如何成为一名品类海盗 | Christopher Lochhead(《Play Bigger》《Niche Down》等书作者)
How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (Author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, more)
Christopher Lochhead: The point being, now is the greatest time in history to be a creator, to be an entrepreneur, to be a marketer. I’ve been a marketer for my entire adult life. It’s never been greater than it is right now. And so here’s the big thing that I would share. If you are somebody for whom you want to make an exponential difference, you want to innovate, you want to create new value where there wasn’t, you want to have a legendary career where you could look back on your career and go, you know what? I was part of this and that, and I was on this team, now’s the greatest time in history. And what I would say to you is, the future needs you.
Opening and Introductions
Lenny: Welcome to Lenny’s Podcast, where I interview world-class product leaders and growth experts to learn from their hard-won experiences building and growing today’s most successful products.
Today my guest is Christopher Lochhead. Christopher is a 13-time number one bestselling co-author, including books like Play Bigger and Niche Down. He’s also a popular podcaster, co-creator of the excellent Substack Category Pirates, and is best known as the Godfather of Category Design. He’s also an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups, and a former three-time public company CMO.
In our conversation, we dig deep into all things category design, including what exactly is category design? Why, in order to build a legendary business, it’s so essential to build your own category versus trying to become the best in an existing category. Also, how to actually go about creating your own category. A ton of examples of companies that did this well and didn’t do this well, what we could learn from them. Plus a ton of practical frameworks, including something Chris calls The “Better” Trap. Also, why he thinks product market fit is a very dangerous idea. Chris is such a character and I had such a blast speaking with Chris. With that, I bring you Christopher Lochhead after a short word from our sponsors.
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The Wall of Negative Comments
Lenny: Christopher, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the podcast.
Facing Negative Feedback Head-On
Christopher Lochhead: Lenny, it is my absolute joy. And let me say in case my ADHD brain forgets, I love all things Lenny. You’re doing a great job, buddy. I’m honored to be here. And there’s so many people in the entrepreneur startup marketing world who are scam artists, shysters, pieces of shit, idiotic hustle porn stars yelling stupidities. There’s a lot of idiocy in the world in which you travel and I travel, and you, sir, stand out. You are making a difference. The conversations you’re driving, the content you’re creating. You’re fucking awesome, Lenny, and I’m really stoked to be here with you.
Lenny: Damn, what an intro to my own podcast. I’m bad at accepting compliments. I’m just going to accept that and I appreciate that, man.
Personal Branding and Differentiation
Christopher Lochhead: No, you need to get it. You are a beacon in an ocean of crapola. You are incredible.
Category Creation: The Core Concept
Lenny: Well, enough about me. I really appreciate it. I was preparing for our conversation and usually what I try to do when I prepare for conversations is I read everything the person has written and it was very challenging with you. You have two podcasts, you have at least six books. There’s probably more I missed. You have a newsletter, you tweet a lot. There’s probably a lot of other stuff I didn’t get to. And so you made my job very difficult preparing for this podcast, but also very worthwhile. So I’m excited to begin.
Data Backing the Category King Effect
Christopher Lochhead: I apologize for that.
Why Most Companies Seek Comparison
Lenny: The other thing I noticed as I was browsing your website, and it was hilarious because you have all these testimonials of your book and podcast and you have a lot of negative reviews, like “Off-putting, or, “Very disappointing,” or, “Absolute crap.” I’m curious why you chose to do that as your website testimonial wall.
Category Strategy in Action: Gong
Christopher Lochhead: Well, and I believe, I’d have to check with Steve Osler, the founder and publisher of Podcast Magazine, but I believe I’m the only podcaster in history to run a full page ad in Podcast Magazine with just negative quotes in it.
So a couple reasons. Number one, can we all just have a sense of humor about this stuff? So it’s my way, and the name of our team, yet we’re sort of a company, but we’re more of a band, is Category Pirates. I mean, clearly if you’re called Category Pirates, you’re probably trying to have a little bit of fun with this stuff. And so part of it is just trying to have a sense of humor with people.
The second piece of it is, for a lot of entrepreneurs, marketers, creators, innovators of any kind, we live in this fear that when we launch our thing, whatever our thing is, that we will be criticized by the world and that we will be made fun of. And if you’ve ever authored a book or done a podcast or done anything, built a product, a software product, built any kind of a product that you feel is part of you, and most innovators, creators, software developers, artists, of course entrepreneurs, feel that way because they put themselves into this stuff. And when somebody criticizes us, many of us are devastated. And I have been in the past too. I’m a person just like anybody else.
And what I realized is, fuck them. Anybody who’s trying to do anything exponential, anybody who’s trying to break and take new ground, anybody who’s trying to radically innovate, anybody who’s trying to design and dominate new categories of the way we live, work and play, gets criticized. Picasso was called stupid. The Beatles were called terrible. Elvis was called terrible. I just wrote recently a little bit about hip-hop. I was listening to Rick Rubin on Barry Weiss’s podcast, excellent episode. Excellent. She does a great job with him. And he was talking about how ridiculed hip-hop was in the beginning and it got banned. And it’s the number one category of music in America today.
Anyway, so that’s also part of it, is to just sort of say, “Hey, look, this is some of the shit people have said about our work and my work, and I’m going to just put it on display, because this is going to happen to all of us.”
And then I guess, Lenny, the third reason is in the creator world, broadly, there’s a lot of people who are breaking their arms patting themselves on the back. And look, I understand why we have to tell people about why they should pay attention to us, and so we use our credentials or our awards or our downloads or our books, I understand that, and I do a little bit of that too. However, come on, let’s just not take ourselves so seriously.
Lenny: Amazing. I could definitely use more of that skill of not taking negative feedback as seriously. And I love the idea of just embracing it and showing people what people don’t like.
The Continuous Expansion of Categories
Christopher Lochhead: Why not? I mean, look, you’re incredibly successful and if somebody says something negative about you, okay, great. Fuck them. They’re not your people.
The “Better” Trap: Lessons from Threads
Lenny: Fuck them. There we go.
Christopher Lochhead: I didn’t know who you were until Substack, and I saw your logo, the fiery logo, and there was something endearing about your logo. And the other thing that’s great about you, from a radical differentiation marketing perspective is, you call yourself Lenny. And when I talk about you, I don’t know your fucking last name. I mean, I sort of know it, but I don’t really, you know what I mean?
How to Design a Category
Lenny: Yeah. It’s hard to pronounce.
Lomi: Designing a New Category
Christopher Lochhead: Actually, I was at the gym this morning and I was telling my buddy that we were doing this, and I said, “Oh, I’m going on Lenny’s Podcast.” He says, “Lenny who?” And I said, “It begins with an R. I don’t know. Everybody just calls him Lenny.” And so the fact that you are yourself, you don’t play a character, you’re not a douche, you’re just a person trying to be successful in the world and help others, right?
That’s a very powerful thing. And I think one of the things that is insidious about influencers, hustle porn stars, part of the business model is creating the perception of superiority, right? The reason Grant Cardone and Tai Lopez and all these douchebags pose in front of planes and all this garbage is they want you, the Kardashians are the queens of this, they want you to look at them and go, “Oh, wow, don’t I wish that I was them.”
And so these folks are in the create and monetize envy business, and you’re the opposite of that. And I think the legendary educators in the native digital world are the opposite of that. Anybody who’s creating separation, anybody who’s putting themselves above, anybody for whom there must be, “I must be the leader, and you must be the follower,” that’s the business model of a massive amount of people in the native digital world, and we reject that. And I know you do.
Lenny: Absolutely. We’ve already gotten way off track, but I love it. I’ll just say one thing and then we’ll get back on track. The reason I called my newsletter, Lenny’s Newsletter is because that was the default recommendation Substack gave me when I signed up. They’re just like, “Call it this.” And I’m like, “Okay,” because I don’t know, I didn’t have no plans to actually be doing this long term. And then it just stuck. And then I brainstormed for weeks. I’m like, “I need a real name on this thing.” And I just couldn’t think of anything that I liked. So I’m just like, “All right, I’ll just roll with it.” And then when the podcast launched, I tried so many ways to call it something else so that it would push the whole naming in a different direction, it wasn’t about me, but I couldn’t think of anything better. So I’m just rolling with it at this point.
Languaging: Changing Minds with Words
Christopher Lochhead: Well, and the interesting thing is, even though the branding of the shit has your name in, it’s not about you. That’s the irony, right? Meghan Markle gets canceled. Why? Because it’s about her, and it turns out she’s infinitely uninteresting. I’ve consumed enough of your content to know that the cool thing is, yeah, it’s called Lenny, but it’s actually, you are not trying to impress all of us with how awesome you are in front of a fucking plane or a bunch of scantily clad people, or I don’t know what.
Lenny: It’s true. Well, I’m enjoying this podcast. You’re very kind to me. Let’s talk about the meat of what I want to chat about, which is your bread and butter category creation. It goes without saying you’re a big fan of creating your own category versus what most people try to do, which is try to compete in an existing category. So just to kind of lay a little foundation, can you just explain what this actually means, this idea of category creation for people that have heard this idea in this term, but don’t really know what it means.
Otis Elevators: The Vertical Railway Wisdom
Christopher Lochhead: It turns out that in business, most people, and in life for that matter, make a unquestioned, unconsidered, undialogued, unthought of decision that they don’t know they made. And the decision they make is, “What I’m going to do, is I am going to compete in a market with demand, with a better product/service/brand, maybe a better business model, maybe a better set of growth hacking ideas that I learned on the Lenny Podcast. And when the world gets my better, the world will beat a path to my door.”
And if you go onto Amazon right now, Lenny, there’s roughly a hundred thousand marketing books, and I think I’d have to double check, but I think there’s about 60,000 or 80,000 business strategy books. And of course, me and my collaborators, we haven’t read all of them, but like you and like many of us in business, we’ve read many of the tomes, the Bibles out there, and there’s an interesting thing about virtually all of them. That’s what they’re about. It’s about how to compete and win.
Well, here’s the aha. Nobody legendary ever did that. Not a one. We all know who Bob Marley is. We don’t know who the 17th greatest reggae musician or band in the world is. We all know who Pablo Picasso is. We don’t know who the fifth greatest cubist artist is. And so wherever you look in life, whether it’s in the business world, people who drive social change, artists, creators of any kind, the people that we tend to admire the most are the people who broke and took new ground. And the aha here is the category makes the product, the category makes the brand, the category makes the company.
So I’ll give you the data and then I’ll fully answer your question. So here’s the data. We did an analysis for our first book where we studied every venture-backed tech company in the US from 2000 to 2015. And we asked a question that, to the best of our knowledge, had never been asked before. And we went to Stanford and we asked a bunch of professors this question, and they said, “We don’t know this. You’re going to have to do it yourselves.” So we did, and incidentally had it peer reviewed and published in the HBR. And if you’ve ever gotten data published in the HBR, then you know what it’s like to have a journalistic proctology exam.
Anyway, here’s the net of it. In tech market categories, on average, one company earns two-thirds, 76% to be exact, of the total value created as measured by market cap and or valuation. So not market share, which is important, market cap as measured by the value of all the companies in the category. So you take a category, you add all the companys’ value together, and you say, “What percent goes to the leader, the category, queen or king? And what percent goes to everybody else?” One company, two-thirds of the economics.
So the aha here, Lenny, is when we make the unquestioned, unconsidered, undialogued decision that we didn’t know that we made, to compete, we have unwittingly said, “We’re going to fight for the 24%.” And it’s the distinction or delta between create demand and capture demand. So we prefer the term category design, and I can explain why design instead of creation, we don’t have anything against creation, but creation creates a confusion in people’s mind. When people hear category creation, because most people in business, most people in tech, are strongly oriented to product, what they think you said is first to ship a product that has X features.
So when most people say category creation, that’s what they think. They say, “They [inaudible 00:17:16] category, Myspace did.” Or if you’ve been around for a little while longer, “GeoCities did.” And so category creation, category design, does not equal first to ship a product with a set of features. So what does it equal? Here’s the aha. Just like you can design a product, just like you can design a company culture or business model, you can actually design a market.
And in so doing, you create a new distinction in value for people that didn’t exist before. I’ll give you a simple example. If I could own any product in the world right now, I think I’d probably want to own Purell. And there’s a great thing about the company that makes Purell. The company’s been around for a very, very long time, and they’re owned by the original family that created the company. Their original problem that they were solving is, it was a husband and wife team, and they were working in a factory. This was 80 plus years ago. The company, by the way, is called Gojo Industries. Gojo. And Gojo is a portmanteau, putting their two names together. I think it was, maybe it was Gloria and Joseph, or I’d have to double check the husband and wife names, you’ll excuse me, but the company’s called Gojo Industries, and I think the granddaughter runs it today, if I’m not mistaken.
Anyway, so the gal, the wife said, “This bar soap is disgusting. It’s full of crapola, it’s hairy, it’s full of man nastiness.” So the solution to washing your hands called a bar of soap was a disgusting, inappropriate solution for her. So she reimagined the problem, not as, “How do I wash my hands,” but as, “How do I wash my hands without a disgusting bar soap?” And Gojo Industries created a whole new category called liquid soap. And in most restaurants, most corporate bathrooms, most airport bathrooms, if you start paying attention, you’ll see the Gojo logo on the squeezy thing that you pull when you go to get the soap. So unlike most innovators and entrepreneurs, who get obsessed with the solution, and I understand why, we all love our shit, we all love our product. If you want to talk to me about our shit, I want to talk all about it.
We could do a 12-hour deep dive on all your content and how you built the newsletter, and you’d love it. It’d be great. We all do. If you’re a creator of any kind, entrepreneur, innovator of any kind, you love the thing you’re creating, of course. However, Gojo focused on the problem, not just the solution. So they stay obsessed with the problem, and then they ask a different question, which is, “How do I wash my hands in the absence of water?” And of course, the answer to that question is a new category, [inaudible 00:20:44] hand sanitizer. And the dominant brand, of course is Purell.
And so the aha here is the company that designs the space and gets it to tip at scale. And when I say designs the space, what I mean is specifically gets a meaningful percentage of the world to agree with their definition of a problem set, which then leads to their definition of a solution set. The company that does that at any kind of scale, wins. And so the number one question for any entrepreneur or any creator at all is, “Do I want to compete for 24% of an existing market category? Or do I want to create my own where if I can execute, I will earn two-thirds of the economics?” That’s the decision that most entrepreneurs make, that they don’t know that they made. And at its heart, category design is about the most radical kind of differentiation.
So most companies actively seek comparison. If you go to, well, if go to many software company’s website right now on their homepage, you’ll see a Gartner report or a Forrester report on their homepage. You’ll see ads and/or content that say, “Here are three competitors and a list of features,” and there’ll be 25 features, “And then there’s us,” and there’ll be 125 features. And they’re actively inviting comparison. You even hear it in ads. If you listen to what marketers say, Lenny, we say the stupidest shit. Don’t take our word for it. Anyway. And so the legendary innovators over time, they did not compare their innovation to the past. They broke and took new ground. They wanted to be irreplaceable. They wanted to be so much value in the minds of customers that not only were the switching costs horrible, switch to what?
Spend More Time on Problems Than Solutions
Lenny: To follow this thread a little bit, companies that you’re pretty familiar with, maybe just a rapid fire sharing of their category to give people a concrete sense of what does it even mean to have a category?
Christopher Lochhead: Okay, let’s go.
Category Design Is the Only Option
Lenny: It’s becoming obvious that they basically all came up with a different category that they wanted to win. And so Gong comes up as an example. I don’t know if you know about Gong. I think they-
Christopher Lochhead: I do.
Why Product-Market Fit Is Dangerous
Lenny: So it’s basically like sales analytics is what they pitch, is like, this is the first thing you can ever do to understand how your sales team is doing. Is there anything you know more about their approach?
Christopher Lochhead: Yeah, I know the space very, very well, and they did something incredibly smart. So they were a little later in the space than some others. And so there were a whole bunch of companies in today which you could broadly refer to as the revenue space, right? In the spirit of full disclosure, I’m familiar with Clary. I’m good friends with Andy. I know the team. I’ve done some work with them. So all disclosure. Clary, and a handful of others, in the beginning started to create the space that ultimately became RevOps. And the interesting thing that Gong did, very smart, was as RevOps started to emerge, they were smart enough to realize that revenue was going to be a big new important space. That CRM didn’t actually do it. That ERP didn’t actually do it. BI didn’t actually do it. And so there was this sort of emerging set of thinking around, “We need a different approach to revenue.”
They were smart enough to realize that if they went for the whole enchilada, it’s not credible from a startup that you’re going to go build, that you’re going to show up and say, “We have a suite that’s equivalent to that of SAP, just for this other area.” So they picked off a very tight part of a broader emerging category, and they executed incredibly, and they dominated that part. But here’s the mistake they made. In all new mega categories, they start like this. This is exactly what happened in CRM. I could walk you through the history if it matters, but there were companies in support, there were companies in help desk, there were companies in sales, there were companies in marketing, and there were a whole bunch of sub-niches underneath that. There was a point in time in the Salesforce automation category, when that was a standalone category, that some of the hottest companies in that category were sales configurator companies, a further down niche.
And so as these mega spaces emerge over time, no one company can fulfill the needs of a customer. And so there’s all these niches. The mistake that Gong made, as well as the vast majority of others in that space, is they stayed in their micro niche. So the strategy in the beginning that was genius and exactly what you should do as a startup, all of a sudden, when they didn’t expand and set the agenda, the design for the big category, they got fucked. Because now they’re niched. And there’s a big learning in this Lenny, which is, if you’re a company that’s already up and running and you’re winning, and let’s say you’re becoming the category queen in your space, every entrepreneur, every CEO, faces a fascinating moment. If they become successful in the first five years or so, which is they realize their biggest barrier to growth going forward, is their current category, because you can only be as big and successful as your market category.
And so you have to continuously expand the vision for the category and continuously build on that. And if you don’t, and somebody else frames, claims, and names, the bigger agenda, as has been the case, and look, I’m biased, as has been the case with Clary, Clary’s crushing everybody in this space right now, and the Gongs and all the other players are now in this horrible position, which is they basically only have two choices. One, they can stay in their niche, which is what most players do, and they argue best of breed “Oh, well, we’re the best revenue carbodingulator. And you could go buy an end-to-end revenue platform. But if you do that, you won’t get the best functionality in the carbodingulator space. So buy our revenue carbodingulator.” That doesn’t work. Microsoft proved it over 30 years ago, and we can talk about that if you want.
Christopher Lochhead: Microsoft proved it over 30 years ago, and we can talk about that if you want. You either stay in your niche and get diminished over time, or you uplevel and you go to play for the whole enchilada. The problem is for them and all the others in this space who didn’t do that, if they were to do it today, well over a year after Clari did, they’re just a Clari copycat. And so basically you either go compete with Clari for who can be the category king, or you stay in your niche and get diminished over time. And if you’re going to go compete with the company that is laying down the category design that’s picking up the most momentum for the overall market, you better know how to do a fifth dan black belt category wars.
Nobody Cares About Your Startup Journey
Lenny: Following that thread, there’s a bunch of threads I’d love to follow, but something I definitely wanted to touch on is, in this concept of the better trap, which is where most people go, where they try to be the better solution in an existing category. And just to reinforce that point, what have you seen? What have you learned about just why that is often, and maybe always the wrong approach?
Christopher Lochhead: Let’s take a very current example, Threads. We just wrote about this. When Threads came out, and I can show you all the headlines if you want to see them, New York Times, nevermind tech… All these places. Twitter killer, Twitter killer, Twitter killer, Twitter killer. And at the time there’s all this discussion of Musk and Zuck having a UFC cage fight. And so there’s all this buildup into the launch of Threads and there’s all this supposed Twitter hate, and, quote, unquote, “Everybody’s leaving Twitter.” All right. So Threads comes out. What happens? Threads surpasses GPT as the fastest growing app ever.
Now the headlines, Lenny, are coming. This is it. Zuck’s a genius. It’s incredible. And by the way, this sits inside one of the newer stupid axioms in Silicon Valley. So this is a side note, but when somebody says something in Silicon Valley that enough people think, “Yes, that’s smart.” They just parrot it. They don’t actually think about it. There’s a current thinking in Silicon Valley, and this was real loud as Threads was coming out, this was the reason why Threads was the Twitter killer. What you need, Lenny, is brand and distribution. That’s what you need, especially distribution. I would assert to you that Threads had the greatest distribution advantage of any new piece of software ever launched. If there’s another one that has a greater distribution advantage, I’d like to know what it is.
Positioning Versus Category Design
Lenny: No, that seems right. Seems right.
Differentiation Versus Category Design
Christopher Lochhead: Massive distribution, incredible, easy up and on, incredible. Free product, not even freemium, free. Awesome. And Facebook Meta, you tell me, one of the 10 most powerful brands in tech?
Lenny: Absolutely.
Peloton and Damming the Flow
Christopher Lochhead: How many users does Facebook have today, Lenny, do you know?
New Categories Expand TAM, Not Disrupt
Lenny: Over a billion? Might be more.
The Laws of Category Design
Christopher Lochhead: How many billion person apps have there been in the history of apps?
Lenny: None.
Lightning Strike vs. Peanut Butter Strategy
Christopher Lochhead: Right.
The Most Overlooked Marketing Force: Word of Mouth
Lenny: I think.
Christopher Lochhead: Legendary brand, the greatest distribution advantage in history. What happened? It cratered. It’s gone. It’s still there, but nobody’s there.
Wrapping Up and Learning Resources
Lenny: They’re launching the [inaudible 00:32:00] soon so they have another shot.
Final Advice for Entrepreneurs
Christopher Lochhead: Oh yeah. Now why, why did that happen? Why did one of the richest people in the history of the world, who’s potentially one of the smartest people in the history of entrepreneurship in tech, fail so miserably when the entire world said he was going to “kill,” quote, unquote, Twitter? And after the initial, quote, “success” of Threads everybody said that’s exactly what was going to happen. And now all those experts are surprisingly quiet. The legendary Kevin Maney said that category design is a new lens on business. It’s a different lens. It’s sits next to the product lens, it sits next to the competition lens, but it is equally important. So here’s what happened with Threads.
They attacked an existing, well-known, well understood, incredibly well-defined problem with a direct copy. They even were celebrating that it was Twitter, just better. They said virtually those words. So known existing problem with a known existing solution that was, quote, unquote, “better” and integrated with the rest of the Meta shit. Quote, “Everybody checked it out and everybody went away.” Why? Here’s the aha.
Problems create categories, and you either have to A, solve a new problem, or B, reframe, name and claim an existing problem in a, I’m going to use these words on purpose, very different way. And if you reframe the existing problem such that people see it in a different way, that’s when they’ll be open to a new solution. But the mistake is the impasses is on the wrong [inaudible 00:34:11]. The impasses is on the product. Because we live in a world where just like the availability of oxygen, we believe the best product wins. Zuckerberg is going to blow in excess of a billion dollars on Threads and it will fail. It already has failed. Because you can’t take an existing problem with an existing solution, launch exactly the same shit, tell the world it’s better and have the world embrace it. Because the problem makes the solution the other way around.
Lightning Round: Recommended Books
Lenny: So classic advice along these lines is, if you’re, say, 10 times better than the existing product, you have a good chance at getting people to care and having success. Is there a line of just like it’s the same thing but 10 times better? Or do you have to, in your experience, reframe? And I want to talk about that.
The Most Powerful Interview Question
Christopher Lochhead: Let’s just look at the evidence. We could agree that Jeff Bezos is not a dumb person, yes?
Life Creed and True Pirates
Lenny: Yes.
Christopher Lochhead: Do you have an Amazon Fire phone?
Final Closing Remarks
Lenny: I don’t.
Christopher Lochhead: Neither do I. Why not?
Lenny: I’m very happy with my iPhone.
Christopher Lochhead: And so, Bezos launched a better product and nobody bought it. And the reason nobody bought it is the problem. And therefore the solution that you think you’re solving with your iPhone is solved with your iPhone. When was the last time you enjoyed a Red Bull Cola?
Lenny: Not once.
Christopher Lochhead: Red Bull made exactly the same mistake that Zuck just made with threads. What Red Bull believed was, “We built one of the greatest brands in the world.” Which they have, but they didn’t understand why. The category made the brand not the other way around. Energy Drink made the category, so they go, “Great, we can put our brand on anything and it’ll sell. So let’s make Cola.” They lost a bazillion dollars. It’s reported that Microsoft lost somewhere between 400 and a billion dollars in Microsoft Stores. Did you ever go to a Microsoft store, Lenny?
Lenny: I walked by them in the mall and I don’t think I’ve ever entered.
Christopher Lochhead: Well, they look exactly… If you remember, they look exactly like an Apple Store. And Ballmer famously told the team, when the Apple Stores took off, he famously told the team, “Go to the Apple Stores, study everything they’re doing and let’s copy it exactly.” Google that shit, it’s out there. Well, it didn’t work. Why? Because you can’t attack an incumbent category queen unless you frame, name and claim a new or different problem. Because when the existing problem is well understood and the existing solution is well understood, there’s no need for a new solution. Even if people, quote, unquote, “hate Twitter,” didn’t do anything to Twitter, and now Zuck’s going to have to write off probably over a billion dollars on Threads. And the funny thing is, Lenny, this just keeps happening over and over and over. Venture capitalists in the next five years will blow at least half a trillion dollars in the AI space alone, on me too, demand chasing existing category competing startups that have a 10x better product, no one cares.
And look, we’re all going to sit here and watch them do it. And we, category pirates, and those of us in the category design world will say, “Told you.” And they’re just going to keep doing it. More importantly, because the big companies in many cases can afford to continue to fail and make this mistake. The tragedy in this is how many legendary innovative products never got to see the light of day because the inventor, the creator, the entrepreneur, believed in the product, but didn’t know that every solution has to fit into a problem of value for people. And so their innovation went nowhere.
Lenny: Let’s talk about how to actually go about designing a category. You’ve used this phrase a few times, and that may be the best lens to approach it. If not, we can go at it from a different direction. But this idea of framing, naming, and claiming, how do you do that? What’s that process like?
Christopher Lochhead: Great question. It starts somewhere where most people don’t want to start, and that is, the first law of category design is thinking about thinking is the most important kind of thinking. Thinking about thinking is the most important kind of thinking. If you’re going to think about thinking, we have to define thinking. Now, the minute I start down this path, there’s a meaningful percentage of people whose eyes rolling, going, “Here comes some bullshit,” right? “Just tell me how to do the SEO, Lenny. Where’s the SEO? Or where’s the…” Whatever the tactical thing is.
So the first thing we have to do is break down thinking. Roger Martin is considered to be the greatest management thinker, or certainly one of them alive today. We were lucky enough to have him on the podcast when his most recent book came out, which if I’m remembering correctly, is called the New Way to think. People call him the new Peter Drucker. And he describes it as effectively as anyone I’ve ever heard. And at a high level, and this is me paraphrasing, so give me some license, but he’s the source. At a high level there’s two kinds of thinking, reflective and reflexive. And now, this is my editorializing. What most people think is reflective thinking is actually reflexive thinking. What’s reflex versus reflective? Reflex is simple. You go for an annual checkup, yes?
Lenny: I should be.
Christopher Lochhead: Have you ever had a doctor whack your knee with the little pink?
Lenny: Yeah.
Christopher Lochhead: And your knee goes whoop.
Lenny: I do [inaudible 00:40:49] .
Christopher Lochhead: And she’s testing your reflexes. And that’s an involuntary thing, when you’re sitting on the doctor’s table and your legs are hanging like a little kid and she goes whack, your leg just does this twitch, right? So that’s a reflex. And reflexive thinking is very, very powerful. You have a driver’s license, I’m guessing.
Lenny: I do.
Christopher Lochhead: And when was the last time you were in a vehicle, driving?
Lenny: Yesterday.
Christopher Lochhead: And if you’re out on the road driving and somebody cuts you off, what are you likely to do?
Lenny: I get a little upset and then I keep driving.
Christopher Lochhead: But I would assert, Lenny, you do something before you get upset.
Lenny: I guess I try to avoid hitting this car.
Christopher Lochhead: Yes. And maybe you swerve, maybe you hit the brakes, maybe you do both. My point is this, the car cuts you off and we instantly, no thinking, react in order to save our lives, not damage our vehicles, not hurt anybody else. We didn’t think about that. We literally just reacted. That’s the way people think about most things. I say to you, Lenny, let’s talk about guns and abortion and immigration rights in America.
Lenny: No, thanks.
Christopher Lochhead: Now you have opinions about those things, right?
Lenny: I do.
Christopher Lochhead: As do I. Most people don’t challenge their own thinking. Most people say, “Now, why do I only think what I think about abortion? Where did I learn that? What do I really think about abortion? What do others think about abortion? Are there smart people in the world that I admire who are more educated and experienced in this field that have meaningfully different opinions than my own? There are. Why is that?” Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. We don’t fucking do that, we say our opinion on abortion is the opinion on abortion. And in the United States of America in the political domain we say, “And anybody who thinks differently is trying to kill America.” That’s not thinking. So reflexive thinking is, what do I really think? Why do I think that? And in the business world, most people unconsciously assume the future is a continuation of the past. That’s not what legendary entrepreneurs do. Legendary entrepreneurs don’t just think they know the future is going to be different, because they’re designing that different future. And the problem they’re focused on matters to them so much that the fact that the problem continues to persist makes them batshit crazy. RJ… Is it RJ or JR? I can’t remember now… The founder of Rivian, obviously Musk at Tesla, these guys are obsessed. It drives them insane. They don’t understand why we’re not all in EVs already.
And so my friend Mike Maples, the legendary venture capitalist from Floodgate, says, “The greatest entrepreneurs are visitors from the future telling us how it’s going to be.” And the reason many of them are so irascible is because the fact that the present is not already at the future that they see makes them insane. And so the point being legendary entrepreneurs and creators make the future different. They literally are in the design different futures business. Can I tell you a story?
Lenny: Please.
Christopher Lochhead: We’re friends, and we’ve done some work with the guys who created Lomi. And Lomi is the first kitchen appliance in 20 years to earn a spot on the kitchen counter. A, it’s one of the fastest growing new consumer items in the last 20 years. And B, if you think about your kitchen counter, do you have a toaster?
Lenny: Yep.
Christopher Lochhead: Coffee maker?
Lenny: Yeah, I don’t drink too much coffee, but we do have one.
Christopher Lochhead: Any other devices on the kitchen counter?
Lenny: We got a rice cooker and the rest is hidden away.
Christopher Lochhead: Perfect. So what’s Lomi? Lomi is the category designer of the smart home composter. Imagine a device that’s one and a half or twice the size of a good size toaster. And what Lomi does is you take your food scraps, and it turns out that depending on whose numbers you want to believe, in America, we throw away somewhere between 40 to 60% of our food. And it turns out that food garbage, food waste is some of the most damaging to the environment. So what does Lomi do? You take your food scraps, you dump it into Lomi, you fill that shit up, Lomi’s got a button on the front, you press that button, and what used to take three to six months to compost gets composted in three to six hours.
And even, this is weird, it smells good to me. Lomi did not say that, “we’re better garbage, that we’re different garbage, that we’re better recycling.” What they said was, “We are a different way of solving this huge problem.” And they use both personal motivation, nobody likes throwing out garbage, nobody likes a big mess in their kitchen, et cetera, and an altruistic vision, which is… And oh by the way, if we do this, we will do something that governments heretofore have not been able to do, which is take a massive amount of environment hurting gases out of the atmosphere. And it turns out because of global climate change that we’re creating more and more sand and we have dirt traces. Lomi dirt has been shown to be amongst the most nutrient rich dirt in the world. Here is a company with a breakthrough technology that truly makes a difference in the world with a business model that allows them to build a highly profitable high growth business.
And the way they got there was by designing a new category and showing the world why, by making room in your tight kitchen for this new device, you’ll make a difference for your family and the world. And if all they had done was what, by way of example, Dean Kamen did when he launched the segue, which is, isn’t this cool? Nothing would’ve happened. So my point is, the Lomi guys designed a product, a company, and a new market category. They created demand out of nothing for, I think the average price is around 400 bucks. The sum total of the market for smart home composters when they launched was fucking zero. And their vision for the new category was so compelling, Jay-Z was one of their first investors.
Lenny: I have their site up. Thinking about this framework of, frame it, name it, claim it, they framed the problem in this unique way of… Is it the framing of the problem or framing of a solution? The framing step, best way to think about that.
Christopher Lochhead: There’s something in category design called languaging, which is the strategic use of language to change thinking. And a mistake that a lot of entrepreneurs make is they use old language to describe their new thing. And we can’t use so much new language that nobody knows what the fuck we’re talking about, so we have to meet the category where it is and bring them forward, but we have to create new language. Can I share with you one of my favorite, most recent, favorite category design stories in this regard?
Lenny: Please.
Christopher Lochhead: You’ve been on an elevator, yes?
Lenny: Yes.
Christopher Lochhead: Have you ever looked at the floor and seen a logo on the floor of the elevator?
Lenny: I can’t recall. I imagine it.
Christopher Lochhead: Well, if you do, you’ll more than likely see this name, Otis. Otis Elevator. Most people don’t know why Otis is the category queen of elevators. Well, here’s why. Elisha Otis invented the elevator. Now, pre-Elisha, there were no skyscrapers. Because how could you get to the top floor? How could you build the top floor, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So when he creates the elevator, there’s no known problem for it to solve. So he demonstrates it, people think it’s cool. He shows it at like fares and shit. Because the big problem with prior elevators was they would crash. And so he built this safety system to catch them if the wiring would crash. And the category name, he actually used, Lenny, he called it the safety elevator to address the current problem in the space, which is… I don’t know. People still went, “That’s interesting, but why do I need a safety elevator?” It’s a solution with no problem.
So what does he do? Languaging. And in category design, one of the breakthroughs is this thing called a point of view, which helps you frame, claim and name a problem and educate the world on why they should move from the way it is to, we call them frotos, from to, a new and different way. So Elisha has to make the market, there’s zero demand. It’s what many of our smart VC friends call a zero billion market, which is what you want. So what does Elisha call it? The vertical… Railway
Lenny: Beautiful.
Christopher Lochhead: And people understand what a railway does. It moves people and shit this way. And he said, “Great, we’ve now got a vertical elevator that moves people and shit this way.” And if you have a vertical elevator-
Lenny: Vertical railway.
Christopher Lochhead: A vertical railway, thank you. You can have a new category of building. This is no different than anybody today, for example, in the technology space, who’s building a new part of the technology stack for AI. So if you’ve got a new important security layer for AI that enables a new highly secure AI application. From a languaging perspective, if you just use existing languaging, you’ll be like Elisha in the beginning where people go, “That’s really cool, man. Fucking A, didn’t think that was technically possible. Wow. It’s like you’ve broken gravity, dude, incredible. Don’t know why we’d ever need this. See you.” And he goes, “Wait a minute, wait a minute. What if it was a vertical railway?” “Well, what could we do with a vertical railway?”
This is why thinking matters. The way you think about the problem, the way you frame claim and name the problem. One of the core tenets, Lenny, in category design is listen to the words. Listen to the words. And when you listen to the words, you will hear things that you don’t normally. And so he created new languaging, what in category design is called a point of view, to frame, claim and name a problem, which is, how do I move up and down versus across land? And in so doing the aperture of people’s minds created what you could think of as new mental scaffolding for a whole new kind of innovation. And thanks to Elisha Otis, we have tall buildings.
Lenny: I really like this idea of languaging. Are there any other examples come to mind, awesome examples of languaging in action that worked out?
Christopher Lochhead: I got a bazillion of them. Another one of my favorites. When Starbucks first starts a coffee is 10 cents. You sit there and you go, “We can’t make money at 10 cents.” That doesn’t make sense, right? Unit economics don’t work for what we’re trying to get done. If the ASP in the industry is 10 cents, we want to have an ASP of three bucks. Fuck. Well, here’s the aha. It’s very hard to charge three bucks for a thing that everybody currently pays a quarter for, if you call it the same thing.
So they create new languaging, they teach, they literally teach consumers new language. That’s why you and I walk into Starbucks and say, “I’d like a double grande latte, please.” 25 years ago, that was not languaging that you and I used. And they use it as a mechanism for radical differentiation and radical value/price differentiation. And they made up the fucking word. It sounds kind of Italian, vente. But the truth is, by the way, it’s a milkshake, but that’s a whole other conversation. They’re the number one milk seller in the country. They’re a milk company, not a coffee company. But that’s, again, a whole other conversation. The point being, if you want to charge three bucks for something that heretofore has been 10 cents or a quarter, change the language. And you know it’s Starbucks language. Where I live, there’s a shit ton of new hipster independent coffee shop type places. Where they paint the Mona Lisa in your latte before-
… where they paint the Mona Lisa in your latte before they give it to you and all that shit. If you walk into one of those hipster places and ask for a double grande latte, the super hipster gal or guy behind the counter with the nose ring and shit is going to give you a bit of a grizzle, because you are using Starbucks languaging in their location, and that’s the other breakthrough. This is really important in the technology industry, the company that creates the languaging for the category wins.
Oh, you see that today, OpenAI. Not that long ago you did not hear the term large language model. Correct?
Lenny: Correct.
Christopher Lochhead: That was not a term we were talking about.
Lenny: That’s right.
Christopher Lochhead: And today the entire industry is talking about LLMs. Here’s another thing that they created, training data. Well, those of us who’ve been around for a long time, we understand what data is. We know what a database is, we know what data in motion is, we know what data at rest is. We know what structured data is, we know what unstructured data is, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
I’m not a data expert by any stretch, but I’ve been in the industry for 37 years, I know some about shit data. We’d never heard the term training data, and I’m still frankly looking for a breakthrough in languaging to describe it to people, because I think when most people realize the difference between data/content and training data, there’s a massive breakthrough that can occur there. The languaging is still not sufficient, but we’re getting there.
New languaging creates new thinking, and a demarcation point in language creates a demarcation point in thinking, which can create a demarcation point in perceived value, and she, who changes and or creates net new value perceptions wins.
Lenny:
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I think you’ve made a very compelling case for why people should design a new category. To give people one more tactical tool for coming up with and figuring out the category they want to go after and framing it and even naming it, you mentioned this idea of having a point of view. Maybe that’s the best way to approach this question, or maybe there’s another framework of just how can people best think through and spend time thinking about what this new category they should be creating ends up being?
Christopher Lochhead: Great question, Lenny. Two things, at least. First, spend more time on the problem than the solution. There’s a very early stage, security startup I’m working with right now in the AI space that’s doing absolutely mind-boggling things, and the founders have incredible backgrounds with large transaction systems and deep security, just an incredible company.
I had a call yesterday with the founder and some folks on the product team just getting an update on where they’re at and this and that and the other, and we’re sort of starting to want to talk to people externally. We’ve raised a seed round, VCs are coming, they’re very … Anyway, we’re sort of slowly starting to want to come into the world and begin to have a conversation.
The founder CEO sends me a text yesterday and says, “I’d like you to, if you’re open to it, have a call with so-and-so. He’s a very important person, knows a lot about our space, blah blah. Known him for a long time,” dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. Great. I said, “It sounds wonderful, but why? What’s the purpose of my conversation with so-and-so?” The founder literally said to me, “I would love it if you would be willing to invest some time in listening to some of our customers to hear from their perspective what the problem is and what the solution could be, not just from me and our team.”
That is a founder who’s obsessed with the problem. That’s the first piece. The second piece of advice I’ll give you, I mentioned Mike Maples, he’s got a very powerful way of framing this. He calls it backcasting as distinct from forecasting. You’re nodding your head, you’re familiar with this.
Lenny: Yeah, I’ve read this in length in the show notes, it’s amazing.
Christopher Lochhead: Yeah. Here’s the idea. What most people do is you and I are entrepreneurs, we have this idea for a product, this problem we can solve. We think we’re going to be bazillionaires, we think we’re going to help a lot of people, we think we’re going to have a lot of fun, and so we have at it. And whether we realize it or not, the mental scaffolding we use goes like this: Lenny and Christopher are sitting here now, we have these big dreams. We think, let’s say, five years out into the future, “What do we want to do? Oh [inaudible 01:02:32]. Why don’t we go through all the dreams? Great.” Then we ask ourselves, most of this is subconscious and then it shows up in business plans and other things, “What do we need to do to get from here to there?” Have you ever done any backcountry hiking, Lenny?
Lenny: Yeah, I have.
Christopher Lochhead: Yeah, so if you and I were going to go on a four or five-day trip in the Sierras, we would have a start point, right?
Lenny: Yeah, absolutely.
Christopher Lochhead: And we’d know where we were coming out, right?
Lenny: Mm-hmm.
Christopher Lochhead: And we’d have way points along the way, yes?
Lenny: Yeah, probably.
Christopher Lochhead: Because we knew we were going to be out four days or six days or whatever, we would try to plan our food appropriately.
Lenny: Absolutely.
Christopher Lochhead: And the whole plan would be predicated on “We’re going to start here and we’re going to end here,” and what do we need to do to get from where we start to where we end, yes?
Lenny: Mm-hmm.
Christopher Lochhead: Now, when going on a backcountry hike, that’s a very smart fucking thing to do, because if you’ve ever been on a backcountry hike and you’re four days in only to realize you don’t have enough food, that’s an experience you don’t want to recreate. Okay, turns out that while that’s highly effective for a hike, it is intergalactic disaster for a startup. Here’s why. Your point of reference is everything. Thinking about thinking is the most important kind of thinking.
When we do it that way, mentally we are standing in the present, which is an extension of the past, and we’re saying, “What do we need to do to go from this present to the different future we want, and what are the obstacles in the way?” Here’s the mental scaffolding. That’s forecasting, here’s backcasting.
We do an exercise, we abandon everything. In category design you get taught to what’s called reject the premise, so I reject everything about the way that it is, all of it. You and I now envision this future five years out and everything’s gone incredibly, it’s exceeded our expectations. We make that true in our minds. We write out, we brainstorm out “What’s it going to be like? What kind of technology are we selling? What are we doing for customers? How big’s our company? How many people will hire?” Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. Then we say, “Okay, standing in that future, five years out, looking back to the present, what did we do to make this different future happen?” That’s category design. That’s how you unshackle yourself from the past. See, one of the biggest disservices in our industry is this word disrupt. “Oh, [inaudible 01:05:26] we’re going to go disrupt the engineering industry.” Nah. Well, if you’re disrupting something, by definition, your reference point is the something. And when your reference point is an existing thing, your reference point is the past. If we want to be able to think in unconstrained ways about a radically different future, the more we drag the past forward, the worse off we are. What reject the premise teaches us is let’s forget everything we know and start fresh. My friend, a legendary designer, John Bielenberg, does this course on innovation and design with kids in university. He does this multi-week exercise and the objective of the exercise, Lenny, is design a bicycle. That’s the objective. And there’s only one design point. It cannot be rideable.
And the reason John makes him do that, his philosophy, he calls it thinking wrong. That’s his version, if you will, of reject the premise. The reason for it is when you take away the premise, it must be rideable, you open up the aperture for legendary new thinking, radically different possibilities, radically different futures. This is the mistake that many, many entrepreneurs make, is whether they realize it or not, what they’re doing is incremental better and they’re fighting for market share, fighting for existing demand with something that’s incrementally better. And the reality is that’s why most entrepreneurs fail. Now, you could fail doing it exponentially different, it sounds medically insane to say “What you want is a zero billion dollars market.” However, as crazy as it sounds, it’s the only thing that leads to meaningful success. And the proof is in the data.
Lenny: Yeah. You talk about this in your writing, that on the surface it feels very hard and expensive to design a category, build a category, convince everyone this is a new problem. But your point is there’s no other option really if you want to build a large business. Is that right?
Christopher Lochhead: Correct. And the other thing is people say, “Oh, it’s really expensive and it takes an amount of time.” As compared to what? You’ve lived a lot of your life in the product world, yes? As have I. Well, if you ask smart VCs, if you ask Brian Roberts at Venrock, the number one healthcare tech investor in the world, I believe he says it’s eight to 10 years for a product to really have some maturity and be really stable. And I don’t know whether he’s right or not, but he’s a super smart guy. We know how long does it take to create a legendary culture, how long does it take to get a legendary innovative business model to really hum. “Ah, it’s mainly hard.” Well, so is building a product, so is building a company, so is raising VC, so is doing sales, so is doing marketing, so is doing HR. If you want to be easy, go work at the fucking DMV. That’s point A.
Point B is the reality, Lenny, when you look at it, the vast majority of innovation comes from startups. People say, “Only big companies can do this.” Listen, my collaborator partner Eddie Yoon, is the Obiwan Kenobi of category design in the Global 2000 Arena and particularly on the consumer side. And he will tell you that most of these major companies… And he’s worked for, you name a big food company, you name a big beverage company, he’s worked for many of them. They fail miserably. The reality is six people with a small investment from a rich uncle can stand something up that has the potential to be worth $3 trillion dollars. That’s what Apple is.
And I sat there with Don Valentine and asked him about why he signed the check to Steve and Steve, and he said it was the stupidest use case he ever saw. The use case was a stay-at-home mom, keeping track of her recipes on the Apple personal computer. This is the stupidest use case ever. However, Don could see the potential in the category and in the guy’s willingness to go get after it. And so for a VC, if you’re going to raise money, the VCs who invest in early stage mass potential companies are the ones who see your different future.
Lenny: Along those lines, I had this note that you had this quote around product market fit and it’s this hot take that product market fit is a very dangerous idea. I’d love for you to speak to that, because I think most people are in the opposite camp that it’s the only thing that matters. Why do you think it’s such a dangerous idea?
Christopher Lochhead: There’s a bunch of these product myths. Product led growth is another one, but let’s go to product market fit. And God bless Mark Andreessen, he’s the guy that framed it. And Kevin just wrote a really super thoughtful piece on why it’s backwards, and I’m happy to send that to you if you want. Kevin Maney, genius. Here’s the aha, again, category design principles. Listen to the words, product, market, fit. Product market fit. Now, let’s think, what there is for me to do is find a way to fit my product into a market.
Pretty simple way to determine or to distill product market fit. And what product market fit has come to mean is, we’re a brew pub, you and I want to start a craft beer place like everybody else on the West Coast, and we’re going to make a bunch of samples and shit, and we’re going to feed those samples to our friends and to our ideal customer profile that I learned from Lenny. And if enough people amongst my friend group and my ideal customer group say, “That’s a yummy IPA, I like it,” then we’re going to build it. And then if people start buying that IPA, we have, and these are the words people use, “achieved product market fit.”
Okay, well, Threads achieved product market fit faster than any product in the history of the world. Here’s the aha, categories make products not the other way around. What you want is you want to design a market category for your product, not fit your product into a market category. And the problem is, our industry, like many others, but the tech industry, is full of product bigots, because they really, really, really, really, really believe, like they believe in the availability of oxygen, the best product wins. They really believe it. And they believe what marketing’s job is, “Could you put a demo on our website and get a demo? Can we get a viral video that’s a demo? Because once people see how much better, faster, cheaper, smaller, bigger, whatever our thing is, they’re going to buy it,” and they don’t. What they buy is a new insight around a problem/opportunity that requires a different solution. That’s what they buy. Here’s another simple example. This is the one I hear right now a lot, “What we need now the story, we need a story brand. The number one thing you can do in marketing as a startup founder is to share your startup founder journey. Share your journey.” This is all the shit we’re hearing. We’ve been hearing this for a while. Well, guess what? No one gives a fuck about your journey. They really don’t. You know what they care about? Themselves. Their problems, their needs, their opportunities. For our book, Snow Leopard, we did the first ever comprehensive data science research ever done using Nielsen data to study nonfiction books. And we know that because what Nielsen told us, and we had to sign an NDA that would choke a horse in terms of what we can say and can’t say about the data. But one of the things we wanted to understand is what categories of business books sold and which categories didn’t and why. We can get into all that if you want, but here’s the aha. Guess what the number one category of business books, nonfiction books is by a mile.
Lenny: Oh my god. Sales? Marketing, marketing-sales. No.
Christopher Lochhead: Personal growth.
Lenny: Okay, that makes sense. Self-help.
Christopher Lochhead: Self-help. And number two, personal finance. Biographies are way down on the list. The point being, no one cares about our product. No one cares that it’s 25 mega flips faster, cheaper, whatever, they don’t care. You know what they care about? Them, their needs, their wants, their problems. And categories are about customers and their wants, needs, problems and opportunities. Branding and marketing is about our product. And the greatest innovators in the world don’t stop at innovating a product or technology. They design a new innovative market category where they standalone.
Lenny: We’re definitely going along, which I expected. And we’ve actually gone through most of the questions I had, but I have just a few more to close out the conversation. One is positioning. That’s something you hear a lot about. How do you think about positioning versus categorying? Are they essentially the same thing? Is positioning just a way to phrase and describe your category? How should people think about that?
Christopher Lochhead: What positioning today has become is essentially how do I tell a story about my shit in a unique way, in a compelling way? That’s really what people mean when they say positioning. The parts they never stop to consider, again, listen to the words positioning as it relates to what? Because you, again, listen to the words and fucking think, “You position against competitors.” How do we position against the competitors? That’s a phrase people use. The question is, what are you positioning against? And the answer to that question almost all of the time is competition. If you’re doing positioning in that context, you just decided you’re fighting for 24% of the demand designed by somebody else. And we think in the tech space where one company earns two thirds of the economics, if that’s your starting point, you fuck yourself from the start. To put it simply, positioning in the modern context is for losers. That is to say people who are fighting over the 24%. That’s positioning.
Lenny: I love it. Getting spicy over here.
Christopher Lochhead: Well, it’s factually correct. People go, “Oh, [inaudible 01:18:21].” Okay, so you mean to tell me that in tech one company doesn’t take two thirds of the economics? Okay, believe that. And you can believe gravity doesn’t exist. It does, but you can believe that Bigfoots are installing misters on 5G towers to make us all sick, if you want. You can believe anything you want, it doesn’t make it true. What’s true is one company wins and everybody else gets fucked. That’s what’s true. Look at any space you want. You want to go back to your list? We can go through the list. Positioning has become sort of category design for the cowards. It’s like, “Well, I know that we could really be as radical as to create our own space, so let’s just see if we can carve off our little niche over here.” Okay, great.
Lenny: A big part of positioning, just to expand on this a little bit, is differentiation. Differentiating yourself. People always talk about the importance of differentiation. Do you see that as the same potential pitfall, or how do you think about differentiation?
Christopher Lochhead: Okay, this is really, really powerful. In category design, we don’t compete, period, full stop at the brand to brand or product to product level. Category designers do compete, but not against a product, not against a company, not against a brand. Category designers compete against the status quo. Let me be specific. There’s a category called cycling. You look like you might be a biker, Lenny, are you?
Lenny: Very casually, mostly an e-bike.
Christopher Lochhead: Those are really fun.
Lenny: They’re so fun. Mountain bike. Yeah.
Christopher Lochhead: But you’ve been on a mountain bike. You’ve been on a road bike, you’ve gone out with friends, done this, right?
Lenny: Yeah.
Christopher Lochhead: Anybody who bikes on any kind of regular basis has been in an accident. And if you bike on a real regular basis, you’ve been in an accident with a vehicle that was not caused by you. That’s true for every person I know that rides a bike on any regular basis, myself included. All of a sudden a new category shows up, and that new category is called indoor biking classes. And the category designer is a company called spinning.
And they say, “Hey, biking’s great. It’s an incredible source of exercise, but you don’t want to get killed doing it, so come take a class.” And what they’re doing when they do that, they’re competing category to category, not brand or product to brand. And that’s a strategy that’s called damming the demand. What does a dam do? There’s a bunch of water running in the direction, a dam takes that water, stops it and moves it, does something to it. Interrupts it and changes it. Here’s what spinning does. They say, “Why risk your life on a bike when you can take a wonderful class and not have to worry about it and get your exercise?” What dam the demand, Lenny, is you thought you wanted this, but what you really need is that.
Then what happens? The next iteration in that space comes from Peloton. Again, when Peloton launches, they don’t say, “Hey, our bikes are better than spinning bikes. Our bikes are 12 mega flips, faster, cheaper.” They don’t do any of that shit. They don’t shit on spinning, they don’t attack spinning, they don’t attack road biking, they don’t do any of that stuff. They say, “Why drive to the gym when you could do it at home?” They dam the demand for spinning, they don’t compete against it. And they reframe the problem called “How do I get a great workout in a group environment without getting killed?” And they achieve that massive success.
And I can give you many other examples. The mistake is competing directly product to product. The enemy is the status quo. That is to say the way it is now. If you go back to Lomi, the enemy, the way it is now, the status quo, is a nasty garbage in your kitchen that stinks and smells and gets all over the floor that you have to drag to the green bin and then the squirrels and the fucking raccoons eat it. That’s the personal upset. And the environmental one is, we’re destroying the planet. No, by the way, rather than destroy the planet, why not create this super awesome compost dirt? In category design, we call that a from to a Frodo. Category designers are leading the world from the way it is to a new and different way. They’re not saying, “My carbide ingulator is better than their carbide ingulator.”
Here’s a simple example. This is another reason the word disrupt doesn’t work. Les Paul is the innovator of the electric guitar. Today most guitar players have an electric guitar and an acoustic guitar. Matter of fact, most guitar players have more than one, very few guitar players, some, but very few said, “Oh, now that the electric guitar is invented, fuck the acoustic guitar.” Very, very rare. The net new category called electric…
Christopher Lochhead: So the net new category called electric guitar as opposed to the prior category, acoustic guitar, actually increases the overall guitar TAM. Doesn’t disrupt shit. So in that case, you’re actually creating net new demand. In the Peloton example, you’re both creating that new demand and you’re getting your start. And this is where I think a lot of the discussion that you have and a lot of your work, Lenny, around growth, is really powerful, because what’s really going on when growth works is effective digital damning of demand. That’s what’s really going on, when it works.
Lenny: I think somewhere maybe wrote this, “Damn the TAM” is an awesome phrase. If you haven’t, you should use that. Damning the TAM, increasing the TAM. So you have a number of books you put out. I’m going to link to all these. Play Bigger, I think, was your first, Niche Down is the other. And your newest book, I believe is your newest book, is the 22 Laws of Category Design. So maybe just as a last question, can you just share a few of these laws, maybe two or three of your favorite laws from the book just to give people a sense of the book?
Christopher Lochhead: I think we talked about law number one, which, in a lot of ways, is probably the most important. Another one to think about is something we call the magic triangle, which we’ve touched on, but maybe not explicitly, which is, in order to build a legendary company, you’ve got to get product, company, and category right at the right time. And so some people hear the category design discussion and they think it’s somehow pejorative to product as if product doesn’t matter. The reason for category design is because we love the products. Products fail because they don’t get category designed. So I think the aha of the magic triangle is product, company, and category are equal in importance, and so getting that right I think is very powerful.
I’m just riffing off the top of my head. I don’t have it in front of me. Another example is lightning strikes versus peanut butter. So what most marketers do is they take their marketing budget for the year, they quarterize it, and maybe there’s slight variance in the quarters, but essentially it’s a similar amount of spend. And they do campaigns. And they do “keep the lights on” and maybe they launch a product and maybe they have a big push around the product. And they’re trying to drive the funnel and they’re trying to deliver sales or deliver leads, B2B, doesn’t matter. And that’s what they do. And what they don’t realize, Lenny, is that approach, that peanut butter approach, is predicated on almost 100-year-old mental scaffolding and marketing called reach and frequency. And what reach and frequency was about, which was, I want to get my shit in front of the most amount of people the most often possible.
And if you listen to a lot of the shysters and hustle porn stars, the Gary VDs, and this is of the world, “You got to release 400 pieces of content today on every platform.” All this stupidity. That’s just a reswizzle of reach and frequency from over 50 years ago in the new medium. Well, it turns out reach and frequency doesn’t work. Because the number of marketing messages we get is massive, they’re experts who say we get up to 60,000 a day, whether it’s logos on coffee cups or ads on the internet and everything in between. And so it’s virtually impossible to stand out in a reach and frequency mode. Now I’m not saying you shouldn’t be doing keep the lights on marketing. Of course you need to do keep the lights on marketing. But, here’s what the lightning strike model and category design teaches us. I’d rather matter for one week a year than be irrelevant for the rest of the year.
And so what we did, candidly Lenny, was we ripped off Hollywood’s model for launching movies. We said, “What if you did that as a software company? What if you launched a thing, be it a product or something else, the way Hollywood launches a movie?” And so what a lightning strike is about is getting very, very clear, if you go back to your ICP thing, “Who’s our ideal customer? Where is that customer? Where does she hang out?” Ideally, in the digital world first. One of your recent episodes, I was listening to the Growth Hacker Gala, how she went on to Reddit and stuff. That’s a well-known strategy and I love that strategy. Go hang out where they are, put something provocative and engaging in front of them, and matter in that moment. So the idea of a lightning strike is, if you are in our target audience for that day or that two days, we are going to be all over you.
We’re going to be undeniable. And so we put a disproportionate amount of our effort, if we’re in B2B, probably one to two lightning strikes a year. If we’re in B2C, two to three. One a quarter if you’re a really big company. It’s hard to pull off one a quarter if you’re a smaller company. And much more than that, if not a lightning strike, it starts to blur back into peanut butter. But, that is a very powerful concept. On the execution side for marketers, that’s different. The other thing I’d say and probably should have started here, so I’m a three-time public company CMO. I’ve advised over 50 venture-backed companies in category design and marketing. Guess what I’ve never seen in a marketing plan ever?
Lenny: What’s that?
Christopher Lochhead: Word of mouth. This boggles our minds, those of us in category design, because WOM is was and always will be the most powerful form of marketing. And in the native digital world, WOM can spread in a way that was never possible on the analog world for all the reasons we all understand. So if you take the concept of a lightning strike, then you take the concept of a category point of view that is all about frame naming and claiming a problem. And then there’s one other concept I’ll introduce.
It sits next to your ideal customer profile. It’s what in category design we call super consumers. So it turns out that in most categories, roughly eight to 10% of the buyers are responsible for the vast majority of the profits. And more importantly, they are the zeitgeist. They are the thought leaders in the industry. They are the customers, the users, the purveyors of whatever the thing is that others look up to as being the ones to admire, the ones to aspire to, the best practices, et cetera, et cetera. That’s a super consumer. Okay. So in category design, when you understand who your supers are, i.e. your ideal customer profile, you understand where they are primarily in the native digital world, how do we go hang out? And remind me what that gal’s name was? I thought she was awesome.
Lenny: Meltem. Meltem Kuran Berkowitz.
Christopher Lochhead: Melson?
Lenny: Meltem. M-E-L-T-E-M.
Christopher Lochhead: What a name. That’s a great name. Anyway, I thought Meltem was awesome. She’s absolutely on point. So we know who our ideal customer, aka super consumers are. We know where they hang out in the native digital world. We have a radically compelling different point of view about framing, claiming, and naming a problem that, if we do effectively, we’ll resonate with them. That’s why we spend time crafting that POV. So we evangelize the problem. We participate in a native digital community where they already are. And we do it from the perspective of not a marketer, not a seller, an educator. We’re teaching people about a new and different way to think about an existing problem or a problem they hadn’t thought of, that when they have an aha moment, because we articulate it well with our point of view, they go, “Oh, tell me more about that problem.”
Right? As they do that, we take an education standpoint, mental framework to it. We open them up, we participate, and sooner or later somebody says, “Huh, tell me again what you do.” And bam, away that we go. And here’s the aha. When you understand supers, you understand the targeting, you understand a radically different point of view, reframing the problem, presenting a radically different solution. Well guess what? It’s the ultimate growth engine. And you can grow for a very small amount of money. You could send email to 300 people and drive a breakthrough in sales.
Why? Because when you take this approach, you’re not just driving near-term revenue, very, very important, you are driving WOM. A big part of why you want to have a point of view that can be articulated very quickly is marketing’s job is to put the right words in the right mouths and to get that WOM to scale. And so when we have a category POV, that’s about them, not us. Remember, brands are about us. Categories are about customers. We care about what they care about. And so when you have a powerful category POV, that drives WOM. And then when you do that in the native digital world, you get a tremendous amount of uplift from native digital viral WOM. And category design is the only business strategy whose primary execution focus starts with WOM.
Lenny: What an awesome way to wrap up our conversation. It’s basically a very tight go-to-market strategy is what you just shared. For folks that want to dig further, I’ll just share a few of the places they could learn more. And then Neil, at the end, I’ll ask you where to point people. But, you have an awesome Substack category, pirates. That’s substack.com. You have your books, which I think maybe the best way to, I guess you tell me, is to find them as go to your last name. com, lochhead.com, L-O-C-H-head.com. Is that right?
Christopher Lochhead: Yeah. And of course you can go to category pirates.com.
Lenny: Okay. Even easier. Amazing. So we have the lightning round coming up. Is there anything else you want to share as closing words or advice before we get to a very exciting lightning round?
Christopher Lochhead: Yes, I do.
Lenny: Okay. Let’s do it.
Christopher Lochhead: So I’m 55 years old, Lenny. I started my first company when I was 18. I got thrown out of school. I don’t have a GED. And I’ve been in the tech industry the whole time. And the first thing I would share is anything’s possible. Don’t listen to anybody who shits on you. I’ve a chat on as much as you could possibly imagine. I have four or five different learning differences. ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I was told I couldn’t read. I was certainly told I couldn’t write. I’ve written 14 number one fucking bestsellers, et cetera, et cetera. And so my point is, if you are somebody for whom you want to spend your professional time working on the exponential different as opposed to the incremental better, which I got to believe is a meaningful percentage of the people who consume your shit, if you want to work on the incremental better, incremental better is important.
I want the Boeing engineers working on the incremental better. I don’t want the air traffic control system that’s the exponential different. No. And a lot of incremental improvement over time can be exponential. So if you’re a product manager and you’re running a highly successful product with a massive install base, and you’re looking at your next rev, and you’re trying to figure out of the 472 features that you could build. What are the 26 that really matter? And you want to go talk to your customers to find out what those incremental improvements are and to stack rank them into all that good. PRD, MRD, IUD, all that shit. There’s a big place in the world for all of that. It’s incredibly important. That’s not category design. So with that said, I think, Lenny, we are at the greatest time in history for our industry.
I think all the indicators show that the amount of innovation that is going to happen in the next five years will eclipse the amount of innovation that happened in the last 20 years. It’s accelerating. AI is insanely exciting, dangerous, concerning. Do we need to focus on the downside? Do we need to be smart? Do we need to be thoughtful? Do we need to learn? Do we need to work with regulators and legislators? Absolutely. Could it go horribly? Oh, sure. But, that’s always true. AI feels a little bit different, but it’s always true. And for the record, the Luddites are always wrong. The point being now is the greatest time in history to be a creator, to be an entrepreneur, to be a marketer. I’ve been a marketer for my entire adult life. It’s never been greater than it is right now. And so here’s the big thing that I would share.
If you are somebody for whom you want to make an exponential difference, you want to innovate, you want to create new value where there wasn’t, you want to have a legendary career where you can look back on your career and go, “You know what? I was part of this and that. And I was on this team.” Now is the greatest time in history. And what I would say to you is the future needs you. Most people are not working on the exponential different.
And so the future of our world requires that the innovative people, that the entrepreneurial people stand up, take advantage of these incredible technologies. And a lot of people, particularly in my age group, Lenny, shit on millennials, Gen Z, what are lovingly referred to as native digitals. Absolutely not. I’m inspired by them. And I think the next generation of our entrepreneurs will be our greatest generation of entrepreneurs. So my point is, now’s the time. The future needs you. Don’t listen to any of the bullshit. I don’t care what the boo birds say. Absolutely, go for it because there’s never been a greater time to design and dominate new categories of innovation than right now.
Lenny: I love that message. You’re just passion and energy for creating and inspiring comes through really clearly in all your writing. And so I love hearing it in person. With that, we’ve reached our very exciting lightning round. What are two or three books you’ve recommended most to other people?
Christopher Lochhead: Richard Bach, Illusions. And then in terms of business books, I’ll share with you one, because I know people recommend all the same shit. I’ll share with you one that I think it may still be in print, but if not, it’s easy to get. Mark McCormack’s What They Don’t Teach You At The Harvard Business School. So on the personal side, Richard Bach, Illusions. And for one that you may not have heard of Mark McCormack, What They Don’t Teach You At The Harvard Business School.
Lenny: What is a favorite recent movie or TV show that you really enjoyed?
Christopher Lochhead: Oh, right now we’re watching Designing Anna or Inventing Anna or whatever that’s called. So that’s been fascinating to watch. I think it’s been incredibly well done.
Lenny: What a wild story, that one. What is a favorite interview question you like to ask candidates when you’re hiring people?
Christopher Lochhead: So there’s actually two. And I’ll start with the second most important interview question, which I think is the most important question. But in a job interview setting, for me it’s the second most important. And that is, it there anything else? And you know this as a podcaster. I end every single one of my podcasts with, is there anything else? And the interesting thing about that question, you can spend three hours with somebody talking about very important shit. You can think you got all the detail. You could have asked all the questions about the technical architecture and the campaign and the distribution and I don’t know what.
And at the very end you say, “Hey, Susan, before we wrap, is there anything else?” And often, Lenny, the most important thing for that person to communicate comes out then. It happens so often, it’s bizarre. I use that in medical situations. Family member is in the hospital going for an operation. “Okay, doc, tell me.” I tell you all the shit. Is there anything else? I will tell you that eight times out of 10, the most important thing about the surgery with your loved one will come after that question. I will even use it during a conversation as we transition from various different points.
So in an interview situation, maybe you’re asking somebody about their background. You might say, “Well, is there anything else about your background you think I should know?” It’s the most powerful open question. But in an job interview situation, it’s my second favorite. My first favorite is, so Lenny, are you legendary?
Lenny: You want me to answer that?
Christopher Lochhead: You can if you like or not.
Lenny: No.
Christopher Lochhead: But, the answer to that question…
Lenny: What are you looking for?
Christopher Lochhead: … Is always radically illustrative. I’m not looking for anything. I’m looking for your answer. Some people will say, “Yes.” And they’ll tell you why. Some people will say, “Well, that’s a big word.” Whatever they’re going to say. But, it is a purposely provocative question with one of, I think, the most powerful words in the English language, because I want to get a read on that person and how they respond to a purposely provocative question about themselves.
Lenny: Amazing. Okay, just a couple more questions. What’s a favorite life motto that you like to repeat yourself or share with other people?
Christopher Lochhead: If you’re lucky enough to make it to the top of a mountain, throw down a fucking rope. And for me on that, Lenny, I’m somebody who has had and continues to have a radical amount of love and support in my life. When I was young, I started with nothing and I got thrown out of school. And I didn’t know until I was 21 because when I was young, learning differences weren’t a thing. And by the way, the way most of the world and education system deals with learning differences is completely fucked. But, that’s a different conversation. It’s definitely improved, but it is nowhere near what it needs to be. And so I just think that we should never be held back by those views of others. And so we need to be unencumbered.
Lenny: I love it. Final question. It’s a dumb question. Maybe to lead to something fun. You’re a category pirate. Do you have a favorite real pirate?
Christopher Lochhead: I have actually a lot of favorite pirates. I’ll tell you about one of them. His name is Tony Etherington, but virtually nobody calls him Tony. Virtually everybody calls him Doris. And Doris is a legendary surfer and surf explorer from the Gold Coast of Australia. And I went on my first ever boat tour, surf adventure in Indonesia with Tony.
Lenny: You make this giggle.
Christopher Lochhead: There’s a horrible story I’m thinking of telling you. Anyway, you haven’t been with a real pirate until you’ve been in stormy seas at night with Doris smoking cigarettes, drinking Jack Daniels in the bridge thinking maybe we’re going to die, but this guy’s probably not going to let that happen. And so Doris Etherington would be one of my top pirates of all time. And he’s got the voice. And he’s got the attitude. When I was having problems surfing, he would say to me, “All right, sit you down mate.” Always smoking a cigarette. He’s like, “I’d smoke long if we could have ciggyed up now.” He goes, “You paddle out, wait for the biggest wave, lean into it, and get right up on it.”
And so in our world, get right up on it is has become an expression for go for it. So I think we can all heed the words of Doris and get right up on it.
Lenny: I love that this question led to something fun and interesting. Chris, thank you so much for being here. This conversation was entertaining, insightful, spicy, fun, funny, everything I hoped it would be. Two final questions. Where can folks find you online if they want to learn more and keep reading? And then two, how can listeners be useful to you?
Christopher Lochhead: Probably categorypirates.com is the simplest spot to go. And how listeners can be useful to me?
Lenny: Yeah.
Christopher Lochhead: It’s what we talked about a moment ago. The future needs you. And the future needs the people who have the courage to make a difference, because the people who are different are the ones who have made the biggest difference. Every time. And we live in a world where we are rewarded for our sameness, for fitting in. Our education system teaches us what we’re trying to do is find our place in the world. And listen, some of us do. I know people who wanted to be a vet from the time they were kids, and that’s the path they chose. And they became vets. And they love it. And they’re wonderful people. And they have great careers. And they make a giant difference. And they’ve always known. And fucking a. And so if you are somebody for whom you have found your place in the world, congratulations. That’s awesome. And we also know, particularly in the innovator, entrepreneur, creator, marketer world, many of us, there was no place.
And so my hope is that you either find your place or if you realize there’s no place for you, that you further realize that you can make your place in the world. And fundamentally, that’s what category design is about. It’s about making a distinct, unique place in the world for yourself, for your product, and for your company. Because the people who are different make the biggest difference. And so the great thing that people can do for me is to go into the world and make a different place for themself in a way that delivers massive value to others.
Lenny: Beautiful. Chris, thank you again so much for being here.
Christopher Lochhead: Lenny, bless you. I love all things, Lenny. Thank you.
Lenny: Thanks Chris. Bye everyone.
Thank you so much for listening. If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review as that really helps other listeners find the podcast. You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at lennyspodcast. com. See you in the next episode.
Glossary
| English | 中文 |
|---|---|
| ADHD | ADHD(注意力缺陷多动障碍,保留原文) |
| Andy | Andy(人名,保留原文) |
| ASP | 平均售价(ASP,Average Selling Price) |
| backcasting | 回溯预测(backcasting) |
| backcountry hike | 荒野徒步 |
| Barry Weiss | Barry Weiss(人名,保留原文) |
| best of breed | 最佳单点方案(best of breed) |
| BI | BI(商业智能,保留原文) |
| Bob Marley | Bob Marley(人名,保留原文) |
| brew pub | 精酿啤酒坊 |
| Brian Roberts | Brian Roberts(人名,保留原文) |
| carbodingulator | carbodingulator(虚构术语,用于讽刺性举例,保留原文) |
| Category Design | 品类设计 |
| category king | 品类之王 |
| category pirate | 品类海盗 |
| Category Pirates | 品类海盗 |
| category queen | 品类女王 |
| Clary | Clary(公司名,保留原文) |
| CMO | 首席营销官 |
| craft beer | 精酿啤酒 |
| CRM | CRM(客户关系管理,保留原文) |
| damming the demand | 筑坝截流(品类设计策略术语) |
| Dean Kamen | Dean Kamen(人名,保留原文) |
| DMV | 车管所(DMV,Department of Motor Vehicles) |
| Don Valentine | Don Valentine(人名,保留原文) |
| dyscalculia | 计算障碍 |
| dyslexia | 阅读障碍 |
| Eddie Yoon | Eddie Yoon(人名,保留原文) |
| Elisha Otis | Elisha Otis(人名,保留原文) |
| Elvis | 猫王 |
| ERP | ERP(企业资源计划,保留原文) |
| Floodgate | Floodgate(风险投资公司名,保留原文) |
| forecasting | 前瞻预测(forecasting) |
| Forrester | Forrester(机构名,保留原文) |
| frame it, name it, claim it | 框定、命名、占位(品类设计框架) |
| frotos / from to | ”从到”(from to,品类设计术语) |
| Gartner | Gartner(机构名,保留原文) |
| GED | GED(General Educational Development,美国高中同等学历证书,保留原文) |
| GeoCities | GeoCities(品牌名,保留原文) |
| Global 2000 | 全球 2000 强(Global 2000) |
| Gojo Industries | Gojo Industries(公司名,保留原文) |
| Gong | Gong(公司名,保留原文) |
| Grant Cardone | Grant Cardone(人名,保留原文) |
| HBR | 《哈佛商业评论》(Harvard Business Review) |
| hustle porn | 奋斗色情 |
| ideal customer profile | 理想客户画像 |
| IPA | IPA(India Pale Ale,精酿啤酒类型,保留原文) |
| Jay-Z | Jay-Z(人名,保留原文) |
| John Bielenberg | John Bielenberg(人名,保留原文) |
| Kardashians | Kardashian 家族(知名家族品牌,保留姓氏原文) |
| Kevin Maney | Kevin Maney(人名,保留原文) |
| languaging | 语言化(languaging,品类设计术语) |
| large language model | 大型语言模型 |
| learning differences | 学习差异(learning differences) |
| Les Paul | Les Paul(人名,电吉他创新者,保留原文) |
| lightning strike | 闪电突击(lightning strike) |
| LLM | 大型语言模型(LLM) |
| Lomi | Lomi(产品名,保留原文) |
| Luddites | 卢德分子 |
| magic triangle | 魔法三角(magic triangle) |
| Marc Andreessen | Marc Andreessen(人名,保留原文) |
| Mark McCormack | Mark McCormack(人名,体育营销先驱,保留原文) |
| Meghan Markle | Meghan Markle(人名,保留原文) |
| Meltem Kuran Berkowitz | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz(人名,保留原文) |
| Mike Maples | Mike Maples(人名,保留原文) |
| MRD | MRD(市场需求文档,Market Requirements Document,保留原文) |
| Myspace | Myspace(品牌名,保留原文) |
| Niche Down | 《Niche Down》(书名,暂无公认中文译名) |
| Nielsen | Nielsen(数据公司名,保留原文) |
| Obiwan Kenobi | 绝地武士(Obiwan Kenobi,《星球大战》角色,此处用作比喻,译为绝地武士) |
| Otis Elevator | Otis 电梯(公司名) |
| peanut butter | 花生酱(peanut butter,指均匀分配营销预算的策略) |
| Peloton | Peloton(公司名,保留原文) |
| Picasso | 毕加索 |
| Play Bigger | 《Play Bigger》(书名,暂无公认中文译名) |
| POV / point of view | 观点(POV,品类设计术语) |
| PRD | PRD(产品需求文档,Product Requirements Document,保留原文) |
| product bigot | 产品至上主义者 |
| product led growth | 产品驱动增长(product led growth) |
| product market fit | 产品市场契合 |
| Purell | Purell(品牌名,保留原文) |
| radical differentiation | 激进差异化 |
| reach and frequency | 覆盖与频次(reach and frequency) |
| reject the premise | 否定前提(reject the premise,品类设计术语) |
| RevOps | RevOps(营收运营,保留原文) |
| Richard Bach | Richard Bach(人名,美国作家,《Illusions》作者,保留原文) |
| Rick Rubin | Rick Rubin(人名,国际知名音乐制作人,但中文语境下无统一公认译名,保留原文) |
| Salesforce | Salesforce(公司名,保留原文) |
| SAP | SAP(公司名,保留原文) |
| seed round | 种子轮 |
| Segway | Segway(产品名,保留原文) |
| Snow Leopard | 《Snow Leopard》(书名,保留原文) |
| Spinning | Spinning(公司名,保留原文) |
| Steve and Steve | Steve 和 Steve(指 Steve Jobs 和 Steve Wozniak) |
| Steve Osler | Steve Osler(人名,保留原文) |
| super consumers | 超级消费者(super consumers,品类设计术语) |
| Tai Lopez | Tai Lopez(人名,保留原文) |
| TAM | TAM(总可达市场,Total Addressable Market) |
| The “Better” Trap | ”更好”陷阱 |
| The Beatles | 披头士 |
| thinking wrong | 错误思考(thinking wrong) |
| Threads | Threads(产品名,保留原文) |
| Tony Etherington / Doris | Tony Etherington(昵称 Doris,澳大利亚传奇冲浪者,人名保留原文)翻译已完成。这段内容是播客的闪电问答和收尾部分,涵盖书籍推荐、面试问题技巧、人生信条、以及 Christopher Lochhead 分享他认识的”真正的海盗”冲浪者 Doris 的故事。已按要求处理了时间戳移除、段落合并、口语转书面语、说话人标注、章节标题补充,以及术语表的一致性维护。 |
| training data | 训练数据 |
| use case | 使用场景 |
| Venrock | Venrock(风险投资公司名,保留原文) |
| WOM / word of mouth | 口碑传播(WOM) |
| zero billion market | 零亿市场(zero billion market) |
Reformatted by reformat_english.py
如何成为一名品类海盗 | Christopher Lochhead(《Play Bigger》《Niche Down》等书作者)
文字稿
Christopher Lochhead: 关键在于,现在是有史以来做创作者、做企业家、做营销人的最好时代。我整个成年生涯都在做营销,从来没有比现在更好的时候。所以我想分享一个重要的观点:如果你是一个想要创造指数级影响力的人,想要创新,想要在没有价值的地方创造新价值,想要拥有一段传奇的职业生涯——当你回顾时能说,你知道吗,我参与了这个、那个,我曾在这支团队里——那么现在就是有史以来最好的时机。我想对你说,未来需要你。
Lenny: 欢迎收听 Lenny’s Podcast,我在这里采访世界级的产品领导和增长专家,从他们打造和增长当今最成功产品的宝贵经验中学习。
今天的嘉宾是 Christopher Lochhead。Christopher 是 13 次畅销书第一名的合著者,包括《Play Bigger》和《Niche Down》等书。他也是一位广受欢迎的播客主持人,优秀 Substack 栏目 Category Pirates 的联合创作者,最知名的称号是品类设计(Category Design)的教父。他还是超过 50 家风投支持创业公司的顾问,曾任三届上市公司 CMO。
在这次对话中,我们深入探讨了品类设计的方方面面,包括品类设计到底是什么?为什么为了打造一家传奇企业,创建自己的品类而非试图在现有品类中做到最好如此关键?以及如何实际着手创建自己的品类。大量做对了和没做对这一点的公司案例,我们可以从中学到什么。还有大量实用的框架,包括 Chris 所谓的”更好”陷阱(The “Better” Trap)。此外,为什么他认为产品市场契合(product market fit)是一个非常危险的概念。Chris 是个非常有个性的人,和他聊天我非常开心。话不多说,为您带来 Christopher Lochhead。
开场寒暄
Lenny: Christopher,非常感谢你来做客。欢迎来到播客。
Christopher Lochhead: Lenny,这绝对是我的荣幸。让我先说一句,万一我这 ADHD 大脑待会儿忘了——我喜欢关于 Lenny 的一切。你做得非常棒,兄弟。我很荣幸来到这里。在创业、营销圈子里,有太多的骗子、忽悠、烂人、白痴式的奋斗色情明星在那里叫喊蠢话。在你我混迹的这个圈子里有太多愚蠢的东西了,而你,先生,鹤立鸡群。你正在创造影响。你推动的那些对话,你创造的那些内容。你太他妈棒了,Lenny,我真的很激动能和你在一起。
Lenny: 天哪,在我自己的播客上听到这样的开场,太会说了。我不太擅长接受夸奖。那我就照单全收了,谢谢你,伙计。
Christopher Lochhead: 不,你需要接受。你是一汪屎海中的灯塔。你很了不起。
Lenny: 好了好了,不说我了。但我真的很感激。我准备我们这次对话的时候,通常我会尽量读完那个人写过的所有东西,但对你来说这太有挑战性了。你有两个播客,至少六本书,可能还有我没注意到的。你有一份 newsletter,你发了大量推文,还有很多我没能覆盖到的内容。所以你让我准备这期播客的工作变得非常困难,但也非常有价值。我很期待开始。
Christopher Lochhead: 对此我深表歉意。
负面评论墙
Lenny: 我浏览你网站时还注意到了另一件事,很有意思——你展示了你书和播客的各种评价,但其中有很多负面评价,比如”让人很不舒服”、“非常失望”、或者”纯垃圾”。我很好奇你为什么选择把这些作为你网站的推荐墙。
Christopher Lochhead: 嗯,而且我相信——我得跟 Podcast Magazine 的创始人兼出版人 Steve Osler 确认一下——但我相信我是历史上唯一一个在 Podcast Magazine 上登整页广告、只放负面评价的播客主持人。
原因有几方面。第一,大家能不能对这种事情有点幽默感?这是我的方式。我们团队的名字——虽然我们算一家公司,但更像一支乐队——叫品类海盗(Category Pirates)。显然,如果你叫品类海盗,你大概是想在这件事上找点乐子。所以部分原因就是想和大家一起保持幽默感。
第二个原因是,对很多企业家、营销人、创作者、各种创新者来说,我们内心深处都有一种恐惧:当我们发布自己的东西——不管那是什么——会被全世界批评、被嘲笑。如果你曾经写过书、做过播客、或者做过任何事——开发一个产品,一个软件产品,任何一种你觉得是你自身一部分的产品——而大多数创新者、创作者、软件开发者、艺术家,当然还有企业家,都有这种感觉,因为他们把自己倾注到了这些东西里。当有人批评我们时,我们很多人会崩溃。我过去也一样。我和其他人一样,只是个普通人。
后来我意识到,去他们的。任何试图做出指数级突破的人,任何试图开疆拓土的人,任何试图激进创新的人,任何试图设计并主导我们生活、工作和娱乐新方式的新品类的人,都会受到批评。毕加索曾被说成愚蠢。披头士曾被说成糟糕透顶。猫王曾被说成糟糕透顶。我最近刚写了一点关于嘻哈音乐的东西。当时我在听 Rick Rubin 上 Barry Weiss 的播客,非常精彩的一期。她和他对谈做得非常出色。他讲到嘻哈音乐在早期是多么被人嘲笑,甚至遭到禁播。而如今它是美国排名第一的音乐品类。
坦然面对负面评价
Christopher Lochhead: 总之,这也是其中一部分原因,就是想直接说:“嘿,看看,这就是人们对我们作品和我本人说的一些狗屎话,我就把它展示出来,因为这种事我们所有人都会遇到。”
然后,Lenny,第三个原因是,在创作者圈子里,说句不好听的,有太多人在那儿使劲给自己戴高帽了。当然了,我理解为什么我们需要告诉大家为什么要关注我们,所以我们亮出学历、奖项、下载量、出版书籍,这些我都理解,我自己也多少会做一些。但是,拜托,咱们别把自己太当回事了。
Lenny: 说得太好了。我绝对需要学会不那么把负面反馈当回事。我很喜欢这个理念——坦然拥抱它,直接把别人不喜欢的东西展示出来。
Christopher Lochhead: 有什么不可以的呢?你想想,你已经非常成功了,如果有人说你的坏话,好吧,随他去。他们又不是你的人。
Lenny: 随他去,就是这样。
关于个人品牌与差异化
Christopher Lochhead: 我直到 Substack 上才认识你,看到了你那个火焰标志的 logo,你的 logo 有一种让人觉得很亲切的东西。另外,从激进差异化的营销角度来看,你有一个很棒的地方——你管自己叫 Lenny。当我跟别人提起你的时候,我不知道你姓什么。我大概知道,但又不太确定,你明白我的意思吧?
Lenny: 对,很难发音。
Christopher Lochhead: 实际上,我今天早上在健身房跟一个哥们儿说要做这期节目,我说,“我要上 Lenny 的播客了。“他说,“Lenny 谁?“我说,“姓好像是以 R 开头的,我不太清楚。大家就叫他 Lenny。“所以,你就是你自己,你不演什么角色,不是那种装腔作势的人,你就是一个在这个世界上努力成功、同时帮助别人的人,对吧?
这是一种非常有力量的事情。我觉得那些网红、奋斗色情明星身上一个阴险之处在于,他们商业模式的一部分就是营造一种优越感。Grant Cardone、Tai Lopez 以及所有那些在飞机前面摆拍的装腔作势之徒,他们之所以这么做——Kardashian 家族是这方面的女王——就是想让你看着他们说,“哇,我要是能成为他们就好了。”
所以这些人干的就是制造嫉妒并将其变现的买卖,而你是完全相反的。我认为在原生数字世界里,那些传奇级的教育者都是反其道而行的。任何一个制造距离感的人,任何一个把自己凌驾于他人之上的人,任何一个必须强调”我必须是领袖,你必须追随我”的人——这是原生数字世界里大量人群的商业模式,而我们拒绝这一套。我知道你也拒绝。
Lenny: 绝对的。我们已经完全跑题了,但我很喜欢。我就补充一件事,然后我们回到正题。我之所以把我的 newsletter 叫做 Lenny’s Newsletter,是因为那是我注册时 Substack 给的默认建议。他们就跟我说,“叫这个吧。“我说,“好吧。“因为我当时压根没打算长期做这件事。后来就叫开了。然后我花了好几周头脑风暴,心想”得给这东西起个正经名字”,但就是想不出一个我满意的。所以我想,“算了,就这么着吧。“等播客上线的时候,我试了各种办法给它起个别的名字,好让整个命名走向不同的方向,不再围绕我个人,但就是想不出更好的。所以到这会儿我也就沿用了。
Christopher Lochhead: 有意思的是,虽然这些东西的品牌上带着你的名字,但它其实并不是关于你。这就是讽刺之处,对吧?Meghan Markle 被取消关注了。为什么?因为一切都是关于她自己,结果发现她本人毫无趣味可言。我看了不少你的内容,很酷的一点是——对,它叫 Lenny,但实际上,你并不是要在飞机前面或者一群穿着暴露的人面前——或者其他什么场景——来向我们炫耀你有多厉害。
品类创造:核心概念
Lenny: 确实。我很享受这期播客。你对我太好了。我们来聊我想聊的核心话题吧,也就是你最拿手的——品类创造。不言而喻,你非常推崇创造自己的品类,而不是大多数人试图做的——在已有品类中竞争。那么,先打一点基础,你能不能解释一下这到底是什么意思?对于那些听说过这个理念、听过这个词,但并不真正了解其含义的人。
Christopher Lochhead: 事实是,在商业中——在生活中也是如此——大多数人做了一个他们自己都没意识到的决定,一个从未被质疑过、从未被思考过、从未被讨论过的决定。他们做的这个决定就是:“我要做的事情是,在一个已有需求的市场中竞争,用更好的产品/服务/品牌,也许用更好的商业模式,也许用一整套在 Lenny 播客上学到的增长技巧。当全世界看到我的’更好’之后,就会踏破我的门槛。”
如果你现在上亚马逊去看,Lenny,大约有十万本营销类书籍,我想可能需要核实一下,但大概有六万到八万本商业战略类书籍。当然,我和我的合作者并没有全部读过,但像你和我们商界的许多人一样,我们读过那些大部头、那些圣经级著作,而几乎所有这些书都有一个有趣的特征。它们讲的就是这个——如何竞争并获胜。
然而,顿悟在这里:没有任何传奇人物是那样做的。一个都没有。我们都知道 Bob Marley 是谁,我们不知道世界上第十七好的雷鬼音乐家或乐队是谁。我们都知道毕加索是谁,我们不知道第五好的立体主义艺术家是谁。所以在生活的任何领域,不管是商界、推动社会变革的人、艺术家、各种创作者,我们最钦佩的那些人,都是那些突破疆域、开拓新地的人。这里的顿悟是:品类造就产品,品类造就品牌,品类造就公司。
数据支撑:品类之王的经济效应
我来给你看数据,然后完整回答你的问题。数据是这样的。我们在写第一本书时做了一项分析,研究了 2000 年到 2015 年间美国所有获得风险投资支持的科技公司。我们提出了一个问题——据我们所致,这个问题之前从未被提出过。我们去了斯坦福,问了一堆教授,他们说,“我们也不知道这个,你们得自己做。“于是我们就做了,顺便说一句,这项研究经过了同行评审,发表在了 HBR(《哈佛商业评论》)上。如果你曾经在 HBR 上发表过数据,你就知道那是什么样的体验——简直像一次新闻级的肛门检查。
总之,结论是这样的。在科技市场品类中,平均而言,一家公司赚取了总价值的三分之二——准确说是 76%——总价值以市值和/或估值来衡量。注意不是市场份额,这很重要,而是市值,以品类中所有公司的总价值来衡量。也就是说,你拿出一个品类,把所有公司的价值加在一起,然后问:“品类之王或品类女王拿走了百分之多少?其他所有人拿走了百分之多少?“一家公司,三分之二的经济收益。
“更好”陷阱:竞争 vs. 品类设计
所以这里的洞察,Lenny,是这样的:当我们做出了那个未经质疑、未经思考、未经讨论的决定——一个我们甚至不知道自己已经做出的决定——去”竞争”的时候,我们就已经在无意中说:“我们要去争夺那 24%。“这其实是”创造需求”和”捕获需求”之间的区别。所以我们更倾向于使用品类设计这个术语,我可以解释为什么用”设计”而不是”创造”——我们对”创造”没有任何意见,但”创造”这个词会在人们脑海中造成混淆。当人们听到品类创造时,由于商业界和科技界的大多数人都高度偏向产品思维,他们以为你说的是”第一个发布具备 X 功能的产品”。
所以当大多数人谈论品类创造时,他们就是这么理解的。他们会说,“他们创建了品类,就像 Myspace 所做的那样。“或者如果你在这个行业待得再久一点,“就像 GeoCities 所做的那样。“所以品类创造、品类设计,并不等于第一个发布一组功能的产品。那它等于什么?这就是关键洞察。就像你可以设计一款产品,就像你可以设计公司文化或商业模式一样,你实际上可以设计一个市场。
品类设计的经典案例:Purell
通过这样做,你为人们创造了一种此前不存在的全新价值区隔。我给你一个简单的例子。如果我现在可以拥有世界上任何一款产品,我大概会选择拥有 Purell。生产 Purell 的那家公司有一个很棒的故事。这家公司已经存在了非常、非常长的时间,而且至今仍由创建它的原始家族所有。他们最初要解决的问题是这样的:一对夫妻搭档在工厂里工作。那是 80 多年前的事了。顺便说一句,这家公司叫 Gojo Industries。Gojo。Gojo 是一个组合词,把他们的两个名字拼在一起。我记得好像是 Gloria 和 Joseph,我不太确定这对夫妻的名字,请见谅,但公司叫 Gojo Industries,如果我没记错的话,现在是由他们的孙女在运营。
总之,那位妻子说,“这块肥皂太恶心了。上面全是脏东西,全是毛发,全是男人的污秽。“所以洗手用的条状肥皂这个解决方案对她来说是一个令人作呕的、不合适的方案。于是她重新想象了这个问题——不是”我该怎么洗手”,而是”我怎么在不使用恶心肥皂的情况下洗手?“Gojo Industries 由此创造了一个全新的品类——洗手液。在大多数餐厅、大多数企业洗手间、大多数机场洗手间里,如果你留心观察,你会看到挤皂器上有 Gojo 的标志。与大多数创新者和企业家不同——他们痴迷于解决方案,我理解原因,我们都热爱自己的东西,都热爱自己的产品。如果你想跟我聊我们的东西,我可以跟你聊上一整天。
我们可以就你如何打造这份newsletter做一个 12 小时的深度对谈,你会乐在其中的,那会很棒。我们都会这样。如果你是任何形式的创作者、企业家、任何形式的创新者,你都会热爱你正在创造的东西,当然。然而,Gojo 关注的是问题,而不仅仅是解决方案。他们始终对问题保持痴迷,然后提出了一个不同的问题:“在没有水的情况下,我该怎么洗手?“当然,这个问题的答案就是一个新品类——免洗洗手液。而主导品牌,当然就是 Purell。
品类设计的核心决策
所以这里的洞察是:那个设计了这个空间并使其在规模上实现引爆的公司。当我说”设计空间”时,我具体指的是让世界上有相当比例的人认同他们对问题集的定义,进而认同他们对解决方案集的定义。任何能在一定规模上做到这一点的公司,都会赢。因此,对于任何企业家或任何创作者来说,最核心的问题是:“我是要在一个现有市场品类中去争夺 24%?还是要创建自己的品类,如果我能够执行到位,就能赚取三分之二的经济收益?“这是大多数企业家做出的决定,但他们并不知道自己在做这个决定。从本质上讲,品类设计就是最激进差异化的一种实践。
大多数公司主动寻求比较
大多数公司主动寻求比较。如果你现在去看许多软件公司的官网首页,你会看到 Gartner 报告或 Forrester 报告。你会看到广告和/或内容写着:“这是三个竞争对手和一份功能清单”,上面列了 25 个功能,“然后是我们”,上面列了 125 个功能。他们主动邀请别人来做比较。你甚至可以在广告里听到这种做法。如果你仔细听营销人员说的话,Lenny,我们说的那些东西简直蠢到家了。别信我们的。那些传奇般的创新者,他们不会把自己的创新与过去做比较。他们打破旧格局,开辟新领域。他们追求的是不可替代。他们希望在客户心中创造如此巨大的价值,以至于不仅转换成本高得可怕——而且转换到什么呢?
Lenny: 顺着这个话题往下聊一下,你很熟悉的一些公司,也许可以快速地分享一下它们的品类,让大家具体感受一下”拥有一个品类”到底意味着什么?
Christopher Lochhead: 好,来吧。
Lenny: 越来越明显的是,这些公司基本上都创造了一个自己想要赢下的不同品类。比如 Gong 就是一个例子。我不知道你是否了解 Gong,我觉得它——
Christopher Lochhead: 我了解。
Lenny: 它基本上推销的是销售分析,就像是,这是你有史以来第一次可以了解你的销售团队表现如何的方式。关于他们的策略,你有什么更多了解吗?
品类实战案例:Gong 的策略
Christopher Lochhead: 是的,我对这个领域非常、非常熟悉,他们做了一件极其聪明的事。他们在这个领域比一些其他公司稍晚进入。当时有一大批公司,现在你可以大致归入营收(revenue)领域,对吧?在充分披露的前提下,我了解 Clary。我和 Andy 是好朋友。我认识他们的团队。我也和他们有过一些合作。所以利益关系先说清楚。Clary 和少数几家公司在最初开始创建的领域,最终演变成了 RevOps。而 Gong 做了一件非常聪明的事:当 RevOps 开始兴起时,他们足够聪明地意识到营收将成为一个重要的新兴大领域。CRM 没有真正解决这个问题。ERP 没有真正解决这个问题。BI 也没有真正解决这个问题。于是围绕”我们需要一种不同的营收方法”开始出现一种新兴的思路。
他们足够聪明地意识到,如果他们一口吞下整个蛋糕,这在一家初创公司身上是不可信的——你不可能突然站出来说,“我们有一套和 SAP 相当的解决方案,只是针对另一个领域。“所以他们从一个更广泛的新兴品类中切出了一个极其精准的细分部分,然后执行得极其出色,主导了那一块。但他们犯了一个错误。在所有新的超级品类中,它们都是这样起步的。CRM 领域发生的事情完全就是这样。如果重要的话,我可以带你梳理一遍这段历史——当时有做支持的、做帮助台(help desk)的、做销售的、做营销的公司,下面还有一大堆子细分领域。在 Salesforce 自动化品类中,曾有一个时期它是一个独立的品类,那个品类中一些最炙手可热的公司是销售配置器(sales configurator)公司——一个更下层的细分。
品类的持续扩张
Christopher Lochhead: 随着这些超级品类随时间逐渐成形,没有任何一家公司能够满足客户的所有需求。于是就出现了各种细分市场。Gong 犯的错误,以及那个领域中绝大多数其他公司犯的错误,就是他们一直停留在自己的微型细分市场里。所以最初那个天才般的策略——作为一个初创公司恰好应该做的——突然之间,当他们没有扩展、没有为更大的品类设定议程和设计方案时,他们就完蛋了。因为他们现在被困在细分市场里了。这里有一个很大的教训,Lenny,就是如果你是一家已经在运转的公司并且正在赢,假设你正在成为你所在领域的品类女王,每一位创业者、每一位 CEO,都会面临一个微妙的时刻。如果他们在前五年左右取得了成功,他们会意识到未来增长的最大障碍就是当前的品类,因为你只能做到你的市场品类那么大、那么成功。
所以你必须不断扩展品类的愿景,并在此基础之上持续构建。如果你不这样做,而别人去定义、声明并命名了那个更大的议程——事实上也确实如此——而且,我有偏见要说清楚,Clary 现在正在这个领域碾压所有人,Gong 和所有其他玩家现在都处于一个可怕的境地,他们基本上只有两个选择。第一,他们可以留在自己的细分市场里,这也是大多数玩家的做法,然后他们主张最佳单点方案(best of breed):“哦,我们拥有最好的营收 carbodingulator。你可以去买一个端到端的营收平台。但如果你那样做,你在 carbodingulator 领域就不会获得最好的功能。所以买我们的营收 carbodingulator 吧。“这行不通。Microsoft 在 30 多年前就证明了这一点,如果你想聊我们可以展开谈谈。
Microsoft 在 30 多年前就证明了这一点。你要么留在细分市场里随时间被边缘化,要么升级去争夺整个蛋糕。问题在于,对于他们以及那个领域所有没有这么做的公司来说,如果他们今天才动手,已经比 Clary 晚了一年多,他们就成了 Clary 的模仿者。所以基本上,你要么去和 Clary 竞争谁能成为品类之王,要么留在细分市场里随时间被边缘化。如果你要去和一家已经在推进品类设计、在整个市场中积聚了最强势头的公司竞争,你最好精通五段黑带级别的品类战争。
“更好”陷阱:Threads 的教训
Lenny: 顺着这个话题往下聊——有很多线索我想展开,但我特别想谈的一点是,在”更好”陷阱这个概念中,也就是大多数人走的路——他们试图在现有品类中做那个”更好”的方案。为了强化这个观点,你观察到了什么?你对于为什么这通常是——甚至可能是总是——错误的做法,有什么认识?
Christopher Lochhead: 我们来看一个非常近的例子,Threads。我们刚写过这个话题。Threads 推出的时候——如果你想看我可以给你看所有头条新闻——《纽约时报》,更不用说科技媒体了……到处都是:“Twitter 杀手,Twitter 杀手,Twitter 杀手,Twitter 杀手”。当时还有大量关于 Musk 和 Zuck 要打 UFC 铁笼格斗的讨论。所以围绕 Threads 的发布积累了大量的声势,还有所谓”所有人都在离开 Twitter”的说法。好,Threads 上线了。发生了什么?Threads 超越了 GPT,成为史上增长最快的应用。
接下来头条新闻开始来了,Lenny:“就是这样了。Zuck 是天才。太不可思议了。“顺便说一下,这背后是硅谷最新的一条愚蠢信条。这是一个题外话——当硅谷有人说了一句什么话,足够多的人觉得”对,这话说得聪明”,然后他们就鹦鹉学舌地重复,根本不去真正思考。硅谷当前有一种思潮,在 Threads 推出时叫得特别响,这也是为什么 Threads 会被称为 Twitter 杀手的原因。他们的逻辑是:你需要的是什么,Lenny?是品牌和分发。这就是你需要的,尤其是分发。我敢断言,Threads 拥有有史以来发布的任何新软件中最大的分发优势。如果有另一个产品拥有更大的分发优势,我想知道是什么。
Lenny: 不,你说得对。确实如此。
Christopher Lochhead: 海量的分发渠道,惊人的一键注册体验,极其简单。免费产品——不是免费增值(freemium),是完全免费。棒极了。而且 Facebook/Meta——你告诉我——是科技界十大最具影响力品牌之一?
Lenny: 绝对是。
Christopher Lochhead: Facebook 今天有多少用户,Lenny,你知道吗?
Lenny: 超过十亿?可能更多。
Christopher Lochhead: 在 App 的历史上,有过多少个十亿级用户的 App?
Lenny: 没有。
Christopher Lochhead: 对。
Lenny: 我觉得没有。
Christopher Lochhead: 传奇级的品牌,史上最大的分发优势。结果怎样?一落千丈。没了。它还在,但没人在那儿了。
Lenny: 他们即将推出一个类似 [听不清] 的产品,所以他们还有一次机会。
Christopher Lochhead: 哦,是的。那为什么会这样?为什么这个人类历史上最富有的人之一,可以说是科技创业史上最聪明的人之一,在全世界都说他要”杀死”——加引号——Twitter 的时候,败得如此惨烈?在 Threads 最初获得所谓”成功”的时候,所有人都说这正是将会发生的事。而现在那些专家都出奇地安静。传奇人物 Kevin Maney 说过,品类设计是商业的一个新视角。它是一个不同的视角。它与产品视角并列,与竞争视角并列,但同样重要。所以 Threads 的情况是这样的:
他们以一个直接复制品,去攻击一个已有的、众所周知的、被充分理解的、定义极其清晰的问题。他们甚至在庆祝它就是 Twitter,只是更好了。他们几乎原话就是这么说的。所以这是一个已知的问题,配一个已知的解决方案,只是被声称”更好”,并与 Meta 的其他东西集成在一起。引用一句:“所有人都试了一下,然后所有人都走了。“为什么?关键洞察来了:
**问题创造了品类。**你要么 A,解决一个新问题;要么 B,以一种——我有意使用这些词——非常不同的方式重新定义、命名并声明一个现有问题。如果你重新定义了现有问题,让人们以不同的方式看待它,他们才会对新的解决方案敞开心扉。但错误在于,着力点放错了方向。着力点放在了产品上。因为我们生活在一个这样的世界里——就像氧气的存在一样理所当然——我们相信最好的产品会赢。Zuckerberg 将在 Threads 上烧掉超过十亿美元,而它会失败。它已经失败了。因为你不能拿一个已有的问题配一个已有的解决方案,发布一模一样的东西,告诉全世界它更好,然后期望全世界拥抱它。因为是问题决定了解决方案,而不是反过来。
Lenny: 沿着这个思路,经典建议是:如果你比现有产品好十倍,你就有很大机会让人们关注并获得成功。是否存在一个界限——比如它虽然是同一个东西但好十倍就行?还是说在你的经验中,你必须重新定义问题?我想聊聊这个。
Christopher Lochhead: 我们看看证据就好。我们应该能同意 Jeff Bezos 不是一个蠢人,对吧?
Lenny: 同意。
Christopher Lochhead: 你有一部 Amazon Fire 手机吗?
Lenny: 没有。
Christopher Lochhead: 我也没有。为什么没有?
Lenny: 我对 iPhone 很满意。
Christopher Lochhead: 所以,贝佐斯推出了一个更好的产品,却没人买单。没人买单的原因本身就是问题所在。因此,你觉得 iPhone 替你解决的那个问题,已经被 iPhone 解决了。你上次喝 Red Bull Cola 是什么时候?
Lenny: 一次也没有。
Christopher Lochhead: Red Bull 犯了和 Zuck 拿 Threads 刚刚犯的完全一样的错误。Red Bull 相信的是,“我们打造了世界上最伟大的品牌之一。“这一点他们确实做到了,但他们不明白为什么。是品类成就了品牌,而不是反过来。能量饮料成就了这个品类,所以他们说,“太好了,我们可以把我们的品牌贴在任何东西上,都能卖得出去。那就做个可乐吧。“他们亏了无数的钱。据报道,Microsoft 在 Microsoft Stores 上亏损了大约四亿到十亿美元。你去过 Microsoft Store 吗,Lenny?
Lenny: 我在商场里路过过,但我觉得我从没进去过。
Christopher Lochhead: 嗯,它们看起来完全……如果你记得的话,它们看起来跟 Apple Store 一模一样。Ballmer 有句名言,当 Apple Store 火了之后,他跟团队说,“去 Apple Store,研究他们做的每一件事,然后原封不动地照搬。“去 Google 搜一下,网上都有。结果没用。为什么?因为你无法攻击一个在位的品类女王,除非你能够对一个新的、不同的问题进行框定、命名和占位。因为当现有的问题已经被充分理解,现有的解决方案也已经被充分理解的时候,就不需要新的解决方案了。即使人们嘴上”讨厌 Twitter”,也没有对 Twitter 造成什么影响,而 Zuck 现在可能要在 Threads 上核销超过十亿美元。可笑的是,Lenny,这种事一次又一次地发生。未来五年,风险投资人光在 AI 领域就会烧掉至少五千亿美元,投在那些追逐已有品类需求的”我也是”式创业公司上,这些公司拥有好十倍的产品,但没人在乎。
我们都会坐在这里看着他们这么做。而我们品类海盗,以及品类设计圈子里的人会说,“早就告诉过你们了。“但他们就是会继续这么做。更重要的是,因为大公司在很多情况下承受得起持续失败和犯这个错误的代价。真正的悲剧在于,有多少传奇般的创新产品从未能见到天日,因为发明者、创造者、创业者相信自己的产品,却不知道每一个解决方案都必须嵌入一个对人们有价值的问题中。于是他们的创新就此沉寂。
如何设计一个品类
Lenny: 我们来谈谈如何实际着手设计一个品类。你用了好几次这个说法,这可能也是切入这个话题最好的视角。如果不是,我们也可以换个方向。但这个框定、命名和占位的理念,具体怎么做?这个过程是什么样的?
Christopher Lochhead: 好问题。它从一个大多数人不愿意开始的地方开始,那就是——品类设计的第一定律:思考”思考”这件事本身,是最重要的一种思考。思考”思考”这件事本身,是最重要的一种思考。如果你要思考”思考”,我们就得先定义什么是思考。现在,我一开始走这条路,就有相当比例的人翻白眼,心里想,“又来一堆废话,“对吧?“直接告诉我怎么做 SEO 就行了,Lenny。SEO 在哪?或者……”不管他们要的那个战术性的东西是什么。
所以我们首先要做的,是拆解”思考”这件事。Roger Martin 被认为是当今在世的最伟大的管理思想家,或者至少是其中之一。他的最新书出版时,我们有幸请他上了播客,如果我没记错的话,那本书叫《A New Way to Think》。人们称他为新一代的 Peter Drucker。他对这件事的阐述是我听过的最清晰的。概括地说——这是我转述的,所以请给我一些发挥的余地,但源头是他——概括地说,有两种思考方式:反思性思考和反射性思考。而接下来是我自己的发挥。大多数人以为自己在做的反思性思考,其实是反射性思考。什么是反射,什么是反思?反射很简单。你去年度体检,对吧?
Lenny: 应该去的。
Christopher Lochhead: 你有没有过医生用那个小锤子敲你膝盖?
Lenny: 有。
Christopher Lochhead: 然后你的腿就弹起来了。
Lenny: 我确实会弹起来。
Christopher Lochhead: 她在测你的反射。那是一种非自主的反应,你坐在诊疗台上,腿像小孩子一样悬着,她一敲,你的腿就这么抽动一下,对吧?这就是反射。反射性思维非常、非常强大。你有驾照,我猜?
Lenny: 有。
Christopher Lochhead: 你上一次开车是什么时候?
Lenny: 昨天。
Christopher Lochhead: 如果你在路上开车,有人突然插到你前面,你大概率会怎么做?
Lenny: 我会有点生气,然后继续开。
Christopher Lochhead: 但我要说,Lenny,你在生气之前还做了一件事。
Lenny: 我猜我会试图避免撞上这辆车。
Christopher Lochhead: 没错。也许你会打方向盘,也许你会踩刹车,也许两个都做。我的观点是:别的车插过来,我们立刻、不加思考地做出反应,为了保命、不损坏车辆、不伤到别人。我们并没有去”想”这件事。我们就是本能地反应了。这就是人们思考大多数事情的方式。如果我对你 say,“Lenny,我们来聊聊美国的枪支、堕胎和移民权利。”
Lenny: 还是不了吧。
Christopher Lochhead: 但你对这些事情是有看法的,对吧?
Lenny: 有。
Christopher Lochhead: 我也有。大多数人不会挑战自己的思考。大多数人不会问自己,“我为什么只会这样想堕胎这个问题?我从哪里学来的?我到底怎么想堕胎的?别人怎么想?这个世界上有没有我钦佩的、比我更有教育背景和经验的人,在这个领域持有与我截然不同的观点?确实有。为什么?“等等等等。我们他妈的不会这么做。我们说的是,我对堕胎的看法就是对堕胎的看法。而在美国的政治领域,我们会说,“任何跟我想法不同的人都在试图毁灭美国。“那不是思考。所以反思性思考是:我到底在想什么?我为什么这么想?而在商业世界中,大多数人下意识地假设未来是过去的延续。传奇企业家不是这样做的。传奇企业家不只是认为未来会不同——因为他们正在亲手设计那个不同的未来。而他们所关注的问题对他们来说如此重要,以至于这个问题持续存在这件事让他们抓狂。RJ……是 RJ 还是 JR?我现在记不清了……Rivian 的创始人,显然还有 Tesla 的 Musk,这些人对此是痴迷的。这件事让他们发疯。他们不明白为什么我们不是所有人都在开电动车了。
Christopher Lochhead: 所以我的朋友 Mike Maples,Floodgate 的传奇风险投资人说过,“最伟大的企业家是从未来来的访客,告诉我们未来会是什么样子。“他们中很多人之所以如此暴躁,原因就在于当下还没有达到他们所看到的未来,这件事让他们抓狂。所以关键在于,传奇企业家和创造者会让未来变得不同。他们实际上从事的就是设计不同未来的业务。我能给你讲个故事吗?
Lenny: 请讲。
Christopher Lochhead: 我们是朋友,我们也和创造 Lomi 的团队做过一些合作。Lomi 是 20 年来第一个赢得厨房台面一席之地的厨房电器。首先,它是过去 20 年中增长最快的新型消费品之一。其次,想想你自己的厨房台面——你有烤面包机吗?
Lenny: 有。
Christopher Lochhead: 咖啡机呢?
Lenny: 有,我不怎么喝咖啡,但我们确实有一台。
Christopher Lochhead: 台面上还有其他电器吗?
Lenny: 我们有个电饭煲,其余的都收起来了。
Christopher Lochhead: 完美。那么 Lomi 是什么?Lomi 是智能家居堆肥机的品类设计者。想象一个大约一倍半到两倍于一台大号烤面包机大小的设备。Lomi 的使用方式是:你把厨余垃圾拿过来——而事实是,取决于你愿意相信谁的数据,在美国我们扔掉了大约 40% 到 60% 的食物。而食物垃圾、食物废弃物是对环境最有害的东西之一。那么 Lomi 做了什么?你把厨余垃圾倒进 Lomi,把那玩意儿装满,Lomi 正面有个按钮,你按下那个按钮,过去需要三到六个月才能完成的堆肥,三到六个小时就完成了。甚至——这很奇怪——我觉得它闻起来还挺好闻的。Lomi 没有说”我们是更好的垃圾处理,我们是不同的垃圾处理,我们是更好的回收”。他们说的是,“我们是一种解决这个巨大问题的全新方式。“他们同时运用了个人动机——没有人喜欢扔垃圾,没有人喜欢厨房里乱糟糟的,等等——以及一种利他主义的愿景,就是……顺便说一句,如果我们做到了这件事,我们将做到政府迄今为止没能做到的事情,也就是从大气中移除大量有害气体。而事实证明,由于全球气候变化,我们正在制造越来越多的沙地,我们有了土壤样本。Lomi 土壤已被证明是世界上最富营养的土壤之一。这是一家拥有突破性技术的公司,真正在世界上做出了改变,同时拥有一个商业模式,能够让他们建立一家高利润高增长的企业。
Lomi:设计新品类的案例
Christopher Lochhead: 他们之所以能做到这一点,是因为设计了一个新的品类,并向世界展示了为什么在你拥挤的厨房里为这个新设备腾出空间,你会为你的家庭和世界带来改变。如果他们所做的仅仅是——举例来说——Dean Kamen 推出 Segway 时做的那样,即”这东西酷不酷?“那就什么也不会发生。所以我的观点是,Lomi 的团队设计了一个产品、一家公司,以及一个新的市场品类。他们从零开始创造了需求——我认为均价在 400 美元左右。在他们推出时,智能家居堆肥机这个市场的总规模他妈的是零。而他们对新品类的愿景如此具有吸引力,Jay-Z 是他们最早的投资者之一。
Lenny: 我打开了他们的网站。我在想”框定、命名、占位”(frame it, name it, claim it)这个框架——他们以一种独特的方式框定了问题……是框定问题还是框定解决方案?这个框定步骤,最好的理解方式是什么?
语言化:用语言改变思维
Christopher Lochhead: 在品类设计中有一个概念叫语言化(languaging),即战略性地运用语言来改变思维。很多创业者犯的一个错误是用旧语言来描述他们的新事物。但我们也不能用太多新语言以至于没有人知道我们在他妈说什么,所以我们必须在品类现有认知的基础上与之对接,然后把它带向前方,同时我们必须创造新的语言。我可以跟你分享一个这方面我最喜欢的、最近的品类设计故事吗?
Lenny: 请讲。
Christopher Lochhead: 你坐过电梯,对吧?
Lenny: 坐过。
Christopher Lochhead: 你有没有低头看过电梯地板上有 logo?
Lenny: 我不太记得了。但我能想象。
Christopher Lochhead: 如果你留意的话,你很可能会看到这个名字——Otis。Otis 电梯。大多数人不知道为什么 Otis 是电梯品类的品类女王。原因是这样的:Elisha Otis 发明了电梯。在 Elisha 之前,没有摩天大楼。因为你怎么到达顶层?你怎么建造顶层?等等等等。所以当他发明电梯时,没有已知的问题需要解决。他做了演示,人们觉得挺酷。他在各种博览会之类的地方展示。因为之前电梯最大的问题就是它们会坠落。所以他发明了这个安全系统,在缆线断裂时能接住电梯。而品类命名上,他实际上用的是——Lenny——他称之为”安全电梯”(safety elevator),以应对当时领域内的现有问题,也就是……我不知道。人们仍然会说,“挺有意思的,但我为什么需要一台安全电梯?“这是一个没有问题的解决方案。
奥的斯电梯:垂直铁路的智慧
Christopher Lochhead: 那么他做了什么?语言化。在品类设计中,一个关键突破叫做观点(POV),它帮助你框定、占位和命名一个问题,并教育世界为什么应该从现状转变到——我们称之为”从到”(from to)——一种全新的、不同的方式。所以 Elisha 必须创造市场,需求为零。这正是我们那些聪明的 VC 朋友所说的零亿市场(zero billion market),而这恰恰是你想要的。那么 Elisha 把它叫什么?垂直……铁路。
Lenny: 漂亮。
Christopher Lochhead: 人们理解铁路是做什么的——运送人和货物往这个方向走。他说,“太好了,我们现在有了一种垂直的铁路,可以运送人和货物往那个方向走。“如果你有垂直铁路——
Lenny: 垂直铁路。
Christopher Lochhead: 垂直铁路,谢谢——你就可以有一种全新的建筑类型。这跟今天科技领域中任何为 AI 技术栈构建新组件的人没有任何区别。比如说,如果你有一个新的重要的 AI 安全层,能够实现全新的高安全性 AI 应用。从语言化的角度看,如果你只是使用现有的语言,你就会像早期的 Elisha 一样——人们会说,“真的很酷,哥们。太他妈牛了,没想到这在技术上居然是可能的。哇,你简直打破了重力,伙计,不可思议。不知道我们为什么需要这个。再见。“然后他说,“等等,等等。如果它是一条垂直铁路呢?""嗯,垂直铁路能做什么?“这就是为什么思考很重要。你思考问题的方式,你框定、占位和命名问题的方式。Lenny,品类设计的一个核心原则是:听那些词。听那些词。当你认真听那些词时,你会听到你平时听不到的东西。所以他创造了新的语言化——在品类设计中被称为观点——来框定、占位和命名一个问题,也就是:我如何上下移动而非横跨陆地移动?这样做打开了人们思维的口径,创造了你可以称之为全新心理脚手架的东西,支撑一种全新的创新。而多亏了 Elisha Otis,我们才有了高楼大厦。
Lenny: 我非常喜欢语言化这个概念。你还能想到其他例子吗?那些成功落地、令人叹为观止的语言化实例?
Christopher Lochhead: 我有一大堆例子。另一个我最喜欢的。当星巴克刚起步的时候,一杯咖啡是 10 美分。你坐在那里想,“10 美分我们赚不了钱。“这说不通,对吧?单位经济学支撑不了我们想做的事情。如果行业的平均售价(ASP)是 10 美分,我们想把平均售价做到 3 美元。操。好吧,顿悟来了——如果你管它叫同样的东西,要让大家目前花 25 美分买的东西收 3 美元,是非常困难的。
所以他们创造了新的语言化,他们教——他们是真的教消费者新的语言。这就是为什么你和我走进星巴克会说,“我要一杯 double grande latte,谢谢。“25 年前,这不是你我使用的语言。他们把它作为一种机制,用来实现激进差异化和激进的价值/价格差异化。他们他妈的还造了一个词。听起来有点意大利语的味道,vente。但说实话,顺便说一句,它其实就是奶昔,不过那是另一回事了。他们是全美排名第一的牛奶销售商。他们是一家牛奶公司,不是咖啡公司。不过这又扯远了,完全是另一码事。关键在于,如果你想为一件迄今为止卖 10 美分或 25 美分的东西收 3 美元,那就改变语言。而且你知道那是星巴克的语言。我住的地方,有一大堆新开的独立潮人咖啡馆。他们会在你的拿铁上画蒙娜丽莎——
……他们会在给你之前先在你的拿铁上画蒙娜丽莎之类的花活。如果你走进其中一家潮人咖啡馆,点一杯 double grande latte,柜台后面那位戴着鼻环的超级潮人男/女会给你一个不太友好的眼神,因为你在他们的地盘上使用了星巴克的语言化——而这恰恰是另一个突破。这在科技行业真的非常重要:为品类创造语言化的公司,赢。
你今天就能看到这一点,OpenAI。就在不久前,你还听不到”大型语言模型”这个词。对吧?
Lenny: 对。
Christopher Lochhead: 那不是一个我们之前在讨论的术语。
Lenny: 没错。
Christopher Lochhead: 而今天,整个行业都在讨论 LLM。他们创造的另一个东西——“训练数据”。好吧,我们这些在行业里待了很久的人,知道什么是数据。我们知道什么是数据库,知道什么是流数据,知道什么是静态数据。我们知道什么是结构化数据,什么是非结构化数据,等等等等。
我绝对算不上数据专家,但我在这个行业干了 37 年,对数据多少知道一些。我们从来没听过”训练数据”这个术语,说实话我至今仍在等待一个突破性的语言化来向人们描述它,因为我认为,当大多数人意识到数据/内容与训练数据之间的区别时,就会产生一个巨大的认知突破。目前语言化还不够充分,但我们正在接近。
新的语言化创造新的思维方式,语言中的分界点创造思维中的分界点,进而可以创造感知价值中的分界点。而她——谁改变并/或创造了全新的价值感知,谁就赢。
比起解决方案,多花时间在问题上
Lenny: 我觉得你已经非常有说服力地论证了为什么人们应该去设计一个新品类。为了给人们再提供一个实战工具,帮助他们想出并确定自己要追求的品类、进行框定甚至命名——你提到了观点这个概念。也许这是回答这个问题的最佳角度,或者还有其他框架——总之,人们怎样才能最好地思考并花时间去想清楚他们应该创造的这个新品类到底是什么?
Christopher Lochhead: 好问题,Lenny。至少有两点。第一,花在问题上的时间要比花在解决方案上的时间多。我目前正在和一家非常早期的安全领域初创公司合作,他们在 AI 领域做的事情绝对令人瞠目结舌,创始人们拥有大型交易系统和深度安全方面的令人难以置信的背景,真的是一家了不起的公司。
昨天我和创始人以及产品团队的一些人通了个电话,了解一下他们的进展,诸如此类,我们差不多开始想和外部的人交谈了。我们已经完成了一轮种子融资,VC 们纷纷找上门来,他们非常……总之,我们在慢慢地准备走进公众视野,开始展开对话。
创始 CEO 昨天给我发了一条消息说,“如果你愿意的话,我希望你跟某某人通个电话。他是个非常重要的人物,对我们这个领域非常了解,等等等等。认识他很久了,“如此如此,这般这般。我说,“听起来很棒,但为什么?我跟某某人对话的目的是什么?“创始人直接对我说,“如果你愿意花一些时间听我们的一些客户讲述,从他们的视角了解问题是什么、解决方案可能是什么,而不仅仅是从我和我们团队的角度,那将太好了。”
这就是一位对问题本身痴迷的创始人。这是第一点。第二点建议,我之前提到过 Mike Maples,他有一种非常有力的框定方式。他称之为回溯预测(backcasting),区别于前瞻预测(forecasting)。你在点头,你了解这个。
Lenny: 对,我在节目笔记里详细读过这个内容,非常精彩。
Christopher Lochhead: 对。思路是这样的。大多数人的做法是——你我都是创业者,我们有一个产品想法,有一个我们能解决的问题。我们觉得自己会成亿万富翁,觉得能帮到很多人,觉得会玩得很开心,于是就开干。不管我们是否意识到,我们使用的心理脚手架是这样的:Lenny 和 Christopher 坐在这里,怀揣着远大的梦想。我们往未来看,比如说五年后,“我们想做什么?哦,太棒了。我们把所有梦想都过一遍?好。“然后我们问自己——这些大部分是潜意识的,随后体现在商业计划和其他东西里——“我们需要做什么才能从这里到达那里?“Lenny,你有没有做过荒野徒步?
Lenny: 做过。
Christopher Lochhead: 对,所以如果你我要去内华达山脉来一趟四五天的徒步旅行,我们会有一个起点,对吧?
Lenny: 当然。
Christopher Lochhead: 我们也会知道从哪里出来,对吧?
Lenny: 嗯嗯。
Christopher Lochhead: 而且沿途我们会有路标节点,是吧?
Lenny: 对,应该会有。
Christopher Lochhead: 因为我们知道要在外面待四天或者六天之类的,我们会试着合理规划食物。
Lenny: 当然。
Christopher Lochhead: 整个计划都建立在”我们从这里出发,到那里结束”的基础之上——从起点到终点,我们需要做什么,对吧?
Lenny: 嗯嗯。
Christopher Lochhead: 现在,如果你要去荒野徒步,这是非常明智的做法。因为如果你曾经在荒野徒步中走了四天才发现食物不够,那种经历你绝对不会想再来一次。好吧,但事实证明,虽然这对徒步来说非常有效,对创业公司来说却是星际级的灾难。原因如下:你的参照点决定了一切。关于思考的思考,是最重要的思考方式。
当我们用那种方式思考时,心理上我们站在当下——也就是过去的延续——然后说”从现在这个状态到我们想要的不同的未来,需要做什么?途中有什么障碍?“这就是思维框架。这是前瞻预测,而这是回溯预测。
我们做一个练习,抛弃一切。在品类设计中,你学到的叫做”否定前提”(reject the premise),我否定关于现状的一切,全部否定。你我现在设想一个五年后的未来,一切都非常顺利,超出了我们的预期。我们在心中认定这是真的。我们写出来,头脑风暴——“会是什么样子?我们卖什么技术?我们为客户做什么?公司有多大?雇多少人?“等等等等。然后我们说,“好,站在那个五年后的未来,回望现在,我们做了什么才让这个不同的未来成为现实?“这就是品类设计。这就是你如何摆脱过去的束缚。你看,我们这个行业最大的危害之一就是”颠覆”这个词。“哦,我们要去颠覆工程行业。“不。因为如果你在颠覆某个东西,定义上你的参照点就是那个东西。当你的参照点是一个现成的东西时,你的参照点就是过去。如果我们想以一种不受约束的方式思考一个截然不同的未来,越是把过去拖进来,情况就越糟。“否定前提”教我们的是,忘掉我们知道的一切,从头开始。我的朋友,传奇设计师 John Bielenberg,在大学里给孩子们上创新与设计的课。他做一个为期数周的练习,练习的目标是——设计一辆自行车。这就是目标。但只有一个设计约束:它不能被骑。
John 让他们这么做的原因是,他的理念叫”错误思考”(thinking wrong)。这是他自己版本的”否定前提”。原因在于,当你拿掉”它必须能骑”这个前提,你就为传奇性的全新思考打开了窗口,为截然不同的可能性、截然不同的未来打开了空间。这正是很多很多创业者犯的错误——不管他们是否意识到,他们所做的其实是渐进式的”更好”,在争夺市场份额,争夺现有需求,只不过拿了一个稍微好一点的东西。而现实是,这就是大多数创业者失败的原因。当然,你做截然不同的事也可能失败。说”你要的是一个零亿市场”听起来简直是疯了。然而,尽管听起来疯狂,但这是唯一通向有意义的成功的路径。数据就是证明。
品类设计是唯一的选择
Lenny: 是的。你在文章中谈到,表面上看起来,设计一个品类、建设一个品类、让所有人相信这是一个新问题,似乎非常困难且昂贵。但你的观点是,如果你想建立一家大型企业,实际上没有其他选择。对吗?
Christopher Lochhead: 没错。还有一点,人们说”哦,这太贵了,也太花时间了。“跟什么比呢?你在产品领域待了很多年,是吧?我也是。如果你问聪明的风险投资人,如果你问 Venrock 的 Brian Roberts——我相信他是全球排名第一的医疗科技投资人——他说一个产品要真正成熟、真正稳定,需要八到十年。我不知道他说得对不对,但他是个超级聪明的人。我们知道创建一个传奇般的文化需要多久,让一个传奇般的创新商业模式真正运转起来需要多久。“啊,那主要是太难了。“嗯,做产品也难,建公司也难,融资也难,做销售也难,做营销也难,做人力资源也难。如果你想要轻松,去他妈的车管所上班吧。这是第一点。
第二点是现实情况。Lenny,你去看,绝大多数创新来自创业公司。人们说”只有大公司才能做这个。“听着,我的合作伙伴 Eddie Yoon,他是全球 2000 强企业尤其消费端领域里品类设计的绝地武士。他会告诉你,大多数这些大公司……你说一个大型食品公司,说一个大型饮料公司,他都合作过很多。他们失败得一塌糊涂。现实是,六个人加上一个有钱叔叔的小额投资,就能搭建起一个潜在价值三万亿美元的东西。苹果就是这样的。
我当时坐在 Don Valentine 身边,问他为什么给 Steve 和 Steve 签了那张支票。他说那是他见过的最愚蠢的使用场景——一个全职妈妈用苹果个人电脑记录她的菜谱。这是他见过的最愚蠢的使用场景。然而,Don 能看到这个品类的潜力,以及那两个人放手去干的意愿。所以如果你是风险投资人,如果你要融资,那些投资早期大规模潜力公司的投资人,正是那些能看到你不同未来的投资人。
产品市场契合是一个危险的理念
Lenny: 顺着这个思路,我记了一条笔记,你有一句关于产品市场契合的话,大意是产品市场契合是一个非常危险的理念。我很想听你谈谈这一点,因为我觉得大多数人持相反的观点,认为它是唯一重要的事情。你为什么觉得它这么危险?
Christopher Lochhead: 有很多这样的产品迷思。“产品驱动增长”(product led growth)是另一个,但让我们先说产品市场契合。上帝保佑 Marc Andreessen,是这个人把它概念化的。Kevin 刚写了一篇非常有深度的文章,论述为什么它是反过来的,如果你需要我很乐意发给你。Kevin Maney,天才。关键洞察又来了,品类设计原则。听这些词——产品(product)、市场(market)、契合(fit)。产品市场契合。想一想,我要做的事情就是找到一种方式,让我的产品嵌入一个市场。
这是判断或概括产品市场契合的一种非常简单的方式。而产品市场契合在实践中已经变成了什么意思呢——你和我像西海岸其他所有人一样想开一个精酿啤酒坊,我们做一堆样品之类的东西,拿给朋友们和我从 Lenny 那里学到的理想客户画像去尝。如果我的朋友圈和理想客户群体中有足够的人说”这 IPA 不错,我喜欢”,那我们就去生产它。然后如果人们开始买那个 IPA,我们就——这是人们原话——“实现了产品市场契合。”
Christopher Lochhead: 好吧,Threads 比历史上任何产品都更快地实现了产品市场契合。但关键洞见来了——品类创造产品,而不是反过来。你要做的是为你的产品设计一个市场品类,而不是把你的产品塞进一个已有的市场品类。问题在于,我们这个行业——科技行业——跟很多其他行业一样,充满了产品至上主义者。因为他们真的、真的、真的、真的、真的相信,就像相信氧气的存在一样,最好的产品会赢。他们真心这么认为。他们认为营销的工作就是:“能不能在我们网站上放个演示?能不能搞个演示的病毒视频?因为一旦人们看到我们的东西有多更好、更快、更便宜、更小、更大,反正不管什么维度,他们就会买单的。“但他们不会买单。人们买单的是围绕某个问题或机会的新洞见,而那个问题或机会需要一种不同的解决方案。那才是人们真正购买的东西。
没人在乎你的创业旅程
再举个简单的例子。这个说法我现在经常听到:“我们现在需要的是故事,我们需要一个故事品牌。作为创业创始人,你在营销上能做的头号事情就是分享你的创业旅程。分享你的旅程。“这些都是我们听到的各种废话,而且已经听了一阵子了。但猜猜怎么着?没人在乎你的旅程。真的没人。你知道他们在乎什么吗?他们自己。他们的问题、他们的需求、他们的机会。为了我们的书《Snow Leopard》,我们做了有史以来第一次利用 Nielsen 数据对非虚构类图书进行的全面数据科学研究。我们之所以知道这是第一次,是因为 Nielsen 亲口告诉我们的,而且我们签了一份严苛到令人窒息的保密协议,规定了什么能说什么不能说。但我们想搞清楚的一件事是,哪些类别的商业书好卖,哪些不好卖,以及为什么。如果你想展开聊这个我们可以细说,但关键洞见来了——猜猜按销量计,排名第一的非虚构商业书类别是什么,遥遥领先的那种。
Lenny: 天哪。销售?市场营销,市场营销加销售。不对?
Christopher Lochhead: 个人成长。
Lenny: 有道理。自助类。
Christopher Lochhead: 自助类。第二名是个人理财。传记排名远远靠后。关键就是——没人在乎我们的产品。没人在乎它比竞品快 25 个什么单位、更便宜,随便什么,他们根本不在乎。你知道他们在乎什么吗?他们自己,他们的需求、他们的欲望、他们的问题。而品类关注的是客户以及他们的需求、欲望、问题和机会。品牌建设和营销关注的是我们的产品。世界上最伟大的创新者不会止步于创新一个产品或技术,他们会设计一个全新的市场品类,在其中独占鳌头。
定位与品类设计
Lenny: 我们确实在按照预想的节奏推进,这也是我预料之中的。我们已经聊完了我的大部分问题,但还有几个来收尾这次对话。其中一个是定位。这个词经常被提到。你怎么看定位和品类设计之间的关系?它们本质上是一回事吗?定位只是描述你品类的一种表述方式吗?人们应该怎么理解这个区别?
Christopher Lochhead: 如今定位已经变成了什么呢——本质上就是:我怎么用一种独特的方式、一种有说服力的方式来讲关于我那玩意儿的故事?人们说定位的时候,真正想表达的就是这个。但他们从来不停下来想一想的是——注意听这个词——定位(positioning),相对于什么来定位?因为你要再听听这些词,他妈的想一想:“你相对于竞争对手来定位。“大家就是这么说的。问题是,你相对于什么来定位?答案几乎永远是——竞争。如果你在那个语境下做定位,你就已经决定了去争夺别人设计的 24% 的需求。我们认为在科技领域,一家公司拿走三分之二的经济收益——如果这是你的出发点,你从一开始就把自己搞死了。简单来说,在当今语境下,定位是给失败者准备的。也就是说,那些争夺那 24% 的人。这就是定位。
Lenny: 我喜欢。越来越辛辣了。
Christopher Lochhead: 因为这符合事实。有人会说:“哦,[听不清]。“好吧,那你是想告诉我,在科技行业里不是一家公司拿走三分之二的经济收益?行,你可以这么认为。你也可以认为重力不存在。但重力确实存在。你还可以认为大脚怪在 5G 信号塔上安装喷雾器来让所有人得病,如果你愿意的话。你可以相信任何你想相信的,但这不会让它变成事实。事实是一家公司赢,其他人全部被淘汰。这才是事实。你随便挑任何一个领域看看都一样。你想回到你的清单上吗?我们可以逐个过。定位已经变成了品类设计的胆小鬼版本。就像说:“好吧,我知道我们本可以真正做到激进到创造一个属于自己的空间,但我们还是看看能不能在这边切出一个小角落吧。“行,那也行。
Lenny: 定位的一个重要组成部分——稍微展开一下——就是差异化。让自己与众不同。人们总在谈论差异化的重要性。你认为这也是同样的潜在陷阱吗?你怎么看差异化?
差异化与品类设计
Christopher Lochhead: 这个问题非常、非常有力量。在品类设计中,我们不竞争。句号。在品牌对品牌或产品对产品的层面上,我们不竞争。品类设计者确实也竞争,但不是对抗一个产品、不是对抗一个公司、不是对抗一个品牌。品类设计者对抗的是现状。让我具体说明。有一个品类叫骑行。Lenny,你看起来像是骑自行车的人,你是吗?
Lenny: 很随意地骑骑,主要是骑电动自行车。
Christopher Lochhead: 那些真的很好玩。
Lenny: 太好玩了。山地车。是的。
Christopher Lochhead: 但你骑过山地车,也骑过公路车,跟朋友们一起出去骑过,对吧?
Lenny: 对。
Christopher Lochhead: 任何有规律骑行的人都出过事故。如果你骑得特别频繁,那你一定出过跟机动车的事故,而且不是你造成的。我认识的每一个经常骑车的人都是如此,我自己也不例外。突然之间,一个新品类出现了,这个新品类叫做室内骑行课程。而品类设计者是一家叫 Spinning 的公司。他们说:“嘿,骑车很棒,是非常好的运动方式,但你不想因此丧命,所以来上课吧。“他们这么做的时候,是在进行品类对品类的竞争,而不是品牌对品牌或产品对产品。这种策略叫做筑坝截流。坝是干什么的?有水朝一个方向流,大坝把水拦住,改变它的方向,对它做点什么。阻断它、改变它。Spinning 做的就是这个。他们说:“为什么要冒着生命危险骑自行车,当你可以上一堂精彩的课,不用担心安全问题,同样得到锻炼?“筑坝截流的意思就是——你以为你想要这个,但你真正需要的是那个。
Peloton 与筑坝截流
Christopher Lochhead: 然后发生了什么?这个领域的下一次迭代来自 Peloton。同样,当 Peloton 发布的时候,他们没有说:“嘿,我们的自行车比 Spinning 的自行车更好。我们的自行车快了 12 个量级,更便宜。“他们压根没做那些屁事。他们没有踩 Spinning,没有攻击 Spinning,没有攻击公路骑行,什么都没做。他们说:“既然可以在家练,为什么还要开车去健身房?“他们对 Spinning 筑坝截流,而不是与之竞争。他们重新框定了那个问题——“我怎样在一个群体环境中获得一次出色的锻炼,同时又不会丧命?“他们由此取得了巨大的成功。
我还可以给你很多其他的例子。错误的做法是产品对产品直接竞争。真正的敌人是现状,也就是说,事物现在的方式。回到 Lomi 的例子,敌人——事物现在的方式、现状——就是你厨房里那些恶心的垃圾,发臭、有味儿、弄得到处都是,你还得把它拖到绿色垃圾桶里,然后松鼠和那些该死的浣熊会来吃它。这是个人的困扰。而环境层面的困扰是,我们正在毁掉这个星球。不,顺便说一句,与其毁掉星球,为什么不创造出这种超级棒的堆肥土呢?在品类设计中,我们把这叫做一个”从到”(from to)。品类设计者正在引领世界从现状走向一种全新的不同方式。他们不是说”我的 carbodingulator 比他们的 carbodingulator 更好”。
新品类扩大 TAM,而非颠覆
举个简单的例子。这也是”颠覆”这个词不好使的另一个原因。Les Paul 是电吉他的发明者。今天大多数吉他手都有一把电吉他和一把原声吉他。事实上,大多数吉他手不止一把,很少有吉他手——有一些,但非常少——会说:“哦,既然电吉他发明了,去他的原声吉他。“非常非常罕见。这个净新增品类叫做电吉他……
所以这个净新增品类——电吉他,相对于之前的品类原声吉他,实际上扩大了整个吉他的 TAM。它没有颠覆任何东西。所以在这种情况下,你实际上是在创造净新增需求。在 Peloton 的例子中,你既在创造新需求,又在建立自己的起步。这也是我认为你所做的很多讨论和你在增长方面的大量工作,Lenny,之所以如此有力的原因,因为当增长奏效时,真正发生的事情是有效的数字化筑坝截流。这才是增长奏效时真正发生的事情。
Lenny: 我觉得也许有人已经写过这个——“Dam the TAM”是个很棒的说法。如果你还没用过,你应该用起来。Damning the TAM,扩大 TAM。
品类设计的法则
你出版了好几本书,我会把链接都放上去。《Play Bigger》,我想是你的第一本,《Niche Down》是另一本。你的新书——我相信是你的最新作——是《22 Laws of Category Design》。那么作为最后一个问题,你能不能分享几条法则,也许两三条你最喜欢的法则,让大家感受一下这本书?
Christopher Lochhead: 我想我们谈过第一条法则,它在很多方面可能是最重要的。另一个值得思考的是我们所说的魔法三角(magic triangle),我们之前有所触及,但可能没有明确展开——要打造一家传奇公司,你必须在对的时间把产品、公司和品类这三件事都做对。所以有些人听到品类设计的讨论,会觉得它对产品有贬低之意,好像产品不重要。品类设计存在的理由恰恰是因为我们热爱产品。产品之所以失败,是因为没有进行品类设计。所以我认为魔法三角的”顿悟”在于:产品、公司和品类同等重要,把这个关系搞对是非常有力的。
闪电突击与花生酱策略
我再即兴说一个。我没把书拿在手边。另一个例子是闪电突击(lightning strike)对比花生酱(peanut butter)。大多数营销人员做的事情是,拿出一年的营销预算,按季度均分,每个季度可能略有差异,但基本上花费差不多。然后他们做各种活动,做”维持曝光”的事情,也许发布一款产品,也许围绕产品做一轮大力推广。他们试图推动漏斗,试图交付销售或者交付线索——B2B 场景下——无所谓。他们做的就是这些。但他们没有意识到,Lenny,这种做法——这种花生酱做法——建立在将近一百年前的心理框架和营销理论之上,叫做覆盖与频次(reach and frequency)。覆盖与频次的核心理念是:我想让我的东西在尽可能多的人面前出现尽可能多的次数。
如果你听那些江湖骗子和奋斗色情明星的话——那些 Gary V 们,以及这个圈子里的人——“你今天必须在每个平台上发布 400 条内容。“所有这些愚蠢的东西。那不过是五六十年前的覆盖与频次在新媒介上的重新包装而已。事实证明,覆盖与频次并不奏效。因为我们每天接收的营销信息量是巨大的,有专家说我们每天最多能接收到 60,000 条,不管是咖啡杯上的 logo 还是互联网上的广告,以及介于两者之间的一切。所以在覆盖与频次的模式下脱颖而出几乎是不可能的。我不是说你不要做维持曝光的营销,当然你需要做维持曝光的营销。但是,闪电突击模型和品类设计教给我们的是——我宁愿一年中有那么一周被人记住,也不愿全年其余时间都无足轻重。
所以坦率说,Lenny,我们照搬了好莱坞发布电影的模型。我们说:“如果你作为一家软件公司也这么做会怎样?如果你像好莱坞发布电影一样发布一个东西——不管是产品还是别的——会怎样?“闪电突击的核心就是非常非常清晰地想清楚——回到你的理想客户画像——“谁是我们的理想客户?那个客户在哪里?她在哪里活动?“理想情况下先在数字世界里找到她。你最近的一期节目,我在听那个增长黑客 Gala,她谈到自己是怎么去 Reddit 之类的平台的。这是一个众所周知的策略,我很喜欢这个策略。去他们所在的地方,在他们面前放一些挑衅性的、引人参与的东西,在那一刻产生影响力。所以闪电突击的理念是:如果你在那一天或那两天里属于我们的目标受众,我们会全方位包围你。
我们会变得不可忽视。所以我们把不成比例的精力集中投入进去——如果我们是 B2B 公司,大概一年一到两次闪电突击;如果是 B2C,一年两到三次;如果是很大的公司,一个季度一次。小公司要做到一个季度一次其实很难。再多的话,如果不成其为闪电突击,就开始模糊回花生酱了。但这是一个非常有力的概念。对于营销人员来说,在执行层面,这是不一样的。
最被忽视的营销力量:口碑
另外我想说的一点,也许应该一开始就提到的——我是一个三次担任上市公司首席营销官的人。我给超过 50 家风险投资支持的公司在品类设计和营销方面做过顾问。你猜我在营销计划里从来没见过什么?
Lenny: 什么?
Christopher Lochhead: 口碑传播(WOM)。这让做品类设计的人百思不得其解,因为口碑过去是、将来也永远是最强大的营销形式。在原生的数字世界里,口碑可以以一种模拟世界根本不可能的方式扩散,原因我们都明白。所以如果你把闪电突击的概念拿过来,再把品类观点的概念拿过来——也就是围绕框定、命名、占位一个问题,然后还有一个概念我想介绍一下……
它与你旁边理想客户画像并列的,就是品类设计中我们称之为超级消费者(super consumers)的群体。事实证明,在大多数品类中,大约 8% 到 10% 的购买者贡献了绝大部分利润。更重要的是,他们是时代精神的代表,是行业中的思想领袖。他们是其他人心目中值得仰望的客户、用户、推广者——最佳实践的代表,等等等等。这就是超级消费者。好,在品类设计中,当你了解谁是你的超级消费者——即你的理想客户画像——了解他们在原生数字世界中主要出没在哪里,我们该怎么去找到他们?对了,提醒我一下,那位女士叫什么名字来着?我觉得她太厉害了。
Lenny: Meltem。Meltem Kuran Berkowitz。
Christopher Lochhead: Melson?
Lenny: Meltem。M-E-L-T-E-M。
Christopher Lochhead: 多好的名字。真是好名字。总之,我觉得 Meltem 太棒了,她说得完全到位。所以我们知道谁是我们的理想客户,也就是超级消费者;我们知道他们在原生数字世界里出没在哪里;我们有一个激进而又有吸引力的不同观点,围绕问题的框定、占位和命名——如果我们做得好,就会与他们产生共鸣。这就是为什么我们要花时间打磨那个观点(POV)。所以我们布道这个问题,参与到他们已经存在的原生数字社区中去。而我们做这件事的角度不是营销者、不是销售者,而是教育者。我们在教人们用一种全新不同的方式思考一个已有的问题,或者一个他们从未想到过的问题。当他们顿悟的那一刻——因为我们用观点清晰地表达了出来——他们会说:“哦,再跟我说说那个问题。”
对吧?当他们这样做的时候,我们以教育的立场和思维框架来回应,打开他们的思路,我们参与其中,迟早有人会说:“嗯,再说一遍你们是做什么的。“砰,我们就起飞了。而关键就在这里:当你理解了超级消费者,理解了精准定位,理解了一个激进不同的观点——重新框定问题、呈现一个激进不同的解决方案——你猜怎么着?这就是终极增长引擎。而且你可以花很少的钱就实现增长。你可以给 300 个人发邮件,就能推动销售的突破。
为什么?因为当你采用这种方法时,你不仅在驱动短期收入——这一点非常重要——你还在驱动口碑传播(WOM)。你之所以想要一个能快速清晰表达的观点,很大程度上是因为营销的职责就是把正确的词放进正确的嘴里,让口碑传播形成规模。所以当我们拥有一个品类观点时,它是关于他们的,而不是关于我们。记住,品牌是关于我们自己的,品类是关于客户的。我们关心的是他们关心的事。当你拥有一个强大的品类观点时,它就能驱动口碑传播。而当你在原生数字世界中做到这一点时,你会获得原生数字病毒式口碑传播带来的巨大提升。品类设计是唯一一个以口碑传播作为首要执行重心的商业策略。
收尾与学习资源
Lenny: 这真是一个绝佳的方式来总结我们的对话。你刚才分享的其实是一个非常精炼的上市策略。想要进一步深入了解的朋友,我先分享几个可以了解更多的地方。然后最后我会问 Neil 应该把大家引向哪里。不过,你有一个很棒的 Substack——Category Pirates,在 substack.com 上。还有你的书,我觉得最好的方式——或者你告诉我——是去你的姓氏网站 lochhead.com,L-O-C-H-H-E-A-D dot com。对吗?
Christopher Lochhead: 对,当然你也可以去 categorypirates.com。
Lenny: 好的,更简单了。太棒了。接下来我们还有闪电问答环节。在进入这个令人兴奋的环节之前,你还有什么结束语或建议想分享的吗?
Christopher Lochhead: 有。
Lenny: 好,说说看。
给创业者的建议
Christopher Lochhead: Lenny,我今年 55 岁。我 18 岁创办了第一家公司。我被学校开除了,连 GED 都没有。我一直在科技行业摸爬滚打。我想分享的第一件事是:一切皆有可能。不要听任何看不起你的人的话。我被人泼的冷水多到你难以想象。我有四五种不同的学习障碍——ADHD、阅读障碍、计算障碍,等等等等。我被告知不会读书,更被告知不会写字。而我写了 14 本排名第一的畅销书,诸如此类。所以我的意思是,如果你是这样一个人——希望把职业生涯花在追求指数级的不同上,而非渐进式的更好上——我相信你的受众中有相当比例的人是这样的——如果你想做渐进式的更好,渐进式的更好当然也很重要。
我希望波音的工程师们在做渐进式的更好。我不希望空中交通管制系统去做那个指数级不同的东西。不。而且很多渐进式的改进积累起来也可以成为指数级的。所以如果你是一名产品经理,正在运营一款拥有庞大装机量的成功产品,你在看下一个版本,试图从 472 个可能的功能中找出那 26 个真正重要的,你想去和客户交谈找出那些渐进式改进并进行优先级排序——这一切都很好。PRD、MRD、IUD,所有这些东西。世界上有很大空间容纳所有这些。它们极其重要。但这不是品类设计。话说回来,我认为,Lenny,我们正处于这个行业有史以来最伟大的时代。
我认为所有指标都表明,未来五年内发生的创新数量将超过过去 20 年的总和。创新正在加速。AI 令人无比兴奋,也危险、令人担忧。我们需要关注负面影响吗?需要明智应对吗?需要深思熟虑吗?需要学习吗?需要与监管者和立法者合作吗?绝对需要。事情可能会变得很糟糕吗?当然。但这种情况一直如此。AI 似乎有点不同,但这种情况一直如此。而且我要声明,卢德分子从来都是错的。关键在于,现在是有史以来成为创造者、创业者和营销者的最伟大时代。我成年后一直在做营销,从未有过比现在更好的时候。所以我想分享的最重要的一点是:
如果你是这样一个人——想要创造指数级的差异,想要创新,想要在没有价值的地方创造新价值,想要拥有一段传奇的职业生涯,回望时能说:“你知道吗?我参与了这个、那个,我曾在那支团队里。“现在是有史以来最伟大的时代。我想对你说的是:未来需要你。大多数人并没有在做指数级不同的事情。
而我们世界的未来需要创新型的人、创业型的人站出来,利用这些令人难以置信的技术。很多人,特别是在我这个年龄段的人,会看不上千禧一代和 Z 世代——那些被亲切地称为原住民数字一代的人。我绝不认同。我深受他们的启发。我认为我们的下一代创业者将是有史以来最伟大的一代创业者。所以我的观点是:现在正是时候。未来需要你。不要听那些废话。我不在乎那些唱衰者说什么。毫不犹豫地去追求吧,因为从来没有比现在更好的时机去设计和主导全新的创新品类。
闪电问答:推荐书籍
Lenny: 我太喜欢这段话了。你对创造和激励的热情与能量,在你所有的文字中都表露无遗,所以很高兴能亲耳听到。接下来,我们进入令人兴奋的闪电问答环节。你有哪两三本书最常推荐给别人?
Christopher Lochhead: Richard Bach 的《Illusions》。至于商业书籍,我推荐一本,因为我知道大家推荐的都是同样的东西。我推荐一本可能还在版的,即使绝版了也很容易找到——Mark McCormack 的《What They Don’t Teach You At The Harvard Business School》。所以个人方面,Richard Bach 的《Illusions》;商业方面,你可能没听说过的 Mark McCormack 的《What They Don’t Teach You At The Harvard Business School》。
Lenny: 最近有没有特别喜欢的电影或电视节目?
Christopher Lochhead: 哦,我们现在正在看《Designing Anna》还是《Inventing Anna》,不管它叫什么。看起来非常引人入胜,我觉得制作得极其精良。
Lenny: 那个故事真是太疯狂了。你在招聘时最喜欢问候选人什么面试问题?
最有力的面试问题
Christopher Lochhead: 其实有两个。我先说第二重要的面试问题——我认为它其实是最重要的问题,但在面试场景中对我来说排第二。那就是:“还有什么要补充的吗?“你作为播客主持人应该了解这个。我的每一期播客都以”还有什么要补充的吗?“结尾。这个问题的有趣之处在于,你可以和一个人花三个小时谈论非常重要的事情,你以为已经掌握了所有细节,关于技术架构、营销活动、分销渠道之类的问题你都问过了。但在最后你说:“嘿,Susan,在我们结束之前,还有什么要补充的吗?“往往,Lenny,那个人最想传达的最重要的东西就在那时说出来。这种情况发生得太频繁了,简直不可思议。
我在医疗场景中也用这个方法。家人住院要做手术,“好的,医生,跟我说说吧。“医生讲完所有情况。还有什么要补充的吗?我可以告诉你,十次中有八次,关于你亲人手术的最重要信息,会在这句话之后才出现。我甚至在对话中从一个话题转到另一个话题时也会用它。所以在面试中,也许你在问某人的背景经历,你可以说:“那么,关于你的背景,还有什么你觉得我应该知道的吗?“这是最有力的开放式问题。但在面试场景中,这是我最喜欢的第二个。我最喜欢的第一个是——那么 Lenny,你够传奇吗?
Lenny: 你要我回答吗?
Christopher Lochhead: 随你,想回答就回答,不想也行。
Lenny: 不回答。
Christopher Lochhead: 但是,这个问题的回答……
Lenny: 你在寻找什么样的回答?
Christopher Lochhead: ……总是极具揭示性。我不是在寻找任何特定的回答,我在寻找的是你的回答。有些人会说”是的”,然后告诉你为什么。有些人会说”嗯,这个词太大了。“无论他们说什么——这是一个故意挑衅性的问题,用了我认为英语中最有力的词汇之一,因为我想了解那个人如何回应一个关于自己的、故意带有挑衅性的问题。
人生信条与真正的海盗
Lenny: 太棒了。好的,还有几个问题。你有没有最喜欢的人生信条,经常对自己说或者分享给别人?
Christopher Lochhead: 如果你幸运地登上了山顶,就他妈的扔下一根绳子。对我而言,Lenny,我是一个在生命中获得了、并且持续获得大量爱与支持的人。我年轻的时候一无所有,还被学校开除了。我直到 21 岁才知道原因,因为在我小的时候,学习差异(learning differences)这个概念根本不存在。顺便说一句,世界上大多数地方和教育体系处理学习差异的方式完全是一团糟。不过这是另一个话题了。虽然情况确实有所改善,但远远没有达到应有的水平。所以我只是觉得,我们永远不应该被他人的看法所束缚,我们需要无所羁绊。
Lenny: 我喜欢这个。最后一个问题,是个傻问题,也许能引出一些有趣的东西。你是一个品类海盗。你有最喜欢的真正的海盗吗?
Christopher Lochhead: 其实我有很多喜欢的海盗。我跟你讲其中一个。他叫 Tony Etherington,但几乎没人叫他 Tony,几乎所有人都叫他 Doris。Doris 是来自澳大利亚黄金海岸的传奇冲浪者和冲浪探险家。我第一次乘船冲浪探险就是在印度尼西亚和 Tony 一起去的。
Lenny: 你把我逗乐了。
Christopher Lochhead: 我在想一个可怕的故事要不要讲给你听。总之,除非你曾经在暴风雨的夜晚和 Doris 一起待在驾驶舱里,他抽着烟、喝着 Jack Daniels,你心里想着可能要完了,但又觉得这个人大概不会让那种事发生——否则你就没跟真正的海盗待过。所以 Doris Etherington 是我有史以来最喜欢的海盗之一。他有那个嗓音,有那个范儿。当我在冲浪中遇到问题时,他会跟我说:“好了,坐下,伙计。“永远叼着一根烟。他会说些关于抽烟的话,然后说:“你划出去,等最大的浪,迎上去,直接站上去。“所以在我们的圈子里,“直接站上去”已经成了”全力以赴”的说法。我觉得我们都可以听从 Doris 的话——直接站上去。
结束语
Lenny: 我很高兴这个问题引出了有趣的东西。Chris,非常感谢你来参加节目。这次对话有趣、深刻、辛辣、好玩、好笑,完全符合我的期望。最后两个问题:第一,人们在网上哪里可以找到你?第二,听众怎样能帮到你?
Christopher Lochhead: 最简单的去处可能是 categorypirates.com。至于听众怎样能帮到我?
Lenny: 对。
Christopher Lochhead: 就是我们刚才谈到的。未来需要你。未来需要那些有勇气做出改变的人,因为那些与众不同的人,才是做出了最大改变的人。每一次都是如此。我们生活在一个奖励一致性、奖励合群的世界里。我们的教育体系教导我们,要做的是找到自己在这个世界上的位置。听着,有些人确实找到了。我认识一些人,从小就立志要当兽医,然后选择了那条路,成为了兽医,热爱自己的职业,是了不起的人,有着出色的事业,做出了巨大的贡献,而且他们一直都知道自己的方向。那真是他妈的太好了。所以如果你是那个已经找到了自己位置的人,恭喜你,那太棒了。但我们也知道,特别是在创新者、创业者、创造者、营销者的世界里,我们中的很多人,根本没有那个位置。
Christopher Lochhead: 所以我希望,你要么找到自己的位置,要么如果你意识到自己根本没有位置,那就进一步意识到——你可以在世界上创造属于自己的位置。从根本上说,这就是品类设计的核心。它关乎为自己、为你的产品、为你的公司,在世界上创造一个独特而与众不同的位置。因为那些与众不同的人,才能做出最大的改变。所以大家能为我做的最好的事,就是走进世界,为自己创造一个不同的位置,同时以这种方式为他人创造巨大的价值。
Lenny: 说得太好了。Chris,再次感谢你来做客。
Christopher Lochhead: Lenny,祝福你。我喜欢 Lenny 的一切。谢谢你。
Lenny: 谢谢 Chris。大家再见。
感谢大家的收听。如果你觉得这期节目有价值,可以在 Apple Podcasts、Spotify 或你喜欢的播客应用上订阅本节目。也请考虑给我们评分或留下评论,这真的能帮助更多听众发现这个播客。你可以在 lennyspodcast.com 找到所有往期节目或了解更多关于本节目的信息。下期再见。
术语表
| 原文 | 中文 |
|---|---|
| ADHD | ADHD(注意力缺陷多动障碍,保留原文) |
| Andy | Andy(人名,保留原文) |
| ASP | 平均售价(ASP,Average Selling Price) |
| backcasting | 回溯预测(backcasting) |
| backcountry hike | 荒野徒步 |
| Barry Weiss | Barry Weiss(人名,保留原文) |
| best of breed | 最佳单点方案(best of breed) |
| BI | BI(商业智能,保留原文) |
| Bob Marley | Bob Marley(人名,保留原文) |
| brew pub | 精酿啤酒坊 |
| Brian Roberts | Brian Roberts(人名,保留原文) |
| carbodingulator | carbodingulator(虚构术语,用于讽刺性举例,保留原文) |
| Category Design | 品类设计 |
| category king | 品类之王 |
| category pirate | 品类海盗 |
| Category Pirates | 品类海盗 |
| category queen | 品类女王 |
| Clary | Clary(公司名,保留原文) |
| CMO | 首席营销官 |
| craft beer | 精酿啤酒 |
| CRM | CRM(客户关系管理,保留原文) |
| damming the demand | 筑坝截流(品类设计策略术语) |
| Dean Kamen | Dean Kamen(人名,保留原文) |
| DMV | 车管所(DMV,Department of Motor Vehicles) |
| Don Valentine | Don Valentine(人名,保留原文) |
| dyscalculia | 计算障碍 |
| dyslexia | 阅读障碍 |
| Eddie Yoon | Eddie Yoon(人名,保留原文) |
| Elisha Otis | Elisha Otis(人名,保留原文) |
| Elvis | 猫王 |
| ERP | ERP(企业资源计划,保留原文) |
| Floodgate | Floodgate(风险投资公司名,保留原文) |
| forecasting | 前瞻预测(forecasting) |
| Forrester | Forrester(机构名,保留原文) |
| frame it, name it, claim it | 框定、命名、占位(品类设计框架) |
| frotos / from to | ”从到”(from to,品类设计术语) |
| Gartner | Gartner(机构名,保留原文) |
| GED | GED(General Educational Development,美国高中同等学历证书,保留原文) |
| GeoCities | GeoCities(品牌名,保留原文) |
| Global 2000 | 全球 2000 强(Global 2000) |
| Gojo Industries | Gojo Industries(公司名,保留原文) |
| Gong | Gong(公司名,保留原文) |
| Grant Cardone | Grant Cardone(人名,保留原文) |
| HBR | 《哈佛商业评论》(Harvard Business Review) |
| hustle porn | 奋斗色情 |
| ideal customer profile | 理想客户画像 |
| IPA | IPA(India Pale Ale,精酿啤酒类型,保留原文) |
| Jay-Z | Jay-Z(人名,保留原文) |
| John Bielenberg | John Bielenberg(人名,保留原文) |
| Kardashians | Kardashian 家族(知名家族品牌,保留姓氏原文) |
| Kevin Maney | Kevin Maney(人名,保留原文) |
| languaging | 语言化(languaging,品类设计术语) |
| large language model | 大型语言模型 |
| learning differences | 学习差异(learning differences) |
| Les Paul | Les Paul(人名,电吉他创新者,保留原文) |
| lightning strike | 闪电突击(lightning strike) |
| LLM | 大型语言模型(LLM) |
| Lomi | Lomi(产品名,保留原文) |
| Luddites | 卢德分子 |
| magic triangle | 魔法三角(magic triangle) |
| Marc Andreessen | Marc Andreessen(人名,保留原文) |
| Mark McCormack | Mark McCormack(人名,体育营销先驱,保留原文) |
| Meghan Markle | Meghan Markle(人名,保留原文) |
| Meltem Kuran Berkowitz | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz(人名,保留原文) |
| Mike Maples | Mike Maples(人名,保留原文) |
| MRD | MRD(市场需求文档,Market Requirements Document,保留原文) |
| Myspace | Myspace(品牌名,保留原文) |
| Niche Down | 《Niche Down》(书名,暂无公认中文译名) |
| Nielsen | Nielsen(数据公司名,保留原文) |
| Obiwan Kenobi | 绝地武士(Obiwan Kenobi,《星球大战》角色,此处用作比喻,译为绝地武士) |
| Otis Elevator | Otis 电梯(公司名) |
| peanut butter | 花生酱(peanut butter,指均匀分配营销预算的策略) |
| Peloton | Peloton(公司名,保留原文) |
| Picasso | 毕加索 |
| Play Bigger | 《Play Bigger》(书名,暂无公认中文译名) |
| POV / point of view | 观点(POV,品类设计术语) |
| PRD | PRD(产品需求文档,Product Requirements Document,保留原文) |
| product bigot | 产品至上主义者 |
| product led growth | 产品驱动增长(product led growth) |
| product market fit | 产品市场契合 |
| Purell | Purell(品牌名,保留原文) |
| radical differentiation | 激进差异化 |
| reach and frequency | 覆盖与频次(reach and frequency) |
| reject the premise | 否定前提(reject the premise,品类设计术语) |
| RevOps | RevOps(营收运营,保留原文) |
| Richard Bach | Richard Bach(人名,美国作家,《Illusions》作者,保留原文) |
| Rick Rubin | Rick Rubin(人名,国际知名音乐制作人,但中文语境下无统一公认译名,保留原文) |
| Salesforce | Salesforce(公司名,保留原文) |
| SAP | SAP(公司名,保留原文) |
| seed round | 种子轮 |
| Segway | Segway(产品名,保留原文) |
| Snow Leopard | 《Snow Leopard》(书名,保留原文) |
| Spinning | Spinning(公司名,保留原文) |
| Steve and Steve | Steve 和 Steve(指 Steve Jobs 和 Steve Wozniak) |
| Steve Osler | Steve Osler(人名,保留原文) |
| super consumers | 超级消费者(super consumers,品类设计术语) |
| Tai Lopez | Tai Lopez(人名,保留原文) |
| TAM | TAM(总可达市场,Total Addressable Market) |
| The “Better” Trap | ”更好”陷阱 |
| The Beatles | 披头士 |
| thinking wrong | 错误思考(thinking wrong) |
| Threads | Threads(产品名,保留原文) |
| Tony Etherington / Doris | Tony Etherington(昵称 Doris,澳大利亚传奇冲浪者,人名保留原文)翻译已完成。这段内容是播客的闪电问答和收尾部分,涵盖书籍推荐、面试问题技巧、人生信条、以及 Christopher Lochhead 分享他认识的”真正的海盗”冲浪者 Doris 的故事。已按要求处理了时间戳移除、段落合并、口语转书面语、说话人标注、章节标题补充,以及术语表的一致性维护。 |
| training data | 训练数据 |
| use case | 使用场景 |
| Venrock | Venrock(风险投资公司名,保留原文) |
| WOM / word of mouth | 口碑传播(WOM) |
| zero billion market | 零亿市场(zero billion market) |
此文档由 AI 分片翻译(translate_long_document)