative question about themselves.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And often, Lenny, the most important thing for that person to communicate comes out then. Like it happens so often, it's bizarre. I use that in medical situations. Family members in the hospital going for an operation. Okay, Doc, tell me I tell you all this shit. Is there anything else? I will tell you that eight times out of ten, the most important thing about the surgery with your loved one will come after that question. I will even use it during a conversation as we transition from various different points. So in an interview situation, maybe you're asking somebody about their background, you might say, well, no, is there anything else about your background I think you think I should know? It's the most powerful open question. But in an interview, a job interview situation, it's my second favorite. My first favorite is”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So there's actually two, and I'll start with the second most important interview question, which. I think it is the most important question, but in a job interview setting, for me, it's the second most important. And that is, is there anything else? And you know this is a podcaster I end every single one of my podcasts with is there anything else? And the interesting thing about that question, you can spend three hours with somebody talking about very important shit. You can think you got all the detail. You could have asked all the questions about the technical architecture and the campaign and the distribution. I don't know what, right? At the very end, you say, hey, Susan, you know, before we wrap, is there anything else?”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, right now we're watching designing Anna or inventing Anna or whatever that's called. So that's been fascinating to watch. I think it's been incredibly well done.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Richard Bach allusions. And then, in terms of business books, I'll share with you one because I know people recommend all the same shit. I'll share with you one that I think it may still be in print, but if not, it's easy to get. Mark McCormick's What they don't teach you at the Harvard Business School. So, on the personal side, Richard Bach allusions and for one that you may not have heard of, Mark McCormick, what they don't teach you at the Harvard Business School.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The future of our world requires that the innovative people, that the entrepreneurial people stand up, take advantage of these incredible technologies. And a lot of people, particularly in my age group, Lenny, shit on millennials, Gen Z, what are lovingly referred to as native digitals? Absolutely not. I'm inspired by them. And I think the next generation of our entrepreneurs will be our greatest generation of entrepreneurs. So my point is now's the time. The future needs you. Don't listen to any of the bullshit. I don't care what the bluebirds say. Absolutely go for it because there's never been a greater time to design and dominate new categories of innovation than right now.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The point being now is the greatest time in history to be a crater, to be an entrepreneur, to be a marketer. I've been a marketer for my entire adult life. It's never been greater than it is right now. And so here's sort of the big thing that I would share. If you're somebody for whom you want to make an exponential difference, you want to innovate. You want to create new value where there wasn't. You want to have a legendary career where you can look back on your career and go, you know what? I was part of this and that. And I was on this team Now's the greatest time in history. And what I would say to you is the future needs you. Most people are not working on the exponential difference. And so”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think all the indicators show that the amount of innovation that is going to happen in the next five years will eclipse the amount of innovation that happened in the last 20 years. It's accelerating. AI is insanely exciting, dangerous, concerning. Do we need to focus on the downside? Do we need to be smart? Do we need to be thoughtful? Do we need to learn? Do we need to work with regulators and legislators? Absolutely. Could it go horribly? Sure. That's always true. AI feels a little bit different, but it's always true. And for the record, the Luddites are always wrong.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I want the Boeing engineers working on the incremental better. I don't want the air traffic control system that's the exponential different. No. And a lot of incremental improvement over time can be exponential. So I don't, you know, if you're a product manager and you're running a highly successful product with a massive install base and you're looking at your next rev and you're trying to figure out of the 472 features that you could build, you know, what are the 26 that really matter and you want to go talk to your customers to find out what those incremental improvements are and to stack rank them and do all that good PRD MRD IUD all that shit there's a big place in the world for all of that it's incredibly important that's not category design So, with that said I think, Lenny, we are at the greatest time in history for our industry.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Working on the exponential difference as opposed to the incremental better, which I got to believe is a meaningful percentage of the people who consume your shit. If you want to work on the incremental better, incremental better is important.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I'm 55 years old, Lenny. I started my first company when I was 18. I got thrown out of school. I don't have a GED. I've been in the tech industry the whole time. And the first thing I would share is anything's possible. Don't listen to anybody who shits on you. I would chat on as much as you could possibly imagine. I have four or five different learning differences, ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I was told I couldn't read. I was certainly told I couldn't write. I've written 14 number one fucking bestsellers, et cetera, et cetera. And so my point is. If you're somebody for whom You want to spend your professional time.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so, when we have a category POV that's about them, not us. Remember, brands are about us. Categories are about customers, right? We care about what they care about. And so when you have a powerful category POV, Drives want. And then when you do that in the native digital world, you get a tremendous amount of uplift from native digital viral WAM and category design is the only business strategy whose primary execution focus starts with WAMP.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Here's the ah You understand supers Understand the targeting. Understand a radically different point of view reframing the problem, presenting a radically different solution. Well, guess what? The ultimate growth engine And you can grow for a very small amount of money. You could send email to 300 people and drive a breakthrough in sales. Why? Because when you take this approach, you're not just driving near-term revenue very, very important. You're driving WAM. A big part of why you want to have a point of view that can be articulated very quickly Marketing's job is to put the right words in the right mouths and to get that WAM to scale.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Anyway, I thought Meltum was awesome. She's absolutely on point. So we know who our ideal customer, aka super consumers are We know where they hang out in the native digital world. We have a radically compelling, different point of view about framing, claiming, and naming a problem that if we do effectively will resonate with them. That's why we spend time crafting that POV, right? So we evangelize the problem. We participate in a native digital community where they already are. And we do it from the perspective of not a marketer, not a seller, an educator. We're teaching people about a new and different way to think about an existing problem or a problem they hadn't thought of that when they have an aha moment because we articulate it well with our point of view, they go, oh, tell me more about that problem, right? As they do that, we take an education standpoint, mental kind of framework to it. We open them up. We participate. And sooner or later, somebody says, huh, tell me again what you do and bam, away that we go.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Category design when you understand who your supers are, i.e. your ideal customer profile, you understand where they are primarily in the native digital world. How do we go hang out? And remind me what that gal's name was. I thought she was awesome.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Then you take the concept of a category point of view that is all about frame naming, claiming a problem. And then there's one other concept I'll introduce. It sits next to your ideal customer profile. It's what in category design we call super consumers. So it turns out that in most categories, roughly 8 to 10% of the buyers are responsible for the vast majority of the profits. And more importantly, they are the zeitgeist. They are the thought leaders in the industry. They are the customers, the users, the purveyors of whatever the thing is that others look up to as sort of being the ones to admire, the ones to aspire to, the best practices, et cetera, et cetera. That's a super consumer. Okay, so in”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Word of mouth This boggles our minds, those of us in category design, because WAM is, was, and always will be, the most powerful form of marketing. And in the native digital world, WAM can spread in a way that was never possible on the analog world for all the reasons we all understand. So if you take the concept of a lightning strike,”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so we put a disproportionate amount of our effort if we're in B2B, probably one to two lightning strikes a year. If we're in B2C two to three, one a quarter if you're like a really big company, it's hard to pull off one a quarter if you're a smaller company. And much more than that, it's not a lightning strike. It starts to blur back into peanut butter. But that is a very powerful concept on the execution side for marketers that's different. The other thing I'd say, and probably should have started here, So I'm a three time public company CMO. Advised over 50 venture back companies in category design and marketing. Guess what I've never seen in a marketing plan ever?”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so, what a lightning strike is about getting very, very clear. If you go back to your IPC thing or ICP thing, who's our ideal customer? Where is that customer? Where does she hang out? Ideally in the digital world first, one of your recent episodes I was listening to the Growth Hacker Gala, how she went on to Reddit and stuff. That's a well-known strategy and I love that strategy. Go hang out where they are. Something provocative and engaging in front of them and matter in that moment. So the idea of a lightning strike is if you're in our target audience for that day or that two days, we are going to be all over you. We're going to be undeniable.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, because the number of marketing messages we get is massive. There are experts who say we get up to 60,000 a day, whether it's logos on coffee cups or ads on the internet and everything in between. And so it's virtually impossible to stand out in a reach and frequency mode. Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't be doing keep the lights on marketing. Of course you need to do keep the lights on marketing. But here's what the lightning strike model in category design teaches us. I'd rather matter for one week a year than be irrelevant for the rest of the year. And so, what we did candidly, Lenny, was we ripped off Hollywood's model for launching movies. We said, hmm, what if you did that as a software company? What if you launched a thing, be it a product or something else, the way Hollywood launches a movie?”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And what region frequency was about, which was I want to get my shit in front of the most amount of people, the most often possible. And if you listen to sort of a lot of the shysters and hustle porn stars, the Gary VDs and this of the world, how you gotta release 400 pieces of content today on every platform? All this stupidity, right? That's just a re-swizzle of reach and frequency from over 50 years ago in the new medium, right? Well, it turns out reach and frequency doesn't work.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so getting that right, I think, is very powerful. Another example, and I'm just riffing off the top of my head. I don't have it in front of me. Another example is lightning strikes versus peanut butter, right? So what most marketers do is they take their marketing budget for the year, they quarterize it, and, you know, maybe there's slight variance in the quarters, but essentially it's a similar amount of spin. And they do campaigns and they do quote unquote keep the lights on. And maybe they launch a product and maybe they have a big push around the product and they're trying to drive the funnel and they're trying to deliver sales or deliver leads or B2B or B2 doesn't matter. And that's what they do. And what they don't realize, Lenny, is that approach, that peanut butter approach is predicated on almost 100 year old mental scaffolding and marketing called REACH and Frequency.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think we talked about law number one, which in a lot of ways is probably the most important. Another one to think about is something we call the magic triangle, which we've touched on, but maybe not explicitly, which is in order to build a legendary company, you got to get product company and category right at the right time. And so, some people hear the category design discussion and they think it's like somehow pejorative to product as if product doesn't matter. The reason for category design is because we love the products. Products fail because they don't get category designed. And so I think the aha of the magic triangle is product, company, and category are equal in importance.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Today, most guitar players have an electric guitar and an acoustic guitar. Matter of fact, most guitar players have more than one. Very few guitar players, some, but very few said, oh, now that the electric guitar is invented, fuck the acoustic guitar. Very, very rare. So the net new category called electric guitar as opposed to the prior category acoustic guitar actually increases the overall guitar tam, doesn't disrupt shit. So, in that case, you're actually creating net new demand, and the Peloton example, you're both creating net new demand, and you're getting your start. And this is where I think a lot of the discussion that you have and a lot of your work, Lenny, around growth is really powerful because what's really going on when growth works is effective digital damming of demand. That's what's really going on when it works.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Green bin, and then the squirrels and the fucking raccoons eat it. That's the personal upset. And the environmental one is we're destroying the planet. No, by the way, rather than destroy the planet, why not create this super awesome compost dirt, right? And that's in category design. We call that a from to. And so category designers are leading the world from the way it is to a new and different way. They're not saying my carbonulator is better than their carbodingulator. Here's a simple example. This is another reason the word disrupt doesn't work. So, les Paul is the innovator of the electric guitar.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Again, when Peloton launches, they don't say, hey, our bikes are better than spinning bikes. Our bikes are twelve mega flips faster, cheaper. They don't do any of that shit. They don't shit on spinning. They don't attack spinning. They don't attack road biking, mountain, they don't do any of that stuff. They say, why drive? The gym You could do it at home. They damn the demand for spinning. They don't compete against it. And they reframe the problem called, how do I get a great workout in a group environment without getting killed? They achieved that massive success. And I can give you many other examples. The mistake is competing directly product to product. The enemy is the status quo, that is to say the way it is now. So, if you go back to Lomy, the enemy, the way it is now, the status quo is A, nasty garbage in your kitchen that's”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that's a strategy that's called damning the demand. So what does a dam do? There's a bunch of water running in a direction. A dam takes that water, stops it, and moves it, does something to it, interrupts it, and changes it. So here's Spinning does. They say, Why risk your life on a bike when you can take a wonderful class and not have to worry about it and get your exercise? So what damn the demand Lenny is, is you thought you wanted this, but what you really need is that. Then what happens the next iteration in that space comes from Peloton?”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But you've been on a mountain bike, you've been on a road bike. Gone out with friends, done this, right Anybody who bikes on any kind of regular basis has been in an accident. If you bike on a real regular basis, you've been in an accident with a vehicle that was not caused by you. That's true for every person I know that rides a bike on any kind of regular basis, myself included. So, all of a sudden, a new category shows up. And that new category is called indoor biking classes. And the category designer is a company called Spinning. And they say, hey, biking's great. It's an incredible source of exercise, but you don't want to get killed doing it. So come take a class. And what they're doing when they do that. They're competing category to category, not brand or product to brand.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, so this is really, really powerful. So, in category design, we don't compete period full stop The brand to brand or product to product level. Category designers do compete. Not against a product, not against a company, not against a brand. Category designers compete against the status quo. So let me be specific. There's a category called cycling. You look like you might be a biker, Lenny, are you?”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it's factually correct. People go, oh, okay. So you mean to tell me that in tech one company doesn't take two-thirds of the economics? Okay, believe that And you can believe gravity doesn't exist. It does. But you can believe whatever you can believe that Bigfoots are installing misters on 5G towers to make us all sick if you want. You can believe anything you want. It doesn't make it true. Right? What's true is one company wins and everybody else gets fucked. That's what's true. Look at any space you want. You want to go back to your list? We can go through the list, right? And so positioning has become sort of category design for the cowards. It's like, well, I know that we could really be as radical as to create our own space. So let's just see if we can Carve off our little niche over here. Okay, great.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And we think in the tech space where one company earns two thirds of the economics, if that's your starting point, you fuck yourself from the start. And so, to put it simply, positioning in the modern context is for losers. That is to say, people who are fighting over the 24%. So that's positioning.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What positioning today is or has become is essentially how do I tell a story? About my In a unique way, in a compelling way. That's really what people mean when they say positioning. The part they never stopped to consider again, listen to the words. Positioning As it relates to what? You quote unquote again, listen to the words and fucking think you position against. Competitors, right? How do we position against the competitors? That's a phrase people use. So the question is, what are you positioning against? And the answer to that question, almost all of the time is competition. And so, if you're doing positioning in that context, you just decided you're fighting for 24% of the demand designed by somebody else.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And self help. And number two, personal finance. Biographies are like way down on the list. So, the point being, no one cares about our product. No one cares that it's 25 megaflips faster, cheaper, whatever, then they don't care. You know what they care about? Them. Their needs, their wants, their problems. And categories are about customers and their wants needs problems and opportunities. Branding and marketing is about our product. And the greatest innovators in the world don't stop at innovating product or technology. Design a new innovative market category where they stand alone.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hearing this bullshit for a while. Guess what? No one gives a fuck about your journey. They really don't. You know what they care about? themselves Their problems, their needs, their opportunities. For our book Snow Leopard, we did the first ever comprehensive data science research ever done using Nielsen data to study nonfiction books. And we know that because that's what Nielsen told us. And we had to sign an NDA that choke a horse in terms of what we can say and can't say about the data. But one of the things we wanted to understand is what categories of business books sold and which categories didn't and why. We can get into all that if you want, but here's what the number one category of business books nonfiction books is by a mile.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And the problem is our industry, like many others, but the tech industry is full of product bigots. Because they really, really, really, really, really believe, like they believe in the availability of oxygen, the best product wins. They really believe it. And they believe marketing's job is, could you put a demo on our website? Let's get a demo. Can we get a viral video that's a demo? Because once people see how much better, faster, cheaper, smaller, bigger, whatever, our thing is, they're going to buy it and they don't. What they buy is a new insight around a problem slash opportunity that requires a different solution. That's what they buy. Here's another simple example. This is another one I hear right now a lot. What we need now is a story. We need a story brand. Oh, we need the number one thing you can do in marketing as a startup founder is to share your startup founder journey. Share your journey, right? This is all this shit we're hearing, right?”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We're a brew pub. You and I want to start a craft beer place like everybody else on the West Coast. And we're going to make a bunch of samples and shit. And we're going to feed those samples to our friends and to our ideal customer profile that I learned from Lenny. And if enough people amongst my friend group and my ideal customer group say, that's a yummy IPA, I like it, then we're going to build it. And then if people start buying that IPA, we have quote unquote, and these are the term, these are the words people use, achieved product market fit. Okay, well, thread's achieve product market fit faster than any product in the history of the world. Here's the aha Categories make products, not the other way around. And so, what you want is you want to design a market category for your product, not fit your product into a market category.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, and there's a bunch of these product myths. Product-led growth is another one. But let's go to product market fit. And God bless Mark Andreessen. He's the guy that framed it. And Kevin just wrote a really super thoughtful piece on why it's backwards. And I'm happy to send that to you if you want. Kevin Maine, genius. Here's the aha. Again, category design principles. Listen to the words product. Product market fit. Now let's think. Okay, so what there is for me to do is find a way to fit my product into a market. Simple way to determine or to distill product market fit, right? And what product market fit has come to mean is we're going to”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And he said it was the stupidest use case he ever saw. The use case was a stay at home mom keeping track of her recipes on the Apple personal computer. Is the stupidest use case ever? However, Don could see the potential in the category? And the guy's willingness to go get after it. So, for a VC, if you're going to raise money. The VCs who invest in early stage mass potential companies are the ones who see your different future.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You look at it, the vast majority of innovation comes from startups. So people say only big companies can do this. Listen, my collaborator partner, Eddie Eoon, is the Obi-Wan Kenobi of category design in the Global 2000 arena, and particularly on the consumer side. And he will tell you that most of these major companies, and he's worked for, you name a big food company, you name a big beverage company. He's worked for many of them. Fail miserably. And so the reality is six people. With a small investment from a rich uncle can stand something up. That has the potential. To be worth $3 trillion because that's what Apple is. And I sat there with Don Valentine and asked him about why he signed the check to Steve and Steve.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know whether he's right or not, but he's a super smart guy, right? We know how long does it take to create a legendary culture? How long does it take to get a legendary innovative business model to really hum? So it's really hard. Well, so is building a product. So's building a company. So's raising VC. So's doing sales. So's doing marketing. So's doing HR. Like, if you want to be easy, go work at the fucking DMV. That's kind of point A. Point B is the reality Lenny”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Correct. And the other thing is, people say, oh, it's really expensive and it takes a lot of time As compared to what? So you've lived a lot of your life in the product world. As have Well, if you ask smart VCs, If you ask Brian Roberts at Venrock, the number one healthcare tech investor in the world, I believe he says it's eight to ten years for a product to really have some maturity and be really stable and.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And the reason John makes him do that, his philosophy he calls it thinking wrong. That's his sort of version, if you will, of reject the premise. The reason for it is when you take away the premise, it must be ridable, you open up the aperture for legendary new thinking, radically different possibilities, radically different futures, right? And so this is the mistake that many, many entrepreneurs make is they whether they realize it or not, what they're doing is incremental better. They're fighting for market share, fighting for existing demand with something that's incrementally better. And the reality is, that's why most entrepreneurs fail. Now, you can fail doing the exponentially different. It sounds medically insane to say what you want is a $0 billion market.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If we want to be able to think in unconstrained ways about a radically different future, the more we drag the past forward, the worse off we are. So what reject the premise teaches us is, let's forget everything we know and start fresh. My friend, a legendary designer John Buelenberg, does this course on innovation and design with kids in university? And he does this multi-week exercise. And the objective of the exercise, Lenny, is design a bicycle. That's the objective. And there's only one design point. It cannot be ridable.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's category design. That's how you unshackle yourself from the past. See, one of the biggest disservices in our industry is this word disrupt. We're going to go disrupt the interior industry. Well, if you're disrupting something. By definition, your reference point is the something. And when your reference point is an existing thing, your reference point is the past.”
2023-09-17 · Lenny's Podcast · How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source