Your Product Category is a Trap. Here’s How to Escape It.

Émilie Carignan
Jul 22
3 min read

“We’re kind of like X, but not really…”

Does it sounds familiar? Do you spend more time explaining what you do than discussing the value you bring? The problem might not be your product pitch. It’s the box you’ve put it in.

The product category is the most important mental shortcut your customers use to understand you. Choosing it wisely is a powerful strategy. Choosing the wrong one is slow poison for your growth.

Why You Should (Probably) Not Create a New Category

You often hear this ambitious advice: to truly dominate, you must create your own category. It’s an enticing idea, but it’s advice that applies to barely 1% of companies. For the remaining 99%, which likely includes you and me, it’s an expensive distraction. Attempting to forge a new category from scratch requires a colossal educational effort and a budget that few startups have.

Your mission is not to re-educate the market. It’s to insert yourself into a conversation that already exists in your customer’s mind. The product category is your anchor point. If you choose it poorly, you’ll spend your time fighting against your prospects' preconceived notions instead of using them to your advantage.

Case Study: From Automation to Expert

A client of mine designed a fantastic tool to help market gardeners manage their greenhouses. The system controlled automatically the ventilation, irrigation, aeration and everything else to grow the best tomatoes. Logically, we positioned it as an automation tool.

The problem? In a market gardener's mind, the word “automation” mean only one of two things:

A massive, overpriced robot-like machine that disconnects them from taking care of their plants
A basic $10 timer from Amazon that flips a switch on and off at set hours

Their solution was neither.

So they spent sales calls saying: “We do automation, but not like that high tech complex solution. And not like that cheap gadget either.” They were constantly battling the very definition of the category we had chosen.

Listening to What Customers Really Say

The breakthrough came from carefully listening to the customers. They never compared the solution to other automation systems. They said the tool was like “a guardian angel for their crops,” “an expert employee who never sleeps,” or “a caretaker for their plants, who always know what to do.”

They were comparing the solution to a skilled person, an expert capable of making the right decision at the right time. The realization hit us. They weren’t selling automation. They were selling expertise.

We radically changed the positioning. The word “automation” was banned from all our communications. We became a “Greenhouse consultant”

The Result: Transformed Sales Conversations

The impact was immediate. Now, when a prospect joins a sales call, they already understand the value. They no longer ask, “What exactly do you do?” They ask, “What components do I need for my specific situation?”

The sales calls are no longer a persuasion process. They’re consulting sessions. The team acts as what it is: a team of experts guiding market gardeners to the best setup for their reality.

The sales cycle accelerated drastically, going from an average of 8 months + to deals that can close on the same day!

Your Turn: Find Your True Category

Your product category is not defined by your feature list but by the place you occupy in your customers’ minds. Stop fighting against their perceptions. Instead, lean into them.

Here’s your next step. Take the time to listen to your latest customers or your most qualified prospects. Don’t ask them what they think of your product. Ask them what they compare it to. The words they use, the analogies they make, that’s where your true category is hiding. That’s where clarity lies, for them and for you.