Scott Brown and I discuss how an interviewing exec should approach the topic of “Category Creation” when brought up by the CEO in an interview.
Rather than spend our time defining the term- as there’s plenty of that out there- we instead discussed how to articulate its inherent time horizon and ownership criteria. From there, we draw recommendations on how to reframe the discussion to sidestep the risk of having the CEO expect you to ‘check the box’.
Terry Shaw: Category creation is a term we’re hearing repeatedly in the industry. Dare I say, it’s become a buzzword; there’re plenty of people out there talking about “what it is” and “how to do it”. So I want to meet it from a slightly different angle here:
If you are a marketer interviewing with the founder or CEO, who flags Category Creation as a goal or vector within their assessment, how do you meet them on the subject authentically?
I’ve got my friend Scott Brown here, who described Category Creation to me the other day as the “paradigm shift” term of the 2020’s. Scott is the head of platform services for Cervin Ventures and previously was CMO at Sapphire Ventures, as well as having completed tours of duty for a number of early-stage startups and little companies you may have heard of like Google, Cisco and Facebook.
Scott, you’ve seen it all, so tell me honestly, am I way off-piste here, being concerned with Category Creation’s ascent to the top of the founder’s shopping list when hiring their Marketing leaders?
Scott Brown: Terry, thanks for having me on. Yes, content creation is a topic du jour right now. Everyone is talking about it, which is why I say, it’s the “paradigm shift” phrase this year – because back in the late 90s, early 2000s, that’s all anybody could talk about was paradigm shifts. Just like paradigms, Category Creation is the current topic that a lot of executives, especially at startups, want to focus on.
Interestingly, I saw a wave of this back in the 2010s when the notion of Category Creation initially developed – especially with companies like HubSpot creating “inbound marketing” and Airbnb creating their notion of community and short-term housing rentals.
To your question: I’d, too, be worried if I heard a CEO bring up category creation, especially in a hiring process with a marketer. Saying “we want to do category creation” – I think that’s a misguided approach. That is looking for an end game and not thinking about what it is that we’re trying to do and why do we want to get there?
Terry Shaw: Totally agree. Totally agree. And it’s creating real problems in the assessment of fit… The term itself is framing something so big picture- something inherently long term- that it’s causing internal friction with the founder. Most start-up founders are traditionally technically-minded. And they have generally learned- by necessity- to manage their business- changing month to month, quarter to quarter- by focusing on readily measurable tactics of execution… They’ve become accustomed to attributing an outcome to an effort within a much smaller time frame than Category Creation dictates… So by shifting the dialogue to talking big-picture-Category-Creation, we get misunderstanding. Which leads to misassessment. Which leads to- invariably, when I’ve seen this play out with CMOs- organ rejection.
Scott Brown: A lot of this is, I hate to say it, is herd mentality, right? We’ve had things like this come up before. Do you remember viral videos and ABM motions and all of these things that became topics amongst the founder/CEO set. They’d say “Oh, I had a friend who was really successful because they said they did check the box here, so I need a CMO who’s done that. I want you to do that as well.”
And they’re not thinking about the bigger ecosystem that this approach occupies. So let’s take a step back: What do we mean by category creation? I think one of the biggest issues we have is people hear the buzzword and they’re like, I want that. Who wouldn’t want that, right? But the way I look at it, because I’ve been lucky enough or unlucky enough to participate in several efforts to try to create a category, and I will say it is lightning in a bottle.
A lot of category creation is being at the right time, the right place, with a good story, and then doing the hard work to actually create a new market conversation. This is not just a single asset you put out there. It’s not a one-time video. With category creation, you are trying to create, sponsor and propagate a conversation in the market.
Scott Brown: So what do we mean by category creation? I think it’s more than just creating a new label. It’s a framework and a way to think about where the world is headed. It’s not just a moniker, or a catchphrase. It is really about you as an executive team and as an organization calling the shot for where you think the world is going, and then trying to contextualize that for everybody who doesn’t see it yet.
And I don’t think that CEOs really realize the long-term nature and comprehensive view which achievement of that requires. They just want a cool catchphrase.
Terry Shaw: That’s a well-framed foundation to the specificity of what this is about. But then if we pull it back into the context that I wanted to discuss, which is “when a CMO is interviewing with a founder and the founder brings this up: how do you engage with that subject?” …How do you reframe what it is to the CEO when the conversation is, by its very nature, the CEO interviewing you and outlining assessment criteria which they’re then going to stack-rank you against all other candidates.
Scott Brown: I’ll take the CMO perspective for a moment, which is if any CEO asks me specifically about category creation, that’s a red flag for me.
Unless they are able to actually outline their thinking of what they mean and why they want it – and what they’re willing to do to earn it. It means they’re just asking about a buzzword, right? And if they want the buzzword, you’re going to have a hard time because they have some preconceived notion about that and they’re looking for you to fill in the blank.
If you don’t fill in the blank correctly, you’re going to be out the door. So I think the way that I would engage in the topic is to get them to engage in a conversation about:
- Why did they found this company?
- What is it about the product, the technology that is so unique?
- What was the bigger cultural, economic, political, or social trend that you recognize that nobody else has (and you are building a product and a solution for that)?
Because I really believe a category creation is not just putting a new label on an old thing. It’s saying, “Hey, there’s a different direction the world is going in and I’m building a solution for that future, not the old way.”
Let’s use HubSpot because it’s such a famous example. They said, “In the future, it’s not going to be salespeople calling people in an outbound motion. It’s going to be companies putting information and content out there that is so interesting that people start reaching out to you to learn more. An inbound motion”
For that reason, category creation is not just the CMO’s responsibility, because when you’re talking about this bigger contextual issue, it means Product has to align to this vision, it means your go-to-market motion has to align, your executive vision on where the company’s headed. They all have to align to say, here’s the North Star of what we’re building to.
Terry Shaw: Yeah, you can’t just have a salesperson hopping on a call with a prospect saying, “we’re creating this new category! Look at all this collateral that my CMO’s given me! This is what it is now!”
Scott Brown: Instant credibility zapper, right there. We’ve all received those pitches, right? You’re dead in the water if you approach content creation that way. My personal approach and philosophy on this is that executives, as individuals, are one of the most effective ways to start this conversation and propagate this story in the market.
The company has to have a corporate narrative that aligns to it, but the sales person really has to be based on substance and near-term deliverable. Like “here is the product we’re delivering today. And oh, by the way, here’s the 6-month roadmap” or something like that. But they can’t talk 5, 10 years out because there’s nothing for the customer to buy. They need to remain credible as a brand.
Executives, on the other hand, can have opinions. They can talk about their insights and where they are leading the company. I was lucky enough to work around John Chambers at Cisco when he was talking about why networking and the Internet were going to impact productivity and economic growth around the world. And he was talking five, 10 years out.
Some of the research and hypotheses his team put together were remarkably accurate 10 years later. He wasn’t talking about how this networking switch was 20% faster, he focused the conversation on how this technology was going to change the way we work, live, learn and play. As an executive, he could say here’s how we believe the world will be, which is why we’re building these products.
And over time, that conversation progresses as people start to see the proof points. Those proof points come from the market, and they come from what your company is building. As you continue to talk about the same themes, customers start to say “Oh, you’re right! I’m seeing the same thing”.
Terry Shaw: OK so now we’re redefining the authoritative voice. So with that redefinition of ownership of coming from the very top; coming from the CEO, how does a prospective CMO react when the topic is surfaced in an interview? She can’t just say “well no it’s all on you”. She instead needs to push for alignment across that wider Executive Office – the CEO’s reports. She can identify a set of valid levers that are available within the office of the CMO but to really educate the CEO I think she needs to go a step further… What, therefore, is the split in ownership between the short term and long term? …Between the CMO’s remit and the broader executive office’s remit- in meeting that objective of Category Creation? I guess that’s the direction needing taking here to really unpack and realign with the founder.
Scott Brown: Again, I’ve been lucky enough to participate in some of these efforts and help portfolio companies who have tried it and whatnot, and I would say 1 of the critical success factors in that is the CEO’s commitment and understanding of that vision that you’re trying to put out in the market. If they are not living and breathing that vision – and they’re baking that into the DNA and culture of the business – your chances of success are cut in half right out of the gate. And so in an interview process where a CEO is asking me about category creation, I’d really be trying to understand: do they have a clear vision of where they’re leading the company and clear reason for why they built the company.
Or is this a company that’s just a, we have a “our color blue on the action button is slightly different than everybody else’s,” Me Too kind of situation? Or are they really thinking about the endgame? And that doesn’t mean that every CEO has to be super charismatic on stage like a John Chambers or anybody like that.
It means that CEOs have to be comfortable in their medium, whether that’s meeting with customers, written word, just frankly, even internally. That they are going to develop what I would call a political stump speech that outlines: Here’s where the world is going, here’s why you want to vote for me. And they’re going to be saying a version of that stump speech for the next two plus years. Because it takes that long sometimes for the conversation to really happen.
I like to tell marketers who get charged with these kind of efforts to be prepared: the time that you are sick and tired of saying the same exact thing is about the time you have a customer say, “Wow, that’s really interesting, I’ve never heard that before.”
Of course, you’ll think: “I’ve been saying it until I’m blue in my face!” I think that’s one of the challenges I’ve seen in Silicon Valley is we’re so fixated on the ‘next new thing’ that we change our messaging every three to six months. Some of what you’re trying to assess in the CEO is: “do they have the stamina to stick with this story for as long as it’s going to take to actually have people pay attention?”
Terry Shaw: Yeah, it’s the delayed recognition isn’t it? That comes from that. I think before when we were talking about this offline, there was a really neat catchphrase you’d used, which was “The Revisionist History”. This whole topic, if we zoom out, can only have successful execution assigned to it retrospectively, rather than be tracked and measured as moving in the right direction in the moment. So it’s imperative to set the correct time horizon, or educate the founder around the time horizon, when such long term thinking has almost been beaten out of them in terms of needing to find measurable, quantifiable sections of the company’s performance or growth, from which to be able to report to investors.
And this kind of fits outside of that by its very nature. And that’s a tricky thing for I think a lot of founders to parse together, but it is- for the marketer or CMO interviewing with such a founder that calls this out- imperative that they educate the founder around that. To set expectations accordingly. Because otherwise that’s where things begin to sour through misalignment.
Scott Brown: Though I would say the opposite can be true. I’m working with a CEO right now – and I won’t name drop the company – but she has an amazing view on where the industry is headed. She’s built this company and in some ways she’s thinking too small because she’s focused on the tactical go to market and how to generate revenue. And then I heard her tell her story, the origin of the idea for the company, what’s happening in her industry. And I’m like, “that’s your vision pitch right there!” It helped explain everything about the solution they are building. So I’m immediately thinking “As a CEO, why are you not out on the road saying those things and leaving your sales people to talk about why your product is better than the competitions?” Your job as CEO is to tell people why your product is better than the old way of thinking about their problems. As the exec, you shouldn’t focus on the speeds and feeds of your product. Because if you can set context for your C-level buyer of your product and get them to say Yep, I’m seeing that trend in my business.” And they turn to their organization and say “I just heard this really interesting talk on what’s going to happen to our business if we don’t pay attention.” You’ve got to go talk to them, right? That should be the role of the CEO and the leadership team.
Terry Shaw: But the CEO therefore needs to be open to listening and taking that steer from the CMO, allowing the CMO to be the puppet master to a degree. Because they become a very valuable asset as part of the marketing mix: that power dynamic needs to be understood and done so in a non-emotional way.
Scott Brown: What do you mean by that? Because I could see emotion playing deeply into it, it’s a very effective storytelling narrative technique, but it’s almost like understanding your roles, your swim lanes.
Terry Shaw: I’m extrapolating away the emotion from the externally projected emotion and conviction and focusing on the precise and deliberate calibration between CEO and CMO on remit, deliverables, and expectations…
Scott Brown: That’s why we’re having this conversation. Because if you can’t have this kind of debate, like we’re having right here, with the leadership team and your CEO about “What do we mean about the vision? Why are we doing this? Why do you want to create a category?” You’re dead.
If the interview process is to show the CEO a project plan to create a category, it’s a nonstart. There is no secret checklist. It is lightning in a bottle, it’s being in the right time, the right place, with the right story, and having the fortitude to keep telling that story, even as you’re constantly evolving it with new data points.
To your point we were talking about the revisionist history. It’s really like you need to establish the framework that allows you to incorporate new anecdotes and new data points as they become available and say, Oh, here’s how this either fits into my story or doesn’t. And let me explain that to you.
So I think the example that always sticks in my head is from when I was involved at Cisco with John Chambers on this big economic study on the productivity impact of internet technologies. And I was part of the research team and I found this statistic in the data: the companies that bought new internet technologies and then reworked their processes to use that technology, actually saw a steep productivity decline. Not what we wanted to see. But companies that spent the time upfront to figure out what the process was and then bought technology to actually enable it or change it saw huge productivity increases. I remember I was very afraid because I was in the meeting with John where we brought this data up and I thought he was going to say this whole effort was rubbish and get rid of it.
Instead, he latched onto that data point. He was like, that’s amazing. Because I would love to be able to go to our customers and say, Hey, do I want you to buy our gear? Absolutely. However, I want you to be successful. I want you to think about how you would use our gear and get it right. Go talk to the Accentures and McKinsey’s of the world to figure out your process. So that way when you buy my stuff, you actually see the benefit of it.
And that helped build credibility with audiences. They were like “wait a minute, you’re not just telling me to buy stuff. You’re selling me on how I should be thinking about the future.” And that’s where we started this conversation… My perspective on category creation is about creating a new conversation with the market and your customers. It is not an argument. You’re not pushing against the status quo or saying the current way is broken. You don’t just get to say “you said my buzzword and therefore I’m done.” No. I believe one of the first signs of success for category creation is when you get people to disagree with you. I think your vision of the world is wrong. Okay, great. Let’s have that conversation.
Terry Shaw: Yeah you reframe where the world is going, but then you do have to wait for people to catch up and start to repeat it on your behalf. Because whilst you’re one person banging the drum, that’s not category creation. That’s a crazy person carrying a placard and screaming on the corner of San Francisco saying this, that, or the other.
Scott Brown: And that candidly is the other big issue that I see with CEOs who specify that they want you to go build a category because they want to be the only person in that category. If you’re the only possible solution category, it’s not a category. It’s a sales pitch. So you need to define the world big enough to allow other players in there so that the conversation can catch on because you want people to saying I disagree with Terry’s worldview. I have an alternative solution. Great. Now we’re having a substantive debate that’s going to cause a conversation to happen. Again, if you frame the discussion right: you’re controlling the debate. And that’s why I say the first time somebody disagrees with you, you’re starting to make traction because now they’re responding to your logic.
Not out there propagating their own.
Terry Shaw: Yeah, and I think if you frame it as such in that dialogue with the CEO – the CEO who has brought this up as a vector by which they will be assessing the CMO-to-be-hired – by giving them the authority and the power back: I think that’s going to resonate with them as well.
So I think that there is a degree of saying “you’re the one that’s really controlling what this narrative will be. This isn’t something you’re handing over to me to then take on and then give you a bunch of measurable quarter/half year/yearly output, directly applicable to specific activities: it’s more about ‘I can help you be the custodian of setting the new narrative’ – it’s still going to sit with you”.
Scott Brown: I would say the CMO then, in many ways, is the Project Manager or orchestrator. Because again, the CEO or the founder doesn’t have to be the only evangelist. And it again doesn’t mean you have to be on stage or talking to Wall Street Journal.
It’s how do you imbue this across the organization? So if a CEOis really pressing me on these things of ‘how would you do this?’ I think one of my first reactions would be, show me the product roadmap and how are you building a solution that answers this question?
Because if you don’t have the substance to back that up, or at least a notion of how you’re going to get there, you’re not going to be very convincing. If you don’t have that, I’m not sure that we have a tight enough definition of what that vision is for me to go run a campaign around it.
Now again, you and I have had many joking conversations about this: I think there is the difference between a flashy marketing campaign, generating some near term buzz, and a long term category creation effort. I believe a category creation efforts builds up long term value and really differentiates you from everybody else, but it’s not going to be a quick win.
Terry Shaw: Yeah, I’m with you. We said this was going to be a 10 minute conversation. I think we were optimistic, thinking we said that we could squeeze in that way. We’ve run almost double over time and I think we could do another hour easily Without being too set on this. I think you wrote a really interesting article about this a while back now
We’ll post the link to that for anyone to pick on and go and look into and where this dialogue between us originated. Yeah, I think for now let’s put a pin in this. We’ll put our contact details under this as well to allow anyone else to pick up the conversation with us directly when necessary.
Scott Brown: Yes, absolutely. Thank you for inviting me to chat with you about this. And I think it’s a real service to CMOs because I know for a fact they’re getting asked this in the hiring process as it’s a real topic of focus for CEOs because they’ve heard other people talking about it.
It’s good to know that you’re not alone and trying to figure out how you can both tell a good enough story to get the job so you can actually give it a shot. So there’s two stages of that conversation, but thank you for waxing poetic about this topic.
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