Josh Lowman, Founder at Gold Front

Speaker A: Welcome to the B2B Category Creators Podcast. Hosted by Gil Ilush, founder and CEO of Metadata IO. This podcast is all about sharing the real and sometimes uncomfortable secrets of category creation in the B2B software space. On this week's episode we have special guest Josh Lowman, Founder and Chief Creative Officer at Goldfront Category Design Studio.

Speaker B: Welcome everyone to the final episode of Category Creator Podcast. Uh, we are uh, going to change gears uh, going forward but this is the kind of celebratory last episode and we have together uh, with me Josh Lowman. Um, Josh, you want to introduce yourself real quick? Josh?

Speaker C: Yeah. Hi Gil. Um, my name is Josh Lohman, I'm the founder of goldfront. We are the first ever category design studio and that means that we help um, mostly startups, ah or pre IPO tech companies create and own their own category. And we're, we have, about half of us are here in San Francisco, a few down in LA and then strewn about but we uh, have being in San Francisco and in this business for quite a while, we've helped so many um, amazing category creators do what they do, help them with their strategic narrative and then creative execution after that. So Slack, Uber, Clari, newsela, Qualtrics, um, Sentinel one, um, and for me I live here in San Francisco with my wife and two kids and my 17 year old dog that I just bought a stroll or four so I can take them to the park and um, yeah, I'm just very happy to be here.

Speaker B: Thank you, thank uh, you for joining and uh, it's no surprise that you know we decided to do the last episode. First of all we decided to do it 101 because of your experience and what you've done. It's very, very impressive list of customers and company that you work with. Um, and two because uh, it's kind of a wrap up so we'd love to learn from all of your experiences um, working with all of these companies. I also had a, I was happy to hear about your 17 years old dog. You know my dog is 10 years old and, and I'm, I'm worried, I don't know when you know when it's like when it's time out for uh, for the dog. So I'm very happy to hear that. 17 still uh, you know, stroller, no stroller but still you know, kicking and moving. That's cool.

Speaker C: Yeah. And he's um, you know he's a big dog, he's an 80 pound dog so we never expected him to last this long. So we, we're we're blessed.

Speaker B: Hey, you must have provided him with a really good life. Uh, well, thank you again for joining. Um, this podcast is about category creation, although we also dive into, uh, some other personal and founder path. But maybe I'll kick it off with, uh, giving your experience working with all of these companies. You said pre ipo when you think about, um, the clarity. So, you know, you have the Uber, you have the biggest names that everyone knows. Um, Clary is also, because of it's in my space, I'm actually familiar with that company. Can you tell us a little bit about that experience? How early did you start working with a company like Clary?

Speaker C: Clary we started working with in 2019. And they're a really interesting company for anybody who doesn't know. They are a revenue operations platform. And so they help revenue leaders and marketing and sales teams make better decisions around revenue. And they are a kind of classic example of what we call the emergent. Um, so we have determined that there are six different archetypes, um, for archetypes of companies that are category creators. And one of those archetypes is the emergent. And what that means is, especially in startups, often companies, uh, have the same idea for category creation at around the same time. And, um, in Clary's example, they were this emergent category creator where there were Avizo and People, AI and some other companies that were sort of, you know, do it, creating the same category at the same time. But the category leader had not yet been determined by the customer. The customer didn't have the idea that one company was in the lead. And so in that case, when we started working with them, um, the strategy that they needed to go forward with was to frame that emerging category in their favor. And so the way that they did that was to frame the category of revenue operations around forecasting, because forecasting was something that they were very, very good at, um, and that nobody else could really touch them in that area. And so they, you know, they talked about all the other things they do in the category, but forecasting was a big part of the story that they told and their framing of the category. And so, you know, they've been very successful with that. I think, um, sometime in the last six months, G2 named them the number one revenue operations platform. And, um, they've been very successful with that framing of the category.

Speaker B: Man, you said a bunch of things I'm really interested in. Uh, this is fascinating. So you started with them in 2019. Uh, I know that they're very successful. Grew and raised quite a Bit of funding on the path there, uh, today, so fairly early. And then maybe before I jump into my other questions, particularly in comparison for Clary, can you mention the six archetypes that you are?

Speaker C: Sure, yeah. The archetypes are the inventor, the overlooked, the emergent, the second act the better, and the huckster.

Speaker B: What's the huckster?

Speaker C: The huckster is just somebody who talks a good game but can't back it up with any, any real proof. Um, so that could be anybody from something that's sort of a little bit empty, like, say, diapers.com or something that's fraudulent, like Theranos.

Speaker B: Ah. Uh, I see, I see. And the second, uh. How did you call it? The second.

Speaker C: The second, uh, the second act is a classic one. It's, uh, it's a company that has successfully created a category in the first place. Then they usually get to a place where they realize they need to expand, they need to keep growing their business beyond that original category, and they either need to create another category that goes alongside that, that the existing category that they're. They're the leader of, or more likely, they have to broaden their category idea so that it includes something even bigger so they can continue to expand their offer.

Speaker B: Got it. And can you elaborate on the other four?

Speaker C: So Uber is a. Is a classic example of the second act. They second act, they became the category leader of ride sharing. No one would say they're just a ride sharing company. Now they're in urban logistics or whatever it is.

Speaker B: Right, I see. Okay. So they became number one in one aspect of the category, but then others came and then they started innovating to become number one in others, just become a bigger company. What are the other. The other four that you mentioned?

Speaker C: Um, the overlooked, the. Well, the, the inventor, the overlooked. We talked about the emergent, talked about the second act, and the better.

Speaker B: Can you elaborate a little bit on those? I mean, I know I'm interested.

Speaker C: Yeah, I'd be happy to walk you through all of them. So the inventor is the classic company that has a big innovation that is out in front of the world, but the innovation itself is not the same thing as category creation or becoming the category leader. Because becoming the category leader happens in the mind of the customer. So you can invent an, uh, incredibly innovative thing in the world, but it's another thing, another step you have to take to become the leader in the customer's mind. And that's what category creation really is, becoming the leader in the mind of the customer. So the inventor Needs to figure out some kind of way to meet the customer halfway. Because often that innovation is so big that people can't make sense of it. And so the work of the inventor is usually to find some halfway point between this amazing technology that they have and where their customers minds are today.

Speaker B: Can you give an example of that? That sounds fascinating to me.

Speaker C: Uh, yes, I do have actually, like, um, I just did a podcast on this and I'm trying to remember the example. Oh yeah, we had a really nice example of this. Um, we have a client called, uh, Kinetics, and they have an insole, smart, ah, insole that has 48 pressure and velocity sensors in it. And you put these in your shoe, or you have a shoe that's designed with the insole in it. And if you track that information, um, on both feet and you build software that really can make sense of it, you're going to get much better information about human movement than you ever would with any other kind of device. A tracker that goes on your wrist or a phone or whatever. It's not going to get anywhere near the high resolution data about, um, the movement of the body. Um, but it's a hard thing to then go to customers and have them make sense of it because it's like, well, it's a smart insult, has 48 sensors in it. Right. It doesn't necessarily make me go, oh my God, this is going to be revolutionary to, um, athletes and um, fitness aficionados and medicine and things like that. What Kinetics did was, um, very smartly, they came up with this idea of the human kinosome. The human kinosome is like the human genome. It is a map and almost fingerprint of, uh, human movement. They're basically saying that with their smart insole, this is the first time that they've been able to map the human kinosome. And when they tell people it's like the human genome but for, but for movement, people start to understand, oh, there's all kinds of technological breakthroughs that can come from just knowing that information.

Speaker B: Fascinating. I see what you did there.

Speaker C: And so they innovated something really big. But they found this halfway point to describe to customers, uh, so that it could really become meaningful and they could understand just how big it was.

Speaker B: That's cool. Um, what about the other three? I think I don't know about the other people are listening, but I'm already starting to try to decipher which one do we fit into. Um, what about the other type archetypes?

Speaker C: Well, tell me a little bit Tell me about where you are. I was just on your website and I was like, I need this, I need metadata for my own company. But do you want to tell me a little bit about where you are and I can help you figure out?

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker C: What do you call your category?

Speaker B: You know, we just announced, um, ourselves, and we're actually doing a big press conference later today, um, about being the first operating system for the B2B marketer we started. You know, innovation is, uh, what I still consider to be our competitive advantage. We built good amount of tech in the space that is not. Doesn't have usually a lot of tech. So we're in the sales and marketing technology space. Um, there's a lot of messaging, uh, a lot of sales and a lot of good marketing. But vast majority of the companies in the space didn't invest years, um, into the technology. Um, but we have for us. I'm a software engineer by background. That's kind of my comfort zone, if you will. Uh, so the vision for metadata was to build an operating system, something like Salesforce, but for marketers, a place that you can, uh, log in every day. And unlike most technologies and most applications, even if you're not logged in, the system still does a lot of work for you. It has this decision tree that essentially automates all the technical, repetitive, mundane tasks that a B2B marketer has to do. Anything from, you know, building audience segments to enriching leads, to executing campaigns automatically to creating copy, uh, to testing out an experiment with a lot of different permutations, so on and so forth. And we started with demand generation because we realized, well, if we do demand generation and marketers, thanks to this technology, can build predictable pipeline that closes into revenue, then they essentially earn a seat at the table and they don't have to worry about getting kicked out within a year and a half, which is the average 10 or 4 marketer. Uh, but now that we've done that, we've been around for six years, three years was just building the colonial technology. Three, four years, last two years go to market. Uh, now we feel like we ourselves earned the, uh, earned the right to go and execute our bigger vision, which is to build this operating system. Um, does the space exist? I don't know. We're trying to figure that out.

Speaker C: And uh, do you, do you perceive, I mean, most of the clients that we have, when I talk to CEOs, they often say we don't have any competitors. And sometimes that's true and sometimes it's not. But do you think there Are other companies that have also created something similar, or do you feel like you stand alone?

Speaker B: It's a combination. So, uh, yeah, I'm definitely familiar with that conundrum of CEO saying, oh, we don't have any competition. You know, um, when I used to work for Spotfire, uh, this bi tool, when they asked me, like, who is your competition? Is it cognizant? Is it Clickview? Is it tableau? The truth is, vast majority of the time we replace people doing work with spreadsheets. And it's not too different for us. Vast majority of the, uh, of what we do today, even in Salesforce, when we put the competition, if it's in there, more than 50% of the time is people doing things manually or, uh, leveraging agencies to do this technical, repetitive, mundane work. That said, I'm not oblivious of the fact that we are not operating in a vacuum. And there are companies like Zoom Info or six Sense, or Demandbase or Terminus that might be perceived as a complex marketing or, you know, they're starting to like, go into the CDP category because that's sexier and that's kind of the new thing. So they play around with different, with the different acronyms and the different spaces. Uh, but if you kind of combine some of these technologies with the status quo, that kind of represents our competition. Mhm, mhm.

Speaker C: Okay. Yeah. So status quo, like spreadsheets? I wouldn't. That would. If that was your only competition, that would make you the inventor. Right. Um, there's a couple of others that you could be, and it may take a little time to think about it, to decide who you think you are. But, um, one is the Overlooked. You could also be that the overlooked is, um, a company that people lump into an existing category. But people have it wrong. Right? So an example of that is Qualtrics from five years ago. People lumped them in with surveys like SurveyMonkey and Medallion, right? And, you know, folks at Qualtrics knew that they were something much bigger than that. And they figured out how to put, you know, the right words to it. And they came out as the first experience management platform. So they went from the overlooked to, okay, now we're a category creator, right? Um, that you would be that, um, archetype if you feel like customers and analysts are sort of lumping you in with an existing category. But it's not true.

Speaker B: You know, it's fascinating. First of all, uh, it's very interesting to hear you analyze this in real time. Uh, definitely looks like you have a lot of experience because you can do a pattern recognition pretty quickly. You were talking about customers versus analysts. Even when you mentioned, um, when you mentioned the six types, you said the customer hasn't yet determined the category leader. You haven't said analysts until a moment ago. And I wrote it down as a comment. Uh, we haven't really worked with analysts at all. You also mentioned G2, uh, which to me represents the customer a lot more of a yelp for SaaS. Definitely represents more of the customer. Um, and we've done really well with G2. We have, you know, very good, you know, a lot of reviews, very high reviews. That kind of what got us, uh, a seat at the table because, you know, we're uh, for many years we were underfunded and we would compete with companies that are, that raise 10, 20x what we did. And so we didn't have the money to advertise and uh, be included. But what we could do is because of the reviews, when they looked into one of our competitors, they would also realize, oh, metadata is also there and that's how we would win. Um, tell me a little bit about customers versus analysts and how do you, how do you think about all of that?

Speaker C: Yeah, well, analysts come up in conversations all the time. Most of our clients are really interested in having analysts say that whatever category they're creating is officially, ah, a new category that, you know, people in companies are going to have as a line item in their budget. Um, and um, that's certainly the dream and maybe top of the mountain for category creation. But there's a lot of other, um, ways that you can do category creation that don't depend on analysts, um, saying, we've decided that this is a new category. Um, because what really matters is what happens in the mind of the customer. And um, when you come out with your new category and you evangelize it, all that really matters is that the customers that you're going after, enough of them think, this is a new category, this is its own thing, and these guys are the leader of it. Um, and so that can happen without analysts necessarily saying that I've decided that this is a category. And more and more analysts don't want. Um, my sense of it is that more and more analysts don't necessarily want to, uh, take the category name that companies have come up with. They want to be the ones that name the category. And so they, you know, they, they have a reason to kind of want to go their own way.

Speaker B: Absolutely. I mean, it's kind of their, you know, that's probably what they're proud of right. Um, of creating those, those perceptions on their own versus being scripted even by a high paying customer. So do you consider those to be like the old way and new way of category creation? The you know, one way is. The old way is kind of doing the whole analyst play, getting the cool vendors, getting the wave or the magic coordinate, whatever and getting there. And the new way of doing the evangelism. I think Dave Gearhart talked about being your own in the Gary, uh, Verntuktu, being your own media company essentially doing the evangelism on your own, getting a critical mass of customers to agree with you and that will create. Do you consider that the old and new way or how do you see that?

Speaker C: No, I don't consider it that way. That way I prefer more of an all of the above approach. You know if you're going to create a category it's going to be um, challenging and you're going to have a lot of kind um, of headwinds and so you need to kind of pull every lever that you can. But ultimately the decider is the customer's mind. It's not the end list.

Speaker B: That's cool to hear. And what do you think G2's uh, role in G2 and trust radius and the other review sites in this game?

Speaker C: I think it's similar to analysts in that uh, it's a third party that people give a lot of credibility to and really can um, offer a lot of social proof that um, in your communications that you've actually have created this category and that you're the leader of it.

Speaker B: You know, um, when we just started I told you this is going to be kind of the last episode for category creators and you ah, volunteered to talk a little bit about your founder experience. Uh, were you a founder prior or were you referring to the current company that you're running?

Speaker C: This company? I'm the founder of goldfront and while I'm different than um, most founders that I work with because we're not a um, startup, um, I am a category creator and I have many of the same problems that I'm trying to solve as my clients and many of the same fears and ambitions and you know we're trying to um, get our category, category design studio out into the world. We're trying to get it to tip in the mind of our customers. We've got got a long journey to go with that. We just started with this uh, with this category a year and a half ago and um, I've got some sort of successes and failures that I can share with my CEO clients and you know, founder clients that make it sort of easier to relate to the work that they're doing.

Speaker B: Yes. On Street Grid. And uh, how long, how long ago did you start Cold Front?

Speaker C: I think it's eight years ago.

Speaker B: Yeah, eight years ago. Okay, very cool. And when you think about your own competition, like I think category designers and there are a bunch of companies like that. How do you, how do you think about your own competition in your category?

Speaker C: Yeah, that's interesting. I mean I kind of love the whole world of category design. Um, so you know, there's play Bigger is the original category Design consultancy.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker C: And um, we work with them sometimes and they're also friends. Um, there's also category, ah, design advisors, which is another category. Uh, design consultancy. Um, I know you had Kevin, um, on the show, I was listening to that before this, um, great show. And um, and you know it's a, it's a pretty small group of um, professionals. You know, there, there aren't that many category design consultancies. We're the only category design studio, sort of the only ones that um, that do all of the creative execution that you would.

Speaker B: I see. Okay.

Speaker C: Yeah. Once you do the strategy, um, is

Speaker B: that your differentiation or is that one of the differentiations?

Speaker C: Yeah, that's it. That's it. Yeah. It's really interesting because we get m. Generally we get two kinds of opportunities that come in. One is a client needs a rebrand. Ah. A startup needs a rebrand usually. And they're comparing us to um, brand studios. Right. And we come in and say, well, we do brand design, but the strategy that we're going to give you is category strategy and here's why we think it's better. And then we stand out in that situation. And if they want to do category design and they want to rebrand, then we're kind of the only choice. And then on the other side we'll have uh, companies that come in that just um, want to do category design. And in that case we stand out because we do the strategy piece of it. But we also do all the creative execution that you would need. So if you need to rebrand after that, rename your company campaigns, video, we do all that through a category lens. And so I'm a huge convert to category design because I've seen it work for our company. And it's really, really nice in a sales situation to know that you stand alone even if they don't choose you. It's great to know that they have a simple criteria by which to decide to hire you or not.

Speaker B: Absolutely. It's super clear. You said that's it. Uh, that's. That's a differentiation. So you're very clear about who you are, and I think it's very easy for customers to choose that way. Uh, what about strategic narrative? How do you do. Do you find strategic narrative to be a part of a component in any category creation?

Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I am a strategic narrative nerd. I'm a writer. I'm an aspiring screenwriter. And so strategic narrative and screenwriting, it's like they go hand in hand. Um, because a great strategic narrative has all the same major story points as a great screenplay.

Speaker B: Um, and so, yeah, the protagonist and things like that.

Speaker C: Yes. Yep. Yeah. And it has a, um. In screenwriting, they call it an inciting incident. In strategic narrative, we call it the shift. Um, it's. There's something that has sort of thrown the world out of order. Um, recently in the Shift and in a screenplay like Finding, um, Nemo, there's an insight. The inciting incident is that Nemo, uh, gets lost at sea. Right. That's the thing that throws the world out of order. But, uh, yeah. So, um, coming up with strategic narratives and working on those, you know, collaborating on them with our founder clients is probably the most fun, um, that I'll ever have during strategy. And sometimes it's a little bit, um. There's a lot of moments, um, where we are doubting the narrative. We're doubting our own ideas. We're saying, no, no, it needs to be this, where we might be arguing or disagreeing. Then there's moments of exhilaration because we think we found the solution, and then we share it with other executives, and they're like, well, not quite. And it's really wonderful when you get it all working. And then, for example, uh, um, One of our CEOs will send it to their investors and their investor, who they really take their advice seriously. Their investor is like, this is amazing. That is the best feeling. So, yeah, strategic narrative, that's a core of what we do for strategy.

Speaker B: Very cool. Um, so there are the six archetypes. There's strategic narrative. There's the. There's the branding, there's the creative. Um, what else? What. What is. What is your process? Sounds like you really nailed. You have a very good, uh, flow of setting this up. What is your process of working with. Do you usually work with the CEO who is your main point of contact? Uh, working.

Speaker C: We'll only do category design. Um, directly with CEOs, um, because it just doesn't really work if the CEO is not the main champion of category design.

Speaker B: What do you think that that's the case?

Speaker C: Why do I think it's the case? Because the wonderful thing about category design, uh, is that it's a whole company strategy. Um, it really works because it's not brand strategy. It's not something that if you gave it to a product person, they'd be like, well, this is the brand I'm not sure I necessarily need to follow this. Category strategy is one that you do with the CEO, chief product officer, cmo, whoever's running sales. And everybody agrees. You know, this is the, this is the, this is the North Star for everything that we're going to do. So it's not just going to be what we say out in the world, but it's going to change our product roadmap. And um, we not only have to show people what this thing is, but we have to prove it with the product and everything that we do. And so that's why the CEO needs to be the person who's running that.

Speaker B: I see. Would you say that Clary and uh, Uber and um, um, Qualtrics changed your product significantly after the category exercise that you did with them?

Speaker C: Changed our product.

Speaker B: Changed their product.

Speaker C: Oh, changed their product. Oh, yeah, uh, yes, yes. Um, you know, I don't know about Clary because they really had it all together. They had the roadmap already. They just needed more of the story, the category messaging.

Speaker B: I see. So different companies may have gaps in different areas.

Speaker C: Yep. Yeah. And I think it was sort of similar with Qualtric. So if a company has a really good product vision and they know that that's a category creating product vision, then they may lean a little. The help they need may be more in the area of story. Fascinating.

Speaker B: Tell me. Um, that's like half a founder path question, half a category creation question. Tell them about the hashtag fail moment where you did not succeed for whatever reason, just didn't work with the CEO or the company wasn't there or they were not creating a category. And just one of those, uh, in the last eight years, one of those moments where you really felt like that was a failure.

Speaker C: Mhm. Well, the times when it doesn't work, it typically tends to be because the CEO is less involved than we thought that they were going to be or that the perception of what we're doing is different than a whole company strategy. So, um, I can't name any names when I talk about Negative stories. But I can tell you that we had one client who we thought going in that they thought it was going to be a whole company strategy. But it became clear as we worked that they really just wanted marketing messaging. Um, it was something that they ended up using at a conference, but it just sort of went by the wayside because they didn't perceive it to be. This is a whole company strategy. And that's happened a few times.

Speaker B: That makes sense. And that makes sense that that's why you want to work with CEOs only. And so I started asking you about the process and then interrupted you with other questions. What is your process for working with companies? Working with CEOs to figure out their category from kind of start to finish?

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, it starts with sales. So during the sales process, we really want to make sure that we have a few fundamental points of agreement. One is, what big goal is our client trying to achieve? We want to know some kind of concrete number. We want them 3x, um, revenue in the next 18 months. Um, love that. Um, two is what. And actually, this comes before, um, before that. One is, what are you. What industry are you trying to transform? And then three is, how is it that category design or category creation, um, can help you achieve those goals? And, um, so I think it's really important during the sales process that we, and the founders and everybody on the client team, we have some agreement around, like, what are we really trying to do here? Are we going after a really big goal? And do we feel that category design is the greatest point of leverage, um, in order to get there? Um, and so then once we are hired, if we're hired, um, and once we get started, we take a couple weeks to immerse ourselves in what our client is doing. Um, adjacent categories, competitors, kind of reading everything. We'll do a series of stakeholder interviews. So we usually do eight to 10 stakeholder interviews. Usually it's just with our. Our client. But we also do customer, uh, stakeholder interviews.

Speaker B: 101. Yeah. Excuse me, 101, like, or group interviews, one on one.

Speaker C: Uh-huh. Yeah. And, um, you know, at that time, we're all talking and just trying to get our heads around everything, and we're starting to kind of come up with our first ideas of what the category is. Sometimes clients have a really good idea of what they think the category is. Sometimes they're not sure. Um, but we want to go into the first couple workshops with already with some ideas formed so that we can sort of ask about the ideas that we have. Then we'll do two um, workshops and we call them the category POV workshops. And we'll get. It'll be the um, CEO and any co founders, um, whoever runs product, sales, marketing, um, and usually a couple other executives will all be there together. We'll run these interactive workshops in Miro, um, to really dig deep on a few questions. What problem do you uniquely solve? Um, what, who is the customer? Um, what is your vision for the future? What. Give, tell me what it's going to look like in the future for your customer if you are ultimately successful. What is the name of the category? What's the offering? What are the features or benefits of that category? And then can you give us a couple examples of um, of successful outcomes for customers? Case studies, any, anything like that? Um, and once we've got all that information, then we'll go off and write the category POV and we'll come back and I would say, um, it's interesting because during workshops it can feel like a little bit like you're lost in the woods. It can feel like, oh, well, aren't we here in the workshop to solve this thing? But we're not really in the workshop to solve it. We're here to be a little bit like, we don't know what's going on and let's get all the ideas out and, and um. But once we come back with the category POV, I would say at that point, about 60% of the time our clients are like, we love this. We can't believe how fast you got your heads around this. Um, and then I'd say 40% of the time we still have some work to do. But that category POV is three page strategic narrative. It nails all of the key, um, strategic ideas that we need to solve for. So if we have it in that narrative, we have the kind of core ideas that you would need for a messaging house or any of the other kind of strategic documents that would come from that.

Speaker B: Who writes that narrative?

Speaker C: Uh, sometimes it's me, sometimes it's Larry, our executive, um, strategy director, or one of the other strategy directors. Um, we also have a, a creative director who specializes, who's a writer, who specializes on the strategy side.

Speaker B: Very cool.

Speaker C: But I see it all and um, I'm very involved in that piece of it because I really, really want the strategy to be good and really logical and make sense. Um, because it affects all of the work that we do after that. And then we have a couple other workshops. We do a category blueprint so that's a ski. A, uh, sort of schematic of almost, almost like some people call it market, of um, what the category is and how it works. And then we have another workshop around category launch. So now, now that we've defined the category, we need to talk about how are we going to go out and launch it into the world. And we want a launch day where the category is suddenly here and it exists and the day before that it didn't exist. So it can feel like, hey, something really big has happened. And we're going to encourage our clients to put as much energy and um, investment behind that, that moment or that week as they can. And then there's um. And then once we've actually helped them with the planning of category launch, we'll move into creative. And sometimes our clients want to rename their company at that point to go with the category strategy. Um, often they want to rebrand to go with the strategy. So that's what we did for Clary. Um, and we'll move into sometimes campaigns, video, we do in house video production. And it's sort of another love of ours. Um, so, yeah, whatever we can do to be useful and help them, um, um, kind of execute on the category. And that piece of it is so important because you can have the strategy and you can have something that you could send to an investor that the investor is excited about, but if you, if you fail on the execution, it's not really worth that much.

Speaker B: Amen to that every time. For startups, if you fail on the execution, then nothing really happened.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, is there like a start and an end to this process and then you're done, or is there some sort of. Do you still work with Clarity, still work with the Uber and uh, you.

Speaker C: Um, actually we, uh, haven't worked for Uber in a while, uh, and are still in contact with Clarity, but haven't done a project for them, uh, for a while. And most of our clients we're doing the category strategy and then the category launch. Um, we do, we do also do campaigns, but sometimes the campaigns are for more mature companies. So like we do campaigns for Robinhood, but we didn't do their category strategy. Um, so it just depends. But most of our clients we're coming in, doing the strategy and then rebrand and helping them launch and then they're taking it from there.

Speaker B: What's your end goal for your company?

Speaker C: Ah, ah, that's a really good question. I, um, want to be happy. That's my end goal. Um, and it's, you know, and some Days I am, and some days I'm not. But, um, you know, my. My ultimate, um, desire for this would be to grow, uh, the studio and, uh, and sell it someday, um, and allow it to get the kind of investment that it would need to become m. Sort of the ideo, um, of category design.

Speaker B: Got it. Beautiful. That's a clear goal.

Speaker C: Yeah. Um, and also, I have sort of procrastinated on making films, uh, for my whole career. I've been doing, um, advertising and strategy and brand and now category for 25 years. And I want to get back to. I want to make movies. And, um, if I am so lucky to sell, uh, the company someday, I'd like to spend, you know, least, you know, more time writing movies and making them.

Speaker B: Love that, uh, when you said I, uh, want to be happy, that it reminded me, uh, sometimes when I talk to my wife and, uh, and you, uh, know, it's like there's a celebration with a startup and she always likes to do this thing. You know, when I talk about a demonic depression, it is happy and sad and happy and sad.

Speaker C: It's, uh, a roller coaster.

Speaker B: It's just a life that we kind of chose to have.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, but that's funny. I liked hearing you say that. Do you ever get to combine your passion and love for screenwriting and your interest in doing a movie with a category creation? Have you ever created a movie or a commercial or something and kind of got some Hollywood actors, I don't know, combine the two a little bit?

Speaker C: Well, we make TV commercials and, um, videos all the time. And so I get to use that, um, that interest and that skill of mine a lot, um, casting and writing dialogue and writing scripts and, um, directing and things like that. But, um, that's. It's really interesting. It would. It would be really interesting to apply category design to the first movie that I make. You know, why does it need to be a movie? Maybe it's a new category of movie, um, that I. That I write and direct. So, yeah, I'd definitely be interested in applying category design to the things that I do beyond this.

Speaker B: I immediately, uh, thought about, uh, that movie, the last episode of, um, Black Mirror, where you get to play. You know, you get to decide.

Speaker C: Exactly. Exactly. Yep. Yeah. The interactive.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker C: Yep.

Speaker B: Um, can you tell me in the last eight years, what is kind of the biggest project you're proud of, the thing you're most proud of that happened that you did?

Speaker C: It's funny because in the. In the office, just in the studio, there's A, A, uh, project that we did where I. It was a very short video that we did. A very short project. We had a client come in and they were a category creator and they said, we need a video. And um, I said, okay, well, videos like the range of cost would be about this much. And they said, well, we don't have that much. We only have, I think it was something like $30,000. And you know, we were kind of a small, scrappy studio, but they wanted a live action video for that much. And um, normally I would just say no, but I said, well, if we could just only do it ourselves. We're the actors. It's all of our gear. We do it in our office. From writing the script to shooting it to doing all the post production. It's done in two weeks, then we could do this and we could actually be profitable doing that. And so that's what we did. And I was one of the two actors in it. It was like me and uh, another, um, and a copywriter that worked for me. And it's certainly not, um, one of our best videos, but it's something I'm really proud of. And that was a lot of fun to work on.

Speaker B: That's so creative. I love the fact that you didn't say no and you figured out how to say yes. Would love to see a link to that video if you can ever share that. Sounds sure.

Speaker C: Yeah, I'd be happy to. Yeah. I mean really, the client had a lot of courage and they said yes to something that normally, um, 99% of clients would not say yes to. Like, hey, this can be profitable for us if we do it in exactly this way. And you've got to agree to these terms. And they're like, yes, we believe in you, and, and that. And you know, I think for their business it turned out really good.

Speaker B: That's where the magic happens. That's awesome. Um, what advice do you have for, uh, when you're pre IPO is. Uh, I don't know. I consider that fairly late. But what do you, uh, what, what advice do you have for companies who just raised their A, just raised their B, Uh, they want to be creating their own categories. They want to be the number one in their categories. Um, where should they get started?

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I think of it as there's two essential things that the founder of a startup needs to concern themselves with. I'm sure there's many more, but the two things that I think of is that thing that you're inventing and how your customers will understand it. And if you are a startup and you're taking a lot of investment, you're basically telling your investors we are going to transform or disrupt an entire industry. And that makes you um, by definition an aspiring category creator. There is no version of we're going to transform an entire industry that is like we're going to make something that's incrementally better than something that already exists. Right. And so, you know, going back to those two things, that thing that you're making, and then um, convincing customers that that's something totally new in the world. Right? And I think you can do that on as small or big of um, um, uh, you can, you can do it in a very small way. So if you have no investment whatsoever, you can come up with, hey, I've got this idea for an innovation. Now is that something that is a new category and you compare those two and you use them to, you can use the two things to inform each other. Um, oh, uh, yes, I've got this innovation, but that would still make it just in an existing category, but it's sort of an incremental improvement. Okay, then I need to go back to the thing that I'm inventing and make that bigger. Okay, now I've made it bigger. Okay, how am I going to convince, um, now it's big enough to be a category, but I don't have the words to say that. Um, now I've got to figure out how to put that story together so people can understand it as a new category and what it really is. And I think that I really like that model for um, what the founder of a startup should be doing and that you can do um, those two activities in very small ways. When you come up with your innovation in the beginning, hey mvp, let's just put like, put something together and see what it is. And you can do the same thing with category design. You can come up with just like, oh, well I've got a, I've got a, just a name for what the category is in a single sentence. That can be your category design when you're, when you're just starting out and then you can scale up those activities as you go.

Speaker B: It's, it almost sounds like a decision making framework. Whether it's early, early on. Exactly.

Speaker C: Yep, yep, that's how I think of it.

Speaker B: Josh, it was uh, such a pleasure talking to you. You're a wealth, uh, of uh, knowledge about category creation. So thank you for sharing all of that.

Speaker D: Thanks again for joining uh, us. I hope that you enjoyed today's discussion and will tune in again. Find all the B2B category creators episodes, uh, at metadata IO and if you have any feedback topics or would like to be a guest on the show, please reach.

Speaker C: Sam.