Top 16 'Category-Creating' Growth Hacks to learn for entrepreneurs building a brand in a crowded market - Goh Ling Yong
Are you tired of shouting into the void? You’ve built a fantastic product, your team is brilliant, and you know you offer incredible value. Yet, you’re stuck in a brutal fight for attention in a market that feels more like a crowded stadium where everyone is screaming at the same time. This is the reality for most entrepreneurs today. The "better, faster, cheaper" playbook is broken.
When you try to be a "better" version of the market leader, you’re just reinforcing their dominance. You’re playing their game, by their rules, and they've had a massive head start. So, what’s the alternative? Stop playing the game altogether. Instead of trying to win the category, create a new one. This is the art of category design, a powerful strategy for breaking away from the competition and becoming a legend in your own right.
Category creation isn't just clever marketing; it's a fundamental shift in how you see your business and the problem you solve. It's about reframing the conversation, educating your market on a new way of thinking, and positioning your brand as the one and only solution. Here are 16 'category-creating' growth hacks to help you carve out your own space and build a brand that can't be ignored.
1. Solve a "Micro-Problem"
Instead of tackling a massive, well-known problem head-on, find a tiny, nagging, and unaddressed part of that problem. This "micro-problem" is often overlooked by the big players, giving you an opening to become the undisputed expert in solving it.
By focusing your entire company on this one specific pain point, you can build a product that is 10x better than any feature a competitor might cobble together. Once you’ve dominated this niche, you earn the right to expand. Customers see you as the authority and are more willing to follow you as you solve adjacent problems.
- Example: Superhuman didn't try to build a better "email client." They focused on solving the micro-problem of "power users wasting time in their inbox." They built the "fastest email experience ever made" for a very specific type of person, and their waiting list became legendary.
2. Invent a New Language
The words we use shape how we think. If you can create and popularize new terminology for the problem you solve, your process, or your customer, you own the conversation. When people start using your language, they are implicitly buying into your worldview—and your solution.
This isn't just about coining a catchy phrase. It's about defining a new methodology or framework that makes the old way of doing things seem outdated. Your new language becomes a shorthand for the value you provide, making your brand synonymous with the solution itself.
- Example: HubSpot didn't just sell marketing software; they created and evangelized the concept of "Inbound Marketing." They wrote the book on it (literally), created certifications, and built a massive content empire around the term. Now, when people think of inbound marketing, they think of HubSpot.
3. Create a New Metric
The market measures success in established ways (e.g., ROI, revenue, uptime). If you can introduce a new, more meaningful metric that your product is uniquely good at improving, you change the entire game. You’re no longer being judged by your competitors' standards; you’re being judged by yours.
This new metric should tie directly to a core, previously unquantifiable value you provide. Educate the market on why this new metric is the real indicator of success. Publish data, case studies, and reports that benchmark this metric and show how your customers are crushing it.
- Example: Salesforce didn't just sell a CRM. They pioneered the concept of "Customer Success" as a key business function and metric. They shifted the focus from just managing contacts to actively ensuring customers achieved their goals, creating an entirely new category of software and job roles in the process.
4. The "Enemy" Framing
One of the most powerful ways to define your category is to define what you're against. By clearly identifying an "enemy"—be it an outdated technology, an inefficient process, a frustrating industry norm, or a monopolistic competitor—you create a compelling narrative.
This creates a "for us or against us" dynamic that galvanizes a tribe of followers. You're not just selling a product; you're leading a rebellion against a shared frustration. Your brand becomes a symbol of a better future, and your customers become your fellow revolutionaries.
- Example: Apple's legendary "1984" ad positioned them not as a computer company, but as a force for individuality and creativity against the monolithic, Orwellian conformity of "Big Blue" (IBM). It was a powerful statement that created a new category of personal computing centered on the user, not the machine.
5. Develop a Unique Philosophy or Manifesto
People don't just buy what you do; they buy why you do it. A manifesto is a powerful tool to articulate your company's core beliefs, values, and vision for the world. It’s a rallying cry that attracts customers and employees who share your worldview.
Your manifesto shouldn't be a fluffy mission statement. It should be opinionated, passionate, and maybe even a little controversial. It should lay out your vision for a new way of living, working, or thinking. This transforms your brand from a vendor into a movement.
- Example: Lululemon's manifesto, with phrases like "Friends are more important than money" and "Do one thing a day that scares you," helped create a category of "athleisure" that was about more than just yoga pants. It was about a lifestyle of wellness, mindfulness, and self-improvement.
6. Niche Down, Then Dominate
The path to creating a massive category often starts by winning a tiny one. Instead of targeting "small businesses," target "plumbers in Austin, Texas with 5-10 employees." Start with an audience so specific that you can become their undisputed champion.
This hyper-focus allows you to tailor your product, marketing, and messaging with surgical precision. You'll understand their needs better than anyone else and build deep-rooted loyalty. Once you've achieved total domination in this micro-niche, you can use that beachhead to expand into adjacent markets.
- Example: Facebook didn't launch to the world. It launched exclusively for Harvard students. After dominating Harvard, it expanded to other Ivy League schools, then all colleges, and only then, the world. This disciplined, sequential approach allowed them to build an unassailable network effect.
7. The "Ingredient Brand" Play
Sometimes, the best way to create a category is to become a critical component of someone else's. An "ingredient brand" provides a specific technology, material, or feature that adds significant value to a host product, and it is marketed directly to the end consumer.
You become synonymous with a specific quality, like speed, safety, or luxury. Consumers start looking for your brand inside the products they buy, forcing manufacturers to include you. You create a new category of "must-have components."
- Example: "Intel Inside." Intel didn't sell computers, but they brilliantly marketed their microprocessors to the public. People started asking, "Does it have Intel inside?" when buying a PC, forcing every computer manufacturer to feature Intel chips and the iconic sticker.
8. Re-segment the Audience
Don't accept the market's predefined customer segments. Create your own by looking at the world through a different lens. Instead of segmenting by traditional demographics (age, location), segment by psychographics (values, beliefs), behaviors, or a specific "job-to-be-done."
By identifying and naming a new type of customer, you can speak directly to their unique identity and needs. You're essentially telling them, "We see you, we understand you, and we built this just for you." This fosters an incredibly powerful sense of belonging. As my friend and mentor Goh Ling Yong often says, "Don't find customers for your products, find products for your customers."
- Example: Airbnb didn't see the world as "hoteliers" and "tourists." They re-segmented the market into "hosts" (people with spare space) and "travelers seeking local experiences." This created a new category of travel that was personal, authentic, and community-driven.
9. Build a Proprietary Dataset
In a world drowning in information, unique data is king. If you can collect, analyze, and present data in a way no one else can, you create an invaluable asset that can define your category. This data can become the foundation for everything you do.
Turn your proprietary data into industry benchmark reports, free tools, and compelling content that journalists and influencers will cite. This positions you as the ultimate authority and source of truth in your space. Your product becomes the tool to improve the very metrics you've made famous.
- Example: Okta, a leader in identity management, publishes the "Businesses @ Work" report each year. It uses their anonymized customer data to show which apps and services are trending. This report gets massive media coverage and cements Okta's position as the central nervous system of the modern enterprise.
10. Productize a Service
Many new categories are born when a company takes a complex, expensive, and manual service (like consulting or agency work) and turns it into a scalable, automated, and affordable product—often a SaaS tool.
This hack works because you're starting with a proven need. You already know what customers are willing to pay high prices for. By systematizing the process and embedding the expertise into software, you democratize access to the solution, creating a much larger market than the original service could ever address.
- Example: Moz started as an SEO consulting agency. They took their internal processes, knowledge, and checklists and built them into a suite of SEO software tools. This allowed them to scale their impact far beyond what a service-based model ever could, creating the category of "SEO software."
11. Merge Two Unrelated Categories
Innovation often happens at the intersection of different fields. Take a concept, model, or idea from a completely unrelated industry and apply it to yours. This mashup can lead to a breakthrough that feels both surprising and instantly intuitive.
Think about what happens when you combine "X" with "Y." What does a subscription model for transportation look like? What does a social network for scientists look like? The collision of these two worlds can spark the creation of an entirely new category.
- Example: ClassPass merged the "gym membership" category with the "subscription box" model (like Birchbox). Instead of being locked into one gym, users could pay a monthly fee to access a variety of fitness classes across different studios. This created the new category of "fitness marketplace subscriptions."
12. The "Format-First" Content Strategy
Content marketing is crowded. Instead of just writing blog posts like everyone else, you can create a category by owning a specific format of content and becoming the absolute best in the world at it.
This could be a daily podcast, an incredibly in-depth weekly newsletter, a series of documentary-style videos, or long-form, data-driven case studies. By mastering a unique format, your content becomes a destination—a "show" that people tune into. Your brand becomes the media company for your industry. This is a topic I know Goh Ling Yong is particularly passionate about, emphasizing the power of becoming the primary source of information in your niche.
- Example: First Round Review, a publication by venture capital firm First Round, didn't create another startup blog. They pioneered a format of deeply researched, tactical, long-form articles featuring insights from top tech operators. They became the "Harvard Business Review for startups," creating a new category of actionable editorial content.
13. Design a Unique Business Model
Sometimes, the most disruptive innovation isn't in the product itself, but in how you sell it. By challenging the industry's standard pricing and delivery model, you can create a new category of value and convenience for the customer.
Are your competitors selling expensive, one-time licenses? Offer a flexible subscription. Are they charging per user? Charge based on consumption. A business model innovation can make an otherwise similar product feel like a completely different and superior choice.
- Example: Dollar Shave Club didn't invent a better razor blade. They created a new category by innovating the business model. They took on the "printer-and-ink" model of Gillette (cheap handles, expensive cartridges) with a simple, affordable monthly subscription, delivered right to your door.
14. Champion a New Role or Job Title
If your product is truly transformative, it might require a new type of professional to wield it effectively. By identifying, naming, and championing this new role, you create a powerful flywheel for your category.
Create content, training, certifications, and communities specifically for this new profession. As the job title gains traction and people start putting it on their LinkedIn profiles, your product becomes the indispensable tool for that role. You're not just selling software; you're creating careers.
- Example: Gainsight was instrumental in creating and popularizing the role of the "Customer Success Manager" (CSM). They built a massive conference (Pulse) and educational resources all centered around the profession of customer success, making their software the de facto platform for every CSM.
15. Create a "Movement" Through Community
The most durable categories aren't built on products; they're built on shared identities. Go beyond building a user group and foster a genuine movement. This means creating a community centered around a shared purpose, lifestyle, or belief system that your brand facilitates but doesn't control.
The community becomes the product. People join for the sense of belonging and the connection to like-minded individuals. Your physical product is simply the tool they use to participate in the movement. This creates an incredibly powerful moat that competitors can't replicate with features or pricing.
- Example: CrossFit isn't just a workout program; it's a global movement. It has its own language ("WOD," "AMRAP"), ethos, and fiercely loyal community. People don't just "do CrossFit"; they are CrossFitters. The brand created a new category of fitness as a competitive sport and lifestyle.
16. The "Radical Simplification" Hack
Find something that is notoriously complex, expensive, or requires specialized expertise, and make it radically simple and accessible. This isn't about incremental improvement; it's about a 10x leap in ease of use.
This approach opens up the market to a massive new audience of non-experts who were previously excluded. You create a new category by democratizing a powerful capability, shifting the power from a small group of gatekeepers to the masses.
- Example: Before Canva, creating professional-looking graphics required expensive software like Adobe Photoshop and years of training. Canva took the power of graphic design and made it accessible to everyone through a simple, drag-and-drop interface. They created a new category of "design for non-designers."
Stop Competing, Start Creating
The noise in today's market is deafening. Trying to be a little bit better than the established leader is a recipe for frustration and failure. The real opportunity lies in changing the game entirely. By creating a new category, you get to define the rules, set the standard, and become the undisputed king of a market of one.
These 16 hacks aren't just clever tricks; they are strategic frameworks for thinking differently about your business and the value you bring to the world. Pick one or two that resonate with you and start exploring how you can apply them. The goal is to make the competition irrelevant.
What's a 'category-creating' company you admire? Do you have another growth hack to add to the list? Share your thoughts in the comments below—I'd love to hear them!
About the Author
Goh Ling Yong is a content creator and digital strategist sharing insights across various topics. Connect and follow for more content:
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