Category Design vs. Positioning: Why Story Beats Spin

Speaker A: Dustin, Mike. Uh, great to see you. Do you guys mind giving you the quick background about yourselves? Dustin, uh, we'll start with you. Tell me, tell me your background, kind of work you're doing, how you got there, things like that.

Speaker B: So I grew up on the Internet. I started an Internet business in the 90s that became backcountry dot com. And so I built a brand digitally that was B2C. And that's kind of like where I learned how to do all this. And so it proved a few unique challenges. Just we were. So we were specialty retailers, specially outdoor. So it was a niche. And then it had no physical presence, but the activities people did were very physical. Skiing, biking, hiking, camping. And so it was like a unique challenge to connect with the customers digitally. So we had to build this brand that ultimately people did tattoo on themselves. So that was kind of like how I learned how to connect a message to a person. And early on in that process, Mike came in to do our public relations and to build a brand and do pr. There's zero chance we were doing press release pr. So Mike came in and we did, we issued press releases, but they were not atypical. And the press releases themselves would make news. So that's kind of, um, yeah, how it all started. And then just that that's evolved into building software, realizing software companies don't know how to measure themselves, and kind of running a playbook that we have that's worked in consumer for SAS companies.

Speaker A: Mike, I want to hear more about this. The PR background, uh, press releases that don't feel like normal press releases is a good way to get into this.

Speaker C: Yeah, we always anchor, we still do in a lot of ways. And um, make the news. And that has dual meaning. One is to literally get covered by the news, but also it's to manufacture the news, find the story that the company wants to tell and sell, and find a way to make it interesting and, uh, newsworthy, quote, unquote. And so that's always been the approach to pr, but it's also kind of the approach to what we do in category strategy is to kind of find those levers or those side doors to be able to get people to pay attention without saying the same thing everybody else is saying. So I mean, my background is pr. I was a creative director at uh, more of a traditional advertising agency. I was a strategy director for advertising agency. And it was always kind of anchored in that make the news approach to everything. It's like, let's find a reason for people to give a shit and it's not by just doing what everybody else is doing. So that was really the. That's always been kind of a core tenant for what I do, what we do. And back in the backcountry days, that's what they were. That's what they were looking for. Like, these are our people. You know, it's like, who's your audience and what do they care about? And then let's find a way to get in front of them and make. Make sure we're here for them.

Speaker A: It sounds really simple when you guys say it, but, uh, we're going to get into it because, you know, just context for this relationship. Like, I was running, or I was hired to run content for Mosaic in a space that I had never worked on. And I inherited a lot of work that you guys did on category strategy, branding, and positioning for that company. And, you know, it's one of those, uh, you appreciate something like looking back more than you did at time. I thought it was just normal. I was like, oh, everybody gets this. This is. This is what you get when you started a company, which is, you know, I know it's not true now, but I was very fortunate to have that as the foundation because it, you know, set us up to make content that actually spoke to the kinds of things that you're talking about. So I want to dig into how. How that works, really what this episode is about. So I want to talk about how you guys approach building out category strategy, branding, and positioning. So to set the stage, just tell me what you mean by category strategy. How is this different from maybe traditional frameworks or approaches to positioning and messaging? Or how you guys think about, uh, the starting point here.

Speaker B: Oh, I'd direct you to our pod episode on what's the difference between category strategy and positioning?

Speaker A: Oh, I can't wait.

Speaker B: Dive in. Start there. But yeah, there. There is a massive difference. And in software, and maybe at the time, this was the best approach. I don't know. But, you know, feature benefit was how you message and sell software. And so if you were leading with the benefits of it, not just the features, you were doing an A plus job. And if you were positioning yourself against your competition, like April Dunford, um, puts in her book. Oh, yep. Obviously. Obviously. Awesome.

Speaker A: That's.

Speaker B: Is that. Yep. Okay. I think she might have a new one.

Speaker A: So that was kind of, to be honest.

Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, hey, if you got the knock to do it, do it. It's kind of good gig. Yeah. So that. That kind of established, uh, like, this is how we do positioning in software and the problem with it is it's just mostly a comparison game to like your competitors or you know, something else. And you're just trying to explain how you're better. And so category strategy, you try to take the approach of like, well, what is the problem you're solving? Why does it matter to the customer? And what is this outcome you can deliver them that they want? And if you can nail down those words to where the outcome is so much what they want that they put it in their job titles, then, you know, you nailed it. And we got lucky to work in finance and find out that poor finance people, nobody thought they were strategic. So we gave them the path to be strategic and wow, they were excited to put that in their job titles.

Speaker A: Dude, it was so cool. I actually, I've loved watching. I uh, know you guys call it out a lot, just uh, for context, like we, we built, I guess we'll say we built strategic finance as like this, this term. And it is cool like to see now that people really do like it's like a real job posting that shows up. I remember looking it up and they're like the, the other iteration of it, like the term had existed, but it was like a 1990s accounting magazine that had nothing to do with being a strategic finance leader. And so it's been really cool to see that happen. I want to know how you guys think about this. Is there a difference between category strategy and category creation? Like category creation as a, as a SaaS concept kind of comes under fire a bit. It's like, uh, ah, well, is it right for everybody? Should every company do this? I'm curious if this is the same thing. Should every SaaS company be building a category or do you guys think about it a little bit differently than that?

Speaker B: That's a good question. You give your take, Mike.

Speaker C: We applied category design theory to category design, um, and that's how we came up with category strategy. So all the tenants that exist within category design from the book play bigger. We were doing those things already for some of the gigs we were working on previous to actually forming DRMG formally. And it's just like, well, let's just do this. And so we've kind of pivoted and created our own category with category strategy. And there are differences. A lot of them come from our strategic background and consumer facing brands. So we do bring in some consumer strategy into category design. What we tell everybody is category design is nothing really new. Category strategy isn't really anything new. The 22 immutable laws of branding. Rule number two was the law of category. The law of category. And so that was in 1992. And that whole concept behind that is if you feel like you're competing or trying to compete within an already crowded market, the opportunity isn't to try to get bigger, um, beyond that, it's to actually shrink and start your own category and begin from there. Um, and that's kind of still the basic premise behind category strategy or category design in is like, okay, let's look at where the space is. Let's get really focused on the change in the world related to that and the people that this matters to, and then let's build a category from there and let's escape from the existing conventions and vernacular and paradigms that already exist within this existing category, and let's create our own. And so that's really the basis of it. And for anybody that feels trapped or feels like they can't find the words to really express it's unique and different about their solution, their SaaS solution, that's where category design comes in. People just get spun around the axle in terms of, like, trying to use the same words everybody else is using. And it just doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel right internally, and it doesn't feel right to the market either. Cause they're like, you're just saying the same thing everybody else is saying, and I'm not interested in that Flip. So anybody that feels like they're constrained by existing conventions because their product is more than that or their team is more than that or their idea is more than that, then would benefit from category strategy.

Speaker A: I love this. You touched on the consumer side interest of time. I don't want to dive too deep into the consumer side because I think we're going to get into a lot of how you guys think about building these strategies. But this was a huge challenge for me at Mosaic, especially as it grew. Maybe this is just by nature of the stage that you guys come in at, but more and more people looking for attributable roi, like messaging and category strategy long term. Like, I mean, you guys can look at Mosaic or you can look at, like, a lot of your clients and say, you know, based on the last five years of working, like, have you landed in a better spot? But how do you guys handle those conversations in the short term where a founder might say, ah, uh, you know, it fluffy. I just got to work on my product, like, let's just get a homepage out versus, you know, investing in actually getting this right, how do you show that somebody will get ROI out of this when it is so squishy in the beginning? Like, you just kind of know that it's going to happen, but they don't feel it for a while.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, that kind of ties into the other part of your question. You said, like, who shouldn't do this? And so if you don't have product market features fit, um, like we can build you message market fit, but that's not going to be that useful if your product doesn't do it. Because, you know, whatever space you're in, we can figure out a way to message it to where somebody's like, yeah, I want that. And then they, um, they look under the hood and it doesn't actually do that. That's the reality with all software. Right. Especially startups. They're like, we're giving you a vision that you're building into and so you need to be somewhat in that sphere. And I guess the other way to say who, who shouldn't figure out how to message what's different about them and align with their customers outcomes. Are people just strictly competing on price? If so, there are. And these exist out there. Right. Like, I think Zoho is a pretty successful example of like, we're just cheaper, email cheaper. They just took apart the entire stack cheaper, CRM, cheaper this, cheaper that, and they're pretty dang successful doing it. So not a lot of people can do that, but some people can. So if you want to start your startup and you think people are going to give you money to go after a giant category leader because you're going to do it cheaper, then you don't need category strategy because you're competing on, um, price.

Speaker C: You don't need category strategy yet because price competition, uh, is not sustainable.

Speaker B: I don't think any VCs will give you money to go build a cheaper version of Salesforce, but you could try.

Speaker A: It doesn't feel like a winning, uh, pitch. I've never been on the VC side, but I can't imagine sitting down hearing someone say, hey, I'm going to do exactly what someone else did, but I'm going to find a way to save you 15% off the top. I can't imagine, uh, that landing too well. Well, thank you guys. Thank you for kind of helping me set the stage here. Uh, it's important. But what I have always tried to do in anything, this is, even when I ran Mosaic's podcast, try to make all of this as practical as I Can I want to go through your process like how you actually do this? Because it sounds nice to say you should go do this, but actually executing it is easier said than done. So I know you have the, we call the Rise process. Like it's right on your homepage. Like that's what you guys talk about. Can you just give the high level explanation of what this is and why or how you like how you came to that as the process. And then we'll kind of dig into each step and we'll kind of get a little practical with it.

Speaker B: I'll let Mike talk because he, he created this process. But I'll just say it's important that you have a process because just like you want your SaaS sales to be measurable and repeatable and predictable, this process at this point is measurable, repeatable and predictable. Like we know as long as you have product market fit, you have customers that have a problem and we can go uncover what that is. We will land at an outcome that's going to bring the customers along to tell and sell your message about how you're different. And we've done it like over 20 times now and so we're super confident in it and it works. So yeah, Mike, layout Rise Rise is

Speaker C: kind of pulled from some of the consumer background as well. This is kind of how fully formed creative agencies you would bring a campaign idea to market. But this is customized for B2B SaaS. So Rise stands for research, insights, story and execution. And each builds upon the previous and snaps uh, into it as seamlessly and logically as possible. Research is basic discovery and diagnosis where we're doing like monster downloads from the company. Any, you know, let's see investor decks, sales decks, gong calls, any media coverage, any public relations they put out, any thought leadership they've tried to put in the market with what their ad campaigns have been. And look at all of that stuff. We also do qualitative research. This is another element of the consumer side of things. When we've seen plenty of SaaS companies, they're like, oh, we do customer research but they don't actually do qualitative. We bring this to the table and do deep uh, dive with anywhere from 6 to 10 key customers or key accounts to understand not just what they're doing but why they're doing it. We really drill down into, try to find the meaning and what we talk about as a human problem behind the business problem. Because that's if you're addressing that at your core, that's what's sustainable. You're not bopping around with new quote, unquote, um, positioning every six months because you have to shift. We anchor in the human problem behind the business problem and then we just build out customer insights from that. And we also do kind of a workshop with the client and key people in the leadership. And we have all sorts of lateral thinking exercises to come. Think about what's going on in new ways to get people out, out of their day to day ruts and the vernacular and all the conventions they're stuck in. We have creative ways to kind of break people out of that insights is when we start putting kind of pen to paper and just the foundational elements of a category strategy like the big change in the world, the problem we solve a key competitive insight positioning a little bit platform. It's not like positioning like what most people think of it, but it's kind of just one phrase that kind of captures the essence of, of everything. And then we'll do category name and description and insights story is when we start building out the fleshing, um, out the framework that we've already established. We'll do like a manifesto point of view, we'll do messaging, we'll do themes. All these things that are, that turn into the structure or the infrastructure of the company that can start to be used across the entire organization and then executions just go to market. The E part is go to market activation. And how do you make sure the entire team is not just like seeing this strategy and being like oh that's cool. But ultimately the teams are going to be like, what do you want me to do with this? And so we will work hand in hand with leadership to help them understand how to implement across their department or their team. Department. I use that term loosely but just to kind of. So it doesn't just sit on the shelf that there's actually, you know, we've done this a bunch of times and most of the teams we work with haven't. Most of the teams we've worked with haven't come from an organization that uh, have done category strategy or category design. So this sounds really cool, but I'm not sure what to do with this. So we sit down and help them work it out.

Speaker A: I have so many questions. This is perfect. So Mike, thank you for the rundown. Let's uh, just get into it. I want to dig into each one. I have some questions. Uh, I probably talked to you guys for a very, very long time. I will try to keep this short on each one. I'll try to ask like an impactful question or two for each one. But I want to start in the research because talk to your customers is like the most, uh, if you're going to read the most basic AI generated article about getting customer, uh, or getting insights about your business, you can be like, talk to your customers. Very common advice. How do you guys actually draw out the insights you need? Are there certain questions you're asking? Are there certain conversations or certain types of people you're trying to talk to get past the common advice. Let me tell me how you're, you're getting what you need out of the stage.

Speaker B: Just one note on the customers. Just because this applies to Mosaic. So they didn't have any customers when we started. So we talked to people who wanted to be their customers. So they had that right. And so you don't need, necessarily need to have customers, but you need to have people who have the problem so that we can go talk to them.

Speaker A: Actually follow up on that. Before you go like, is that just founders, uh, so Joe and Bij in this case saying, hey, these people are who we're building this for. It's like. And they, and they kind of present you with them or are you guys doing some other research into figuring, uh,

Speaker B: it could be both. But yeah, they had a list of basically advisors that were helping them build it that were, you know, VPs of finance at various SaaS companies. And so. But yeah, Mike is a really good investigative interviewer that gets people out of their lateral thinking, I think.

Speaker C: Is how you literal talk about it, Mike, logical. The, um, key in any good qualitative researcher will tell you, like you, we have a, we have a, like 12 questions that we start with that are designed to start at a high level upstream of, of things. But you keep asking why is that important? Until you get to kind of that human element that we're looking for, that human kernel. So people will give you. Generally, we'll start with the company line and then they'll kind of start. Then they'll. When you ask them, okay, great, why is that important? Then they'll get into kind of some sort of market insight or market trend that they're dealing with. Then you ask them, okay, why is that important? And then they get into their positions more explicitly why it matters to them and what their incentives are and what they're, what they're, how they're trying to operate in their, in their position. And then you keep asking why is that important? Till they tell you from a human perspective why it matters to them personally that is kind of the key component of what we're building into these things. It's why it resonates. Dustin talked about strategic finance. It's like, well, why is that important? It's because people basically say, because I need to be strategic personally and professionally. My value comes not just in how I can be a pilot of a spreadsheet, but the value I bring to the table that I'm really proud of is the fact that I can take this data and, um, help, uh, guide the entire organization so that they feel like they've got a grasp on what's happening and they can make all the correct moves, whether it's HR or investment or, uh, forecasting, like, all that stuff. Like, they're like, I feel that's what I'm passionate about. And so, like, once you get into those personal and professional kind of kernels, that's the key to building the strategy. So always, always ask, and why is that important? Until you run out of income, until

Speaker A: you hit the bottom, nobody in finance is just clamoring to do more transaction reconciling or check in QuickBooks to make sure that, uh, your bank statements tie out or anything. So I think it's a good insight and again, helped me a ton just to carry that forward on the content side. So I think it makes a lot of sense. Something you mentioned as part of this research stage is the competitive analysis. There's a juxtaposition. Earlier, we were talking about not framing yourself in terms of the competitors, like, in that obviously awesome framework where it's relative to who's in the space. So how do you think about how much stock do you put into the competitive analysis? What are you looking for and how much do you really put into it in terms of what you carry forward in the rest of the stages?

Speaker B: Yeah, the competitive set kind of gets rolled into the ecosystem because you can't ignore it. So ideally, you've crafted the story and the product is some way either eliminating competitors or enhancing other aspects around the ecosystem. So you probably saw that slide where we kind of had like the bi tools, we had the planning tools, and we had like, spreadsheets. You guys were mostly eliminating all those tools, but spreadsheets, you were super, super powering because the finance people did not want to lose their spreadsheets. And so we're like, okay, cool. We make spreadsheets way better.

Speaker A: I remember when I started, I, uh, was trying to make an enemy out of spreadsheets. I didn't know the finance people well enough yet. And I remember Joe Just being like, we cannot say any of this is just not the way to go. Learned quick. I mean you can pry the spreadsheets out of their cold dead hands in that space. That is not the framing to go with. And that's why some of those tools only are just spreadsheet plugins essentially. It's not even a platform. It's just open up Excel and you know, here's a plugin that you can use. So learn that one quickly.

Speaker B: Framing an enemy is another like common way people try to do this work and like it can be good for a campaign or something, but it's generally better to go own the point of view that aligns to the outcome. So that's why we gave you those things like connectivity and speed and like those are the things that finance wants their spreadsheets to be connected to real time data and they want to be fast. They want to be able to do predictive stuff with them. That's way better way to frame it than to try to make up some enemy that may not align to everybody. You would just ah, align to the outcome. Like the enemy stuff, there's a time and a place for it. But when you're building out the overall messaging framework to own the movement and the message for your customer, the enemy stuff is kind of weak sauce. Yeah.

Speaker A: Really interesting interest, uh, of time. I'm going to start moving. I got to get to insights. We got a couple more stages. I just want. So you get all this information you want research stage. You guys are talking to customers, you're gathering whatever you can. Uh, and I could probably, honestly, it's my. I'm also, I do a lot of interviewing like that. That is, I could talk to you about that stage in particular for a very, very long time, but I won't, uh, because we can't be here forever. I want to know what the biggest aha moments are for people at this insight stage. Like you've gathered all this data, whether you're doing a workshop and you're presenting insights, or you guys are taking the information like what are you looking for out of that research stage that you're like, oh, wow, like that. That's the thing right there. How do you sift through it all?

Speaker B: Mike delivers you a customer insight report. That's like super cool.

Speaker A: Mike's the guy.

Speaker B: Yeah, Mike does most heavy lifting in our.

Speaker C: On that side. Thanks. It is, it's just like, it's means to an end. So you have to, you have to. There are means that people talk about, but you have to understand the end state that they're trying to get to. If everything you're doing and pulling from customer insights or even competitive analysis is anchored in the means, then you're missing the mark. And you have to understand the higher level ends that they're trying to get to. And generally when we nail that, that's when people are like, oh, right, because people just get stuck in the weeds. I mean, part of the reason it's called rise is to get out of the weeds. Let's rise above all this crap that's going on day to day, day that everybody's so spun out on. And that's not a bad thing. They're spun out. That's their job. But let's get above that. And then. So you get above that by getting to end states and means. The other thing that is kind of a, um, value prop or what's unique is, you know, we tell clients all the time, you have the answers, you just don't have the words. And so a lot of the, what we call word work that we do in terms of crafting these statements or these, the words, even the words we choose for some of the end states and things like that, you know, brings in just some really basic copywriting elements that we have experience with. And that emotional resonance that comes from good copywriting. You want to talk about? Aha. Uh, uh, like almost every engagement we have, somebody complains it's not the right word. Maybe. But speaking of word choice, that this is what we've been trying to say for months or years, we just didn't have the words. And so when you're able to come in from the outside and bring some outside, uh, perspective, but also some copywriting skills to the table in qualitative research and all this other stuff that gets out of the weeds of everybody, that's when people are like, oh, this is really cool because, um, there's an emotional resonance that starts to exist when normally people have been using those category conventions or traffic trying to use those category of conventions to say something that they didn't have the words to say.

Speaker A: Yeah. And imagine those moments help you cut through what I'm sure is at some point there's got to be skepticism among the people you're working. These are founders and they're like, you know, they're paying you guys and like, they've, they've bought into this process, but at least from a content side, try to explain things. And when they don't sound different, it's like, uh, if someone comes to you and they say, oh, we know that that's the answer. We just haven't had the words for it. But they're like, is that really it? Like, is that. Is that the whole thing? It's like, well, yeah, that's the whole thing. It doesn't. Sometimes it doesn't feel impressive enough and they feel skeptical. So I'm sure those aha moments for you guys are like, finally like that. Now. Now it has clicked. But up to that point, I'd imagine the skepticism.

Speaker B: Sometimes they're disappointed. Yeah, they're disappointed because it's been in the building. They're like, oh, uh, what? It's that.

Speaker A: You could have just used that.

Speaker B: Like, yeah, it's that now we're going to wrap it up with all the things so you can own that. But it's that. And they're like, oh, we knew that. And, well, great.

Speaker C: Yeah. The skepticism largely will come from the category name that we pull out, because it doesn't sound. I think people think they're going to get, like some big tagline out of this thing. And the category name seems very prosaic compared to that. But it's like, no, this is space that exists that you can own that, but you have to have conviction and clarity around it. You can't just kind of soft sell it. And it's an empty bucket you get to fill with meaning. Um, and that conviction part's really the key part of it. And once people start doing that a couple times, it starts to get traction.

Speaker A: Let's use that as a segue into story. Because the big thing I wanted to ask about was the manifesto idea. I have taken that everywhere that I've worked with. I try to get every client to do it. It was really important to Mosaic. Anyone that worked on Mosaic could hand them at the time. It was like a blog post or two that really just said what this was. Talk to me about what a good manifesto looks like versus somebody who maybe just kind of, we'll say half asses it. And like, that conviction isn't there. They're just trying to kind of check the box on it. Because I think Mosaic had a really good one. And, uh, it seems simple, but I know it's not simple to get there.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's like the hardest 2, 300 words we write. So it's like, not simple, but, yeah, uh, I think like the TLDR on a manifesto, uh, or point of view is it just needs to be the rallying cry for the problem. So align everybody around that problem, and then you can kind of go a little bit deeper, but honestly, they should be short and sweet because you. It's an alignment doc, right? And these manifestos are generally internal. We don't really put these out for the customers. I don't. I think you guys might have made them a blog post, but the actual one we wrote, I don't think was ever public. So it's an internal doc. And so keep it. Realize that you're using it to align people around. This is why we do this, and this is why it matters to our customers. And it should be in an emotive, fun, memorable way that it's written, which requires copywriters. It's tough for founders to do this

Speaker A: well to the copywriting point. Uh, alignment deck, I think, is the important word here. This is not your homepage headline necessarily, or the copy for explaining your product on a product page. This is directionally like, this is what we believe underneath it all. And then you take this and you give it to, let's say, a copywriter. In my case, it was content person. And they then start extending that messaging. Is that the right way to think about this? You guys are giving that core idea, and then those get extended into the practical. Great, here's your homepage copy. Here's blog posts. Here's however you distribute it to the world. Or, uh, do I have that mixed up somehow?

Speaker C: Do you want me to talk about that?

Speaker B: I was going to write these. You write these manifestos. So how do you. How do you feel about.

Speaker C: I will, uh, I'll just.

Speaker B: Well, let me give the, like, the marketing meter point of view. Yeah, we give you, like, uh, a messaging blueprint. That is how you're supposed to go own this in the market. So if you take the point of view and use that as a jumping off point, I guess my point, I'd be like, that's okay, but it feels risky. You need to be pretty good at what you do. I don't know, Mike, what's your opinion?

Speaker C: Just to take a step back. So with manifestos, point of view, whatever you want to call it, like, the best ones are where none, uh, of the individual words really have anything to do with the brand, but collectively, they have everything to do with what the brand stands for or what the category stands for. So that's the trick on all this stuff, is to, again, rise above, find that emotive hook that's relevant to everybody, that can get everybody fired up. And it is built off of all the pieces and parts that we develop through the workshops. It's stuff the client will have heard before, but not in this part, not in this format. And eventually it could become public. But underneath all that is going to be. You know, one of the things that we bring to the table from our consumer background is also reasons to believe, or what are called RTBs. So we will have, like, a messaging theme, which is an end state, which we talked about previously, with some, um, kind of emotive copy underneath to talk about that. But on the, on the backside of that are the rtbs the reasons to believe, which are the features, functions and outputs from the actual product that prove that the promise we're making within this pillar is true. So everything we're doing isn't just pulling pie in the sky shit out of the clouds. We're actually tying it back to the actual product so it's supported. So that when a content person or, uh, anything, a, uh, podcast topic, you can start with the product and be like, okay, this is what we need to promote here. This is the value prop based on the messages we've given, given them. And then you can kind of build something out of that. And part of that's, uh, the e. Part of this is teaching content people holding their hand a little bit, like, how to take the strategy, the category strategy, and bring it to market. Because it's not necessarily, like, implicitly understood. Good copywriters or good writers will be like, oh, this is super interesting. I can totally dig into this. Um, if they're given permission to do that. That's a whole nother conversation.

Speaker A: Yeah, we don't have time for the permission of whether or not the marketers get to execute what they want. But, I mean, it's what I did. I took what you guys had and I made. Eventually, after a year of making content, it was like, basically, here are the things I harp on a lot, these different themes that came from that initial manifesto or the initial messaging alignment deck that you guys had. And it's like, great, here's how it's come up over and over again, all the different problems we've talked about and how it ties back to the core idea. And it was like, okay, like, it's been a year, two years. I now need to, like, document some of this beyond it, because to your point, like, it doesn't end when you guys kind of walk out the door. Like, somebody needs to carry that forward. I have a question about execution, because, again, like, we could probably talk for a long time about putting this to work, but I want to talk about, like, how, how to evaluate Whether it's working. We talked a little bit at the top. It's like we see strategic finance and job postings now, and it's like, wow, like that. We did that. But are there other ways that somebody can think about how this comes up? Like how. Whether or not this was worth doing or that it's working? Because I know your goal is to give someone something that is going to work. There's a lot of research that goes into it to make sure that's the case. But, you know, three months, four months, a year down the line, how does Joji say, man, this is really happening?

Speaker B: I don't know if it ever worked for Joji, to be clear.

Speaker C: Well, they raised money.

Speaker B: They raised the most capital of, I think, any of our clients. I mean, they were at a stage. We went from them, from seed. But then the last round, Omer Ventures, their rationale for investing was a hundred percent because of the category. So that was pretty good. We definitely. We definitely send that link around.

Speaker A: I love that.

Speaker B: Uh, yeah, that's a common question, right? People want to measure it. Yeah. And it's kind of like, well, how do you know you have a brand? Right? And so if your customers aren't saying it back to you, then I don't think you've been successful. And so, uh, again, like, some people just want to measure it. And so it's like, okay, fine, like, listen to the gong calls and find how many times do your customers say the words? And I would have an alert set up when I was managing sales teams for the words of the category and get slacked every time. Like, hey, they just said the word like, okay. And I go listen and be like, oh, interesting. And if you've done it right, they will say the words of the category. Like, it's been in their mind forever. They knew about it before they knew about you, and they're considering you for this. Not that it's unique to you. It's just a thing that's existed in the world. They're like, oh, I've been looking for this for years. And they'll say the word. And you're like, oh, that's cool, because it's only been around for a year.

Speaker C: Once you open that door into a new kind of mental space. And this is, to Dustin's point, like, when salespeople are out there going through the category, pitch appropriately, the prospect will. Strategic finance. That's super interesting. And then they'll start using strategic finance as they answer their questions to you. And that's really the Unlock where you know you've tapped into something.

Speaker A: I think a close cousin of this was we would get comments that we punched above our weight class a lot. People would come in and they'd think that we were a lot bigger than we were as Mosaic. And that to me isn't just we did a lot of work, but it was like bigger companies usually have these kinds of perspectives. You don't have this eras built out and formalized if you're a smaller company just trying to figure things out. And so I think that was a close cousin. That was something that I really liked hearing. And it wasn't just about, well, the design has to be cohesive because small companies that don't have this figured out, none of it pieces together, the puzzle pieces don't fit. They're just doing work to say they did it. So.

Speaker C: Yeah, well, this.

Speaker A: That was just one thing I had

Speaker C: investors and first customers go for is a vision. They know that you guys understand where the market is and where it's going. You guys have a vision for how to get there. Most people, especially in early stage, will understand it's not fully built out yet, but this is where we're going. Um, and that's inspiring. And it also applies when you're trying to recruit staff. If you need talent to come in that punches above their weight. If you're just selling them, um, like, oh, we're just going to do a cheaper salesforce, people will be like, yeah, I'm going to pass on that. But if you're like, look, we've got a vision for the future and we're building a product to meet that, that gets talented people really excited, and you're able to kind of recruit above your weight as well.

Speaker A: I love that. That's great. That's a great point. All right, guys, I have one more question for you. That could probably take a. I mean, you guys probably do an episode on this on your own podcast, but a lot of messages right now saying SaaS is going to die because of AI. You've SaaS has now achieved what content has always achieved. Where SEO is dead or whatever is dead. SaaS is soon supposed to be dead. As people who do SaaS category strategy, as somebody who does content for SaaS businesses, how do you guys feel about that? I don't think it's true, but I wanted to ask you guys just to see if you had thoughts on whether or not AI agents would kill SaaS companies.

Speaker B: I think a lot of SaaS companies that are just piecemealing features and Kind of trying to build a business off of it will go away. We've seen that. So you need to be creative. I think it just makes what we do even more important because you need to be creating a movement. You need to be building something that's differentiated, that, you know, is taking people to the future. Because the AI agents don't know what the future is. They'll just copy what's been done. So there's, there's still always going to be space for trailblazers and trailblazers. Messaging is more important than ever because, you know, it's easy to make content now, and it's actually easy to make category defining content. If you've done the work to define, define that category and give it that messaging blueprint, then the AI can make all the content for you. Jeff.

Speaker A: Just one click, my job is done.

Speaker C: Even. Even then, though, I always go back to this quote from, uh, painter David Hockney, who's having huge, uh, I just booked tickets to Paris to go see his, his huge show. Big fan. Anyway, sorry. He had this quote that says you can teach the craft, the poetry. You can't teach. Um, so everybody can paint, but not everybody's a painter. Right? Like, and that's really important. When we're starting to look about AI and agenic AI and things like that, there's. There's going to be standards and base baselines that exist. But when it comes to actually building that next layer above, it gets people because it's just going to get noisier and noisier. Right? And so it's going to be harder and harder to get people's attention. And you're not going to get people's attention by building a better@genic AI or how have you or better software company around that? It has to be different and that in our perspective, different is always what we anchor in anyway. And we can teach you how to do that.

Speaker A: I love this. It just comes back to work with Dustin and Mike. Build your category strategy, get done. Um, guys, I really appreciate you taking so much time to chat. It's been a while since we got to chat, but again, like, I, I felt very fortunate, Mosaic, to have a lot of this work done. It's work that I kind of harp on other companies now doing as well. Like this. This needs to be done. You liked the content we had in Mosaic. Great. Like, it doesn't really exist unless you do this part first. So really cool to hear you guys talk about it. Where can people follow along, connect with you guys? Uh, learn about the work that you guys do.

Speaker C: Floor.

Speaker A: Floor is yours.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: DRMG Co. DRMG Co is the website. We do have a podcast. This is probably going to be playing on our pod, so we're introducing Joe's pod.

Speaker A: Happy to be there. Uh, in the future.

Speaker B: Yeah, but it's, uh, the SaaS brand strategy show, and almost every topic we've touched on today has an episode dedicated to it. So, yeah, if you want to figure out how to lead with how you're different and align the customers into telling and selling your story, then reach out. Hi at DRMG Co. Love it.

Speaker A: Well, thank you guys so much. Really, uh, do appreciate it. It's great chatting. Hope we can do it again soon.

Speaker B: Totally. This is so much fun. Thanks, Jo.