Category Thinkers

In this week's episode of Category Thinkers, we host Skiller Whale's CEO Hywel Carver. Skiller Whale attended a category design workshop hosted by their VC firm, Concept Ventures and Category Design Advisors. They then took the learnings and successfully ventured through the category design process internally. This episode talks about that journey. In this clip, Hywel talks about how the category design process brought alignment throughout his senior leadership team. Link to episode in comments. Hosted by Mike Damphousse and Kevin Maney #CategoryDesign #Startups #VentureCapital

MONDAY Feb 5, 12:00 PM EST / 9:00 AM PST – Registration link below. Live AMA with Al Ramadan of Play Bigger – #CategoryDesign Beyond Tech Startups Join us LIVE on the Category Thinkers podcast with our guest, Al Ramadan. Al is not only the CEO of Play Bigger but also one of the co-authors of “Play Bigger,” and a dedicated board member of Save The Waves Coalition. In this AMA event, we’ll dive deep into the art of category design. Discover how shifts in context—ranging from environmental changes to global events like pandemics, wars, or financial crises—can spark innovative solutions and new categories. We’ll unpack how category design extends beyond startups to nonprofits, global warming, public companies, and more. This conversation is moderated by the founders of Category Thinkers, Pablo Gonzalez, John Rougeux, and Mike Damphousse. This episode is sponsored by: Category Design Advisors Be The Stage Flag & Frontier You can register for the event at the link below.

MONDAY Feb 5, 12:00 PM EST / 9:00 AM PST – Registration link below. Live AMA with Al Ramadan of Play Bigger – #CategoryDesign Beyond Tech Startups Join us LIVE on the Category Thinkers podcast with our guest, Al Ramadan. Al is not only the CEO of Play Bigger but also one of the co-authors of “Play Bigger,” and a dedicated board member of Save The Waves Coalition. In this AMA event, we’ll dive deep into the art of category design. Discover how shifts in context—ranging from environmental changes to global events like pandemics, wars, or financial crises—can spark innovative solutions and new categories. We’ll unpack how category design extends beyond startups to nonprofits, global warming, public companies, and more. This conversation is moderated by the founders of Category Thinkers, Pablo Gonzalez, John Rougeux, and Mike Damphousse. This episode is sponsored by: Category Design Advisors Be The Stage Flag & Frontier You can register for the event at the link below.

Always great to meet folks from our community in real life. John Rougeux, Mike Damphousse and Kevin Maney were in Tampa this week and got to meet up with Ky Shaw, James Ontra, Michelle Waite, and Brittany Lemke. Great to grab a drink with you all, and here's to the next one! 🍻

If you've been part of our community this year, you've already seen how our live events are packed with practical advice from real pros. And we're thrilled to finish out 2023 strong, with a live AMA this week with Josh Lowman from Gold Front. Join us to learn 3 tools that Josh uses to quickly pitch and vet new category concepts before finalizing a strategic narrative. Join us — it may just save you and your startup a lot of time, money and even heartbreak. We'll be live on Friday, December 15 at 9 PST / 12:00 EST. You can register here to save your spot: https://lnkd.in/gZ22ht9S See you there! #categorydesign #startups #venturecapital

What does "marketing the problem" look like in practice? Here's how Jonathan Gandolf, founder and CEO of The Juice describes it. ==== Marketers spend a ton of time CREATING content. But very little time DISTRIBUTING content. He calls it the "content hamster wheel." And he's used that insight to build a radically different type of content marketing tool. That's how category designers think ==== Here's the rest of our conversation on Jonathan's journey as a category designer: https://lnkd.in/gBRcD2ig #categorydesign #contentmarketing #startups

Once you create your category Point of View, should you leave it alone forever? Sometimes the world changes, and your POV needs to change with it. Here's Mike Damphousse's take. Have you ever needed to revise your POV? If so, why? #categorydesign #categorythinking

Can you use category design principles without being a VC-backed startup? James Carbary, the founder and CEO of Sweet Fish is a great example of how to think like a category designer when you're running a bootstrapped company. It's not about the size of your balance sheet - it's about your ability to tap into what's changed in the world and identify what's missing. Link to our full conversation with James in the comments. #categorydesign #podcast #categorythinking