The Positioning Problem
If you’re someone who wants to create an exponentially different future.
For yourself.
Or your company.
You’re in the right place.
🏴☠️
The Different Newsletter.
Musings for entrepreneurs, marketing leaders, category designers and creators with a different mind.
With content stolen from Category Pirates.
15X #1 bestselling author of Play Bigger,
Snow Leopard, and
🏴☠️
We Need to Talk About Positioning
What you’re about to read is an excerpt from our new #1 bestseller The Existing Market Trap.
(Al Ramadan & Lochhead Authors of Play Bigger & The Existing Market Trap)
The Trap Hiding in Plain Sight
There’s a tradition we started in Play Bigger.
We save one last thing for the end.
Not because it’s an afterthought.
But because it changes how you see everything that came before.
In Play Bigger, we needed a foil. So we picked SAP.
Not to be petty—but because SAP had become the poster child for old-school strategy. (and they have old man balls)
They were the system. And we wanted to challenge it.
But in this book, we’re not going after SAP.
We’re going after something bigger. Something more dangerous.
| We’re going after a belief.
One that’s been repeated so many times—by founders, VCs, accelerators, analysts, and agencies—that no one even questions it anymore.
| It’s called Positioning.
And what we’re going to say about it might piss some people off.
That’s okay. Because this conversation is long overdue.
The Truth About Positioning
On the surface, positioning seems harmless.
Even smart. Strategic. Responsible.
“We need a better positioning statement.”
“Let’s reposition the product.”
“We should hire a positioning firm.”
But let’s call it what it really is:
A trap.
Because positioning—by definition—is about placing your company inside an existing market.
It assumes the aisle already exists. The category already has a name.
And your job is to fit.
You’re not changing the game.
You’re learning how to play it—slightly better, slightly faster, slightly louder than the next guy.
You’re jockeying for attention in a market someone else already leads.
What Positioning Used to Be
When Al Ries and Jack Trout published Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind in 1981, their idea was radical:
Own a single idea in the customer’s brain.
Volvo = Safety
Coca-Cola = Americana
BMW = Driving
Genius.
But over time, positioning lost its soul.
It stopped being about focus.
It became a messaging tweak. A spreadsheet exercise. A rebrand.
It stopped being about owning a category—and became about surviving inside one.
Today’s Positioning Is the Status Quo in Disguise
Here’s what most people mean when they say “positioning” today:
“We found a big market.”
“We built something better.”
“Now let’s position it against the competition.”
It sounds smart—until you realize what you’re fighting for:
The 24%.
Because that’s what’s left after the Category King takes their cut.
Category Kings earn 76% of the market cap.
Everyone else fights over what’s left.
So when you position your way into a hot market—without naming the game, without defining the problem, without designing the category—you’re not building a legendary company.
You’re just signing up to be a sidekick in someone else’s story.
(And probably a losing one.)
Compared to What?
Some will tell you:
“Category Design is too hard. Too bold. Too expensive.”
They’ll say:
Why not just reposition?
Add some AI.
Reframe the tagline.
That’s faster.
To which we say: Compared to what?
Compared to:
| Building something legendary?
| Creating a new frame of value?
| Leading a market that didn’t exist before?
If that’s the goal—
Why would you not name it?
Why would you not lead it?
Why would you settle for squeezing into a Gartner quadrant…
…when you could create your own axis?
365,000 People Fighting for the 24%
Go search “positioning” on LinkedIn.
Click “People.”
You’ll find over 365,000 professionals with “positioning” in their title or bio.
That’s a whole army of smart, talented humans…
All trying to out-message each other in a market they didn’t invent.
Webinars. Copywriting. Competitive grids.
Everyone trying to move one square to the left in an Industry Analyst’s market map.
Meanwhile, the Category Kings?
They’re building a new board.
It Would Be Awesome—If It Were True
Positioning says:
Find a big market.
Build a better mousetrap.
Position your better mousetrap clearly.
The world will beat a path to your door.
It would be awesome.
If it were true.
But it’s not.
It’s a trap.
You Don’t Need a Better Position. You Need a Better Frame.
If you’re reading this, you’re probably not trying to get second—or fifth—place.
You’re not trying to rank higher in a market someone else defined.
You’re trying to build something legendary.
So here’s the truth:
Positioning puts you in a market.
Category Design puts you in the lead.
Positioning asks: “Where do we fit?”
Category Design asks: “What kind of future are we building?”
One keeps you trapped.
The other sets you free.
Choose wisely, young Jedi.
🏴☠️
An excerpt from our new #1 bestseller The Existing Market Trap.
You’ve done dumber things with $20.
And if you want to go deep with Al and me on a podcast.
🏴☠️
Shalom my Pirate friend,
Christopher
Thinking about thinking, is the most important kind of thinking.
There are (random) strategically placed spelling, grammar and formatting mistakes in this newsletter.
It’s a feature.
The creator of this Different newsletter may have been consuming libations.
(Isn’t libations a great word.)
The “legal” warnings.
Dis-credits
(and the Pirate Scooby Snacks 🐶)
All newsletters contain nuts 🐿
This product is a solution to a problem that most people don’t have.
AI Category Growth Cutting Into Google:
Google's global search market share dropped below 90% for the first time since 2015 during the final three months of 2024.
According to data from Statcounter, Google’s market share was:
• 89.34% in October
• 89.99% in November
• 89.73% in December 2024
First sustained period below 90% since early 2015.
“I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.”
— Albert Einstein
(thx for this one
)Intellectual Capital: 5 Ways To Turn Your Knowledge Into Content That Makes Money While You Sleep
Please.
Pretty please.
With whiskey on top.
Get out of the passing lane.
The creator of this Different Newsletter:
-can’t find his walkman
-was thrown out of school at 18
-does not possess a GED
-is friendly with Mary Jane & Jack Daniels
-has been fired more times than he can count
-regularly get’s de-platformed by social media companies
-possess multiple learning differences superpowers
... this is the part of Different, that is like the very end of a movie...
….where some directors throw in silly crap-o-lla..
…simply for their own entertainment…
…assuming no people (or very few) are still in the theatre…
So.
I’ll just assume you’ve either already stopped reading.
Or will now.
Thanks for hanging out.
Octopuses have three hearts.
Wisconsin deputies use lasso, construction vehicle to nab loose pig
Your brain burns 400 to 500 calories daily.
Ketchup was once sold as medicine.
(Category Design can change anything.)
There are over 200 flavors of Kit Kats in Japan.
Including wasabi and baked potato.
Stowaway pigeons cause chaos in passenger cabin on Delta plane
This newsletter is getting long.
Ya.
I thought he said, when he started this. It was going to be quick.
Seems he can’t shut up.
His grandmother said he, “kissed the blarney stone”.
Why would someone kiss a stone?
Ya!
And why would anyone, “grab the bull by the horns”?
Or, “break a leg”?
We all say (a lot) of dumb stuff.
Believe you, me.
At the end of the day.
It is, what it is.
Ya.
Stuff like that.
Hey!
Did you know?
A Norwegian man woke up to find a cargo ship in his front yard.
What!
A Norwegian man woke up to find a cargo ship in his front yard.
You’ve gotta see the video.
How good’s the Norwegian dude!?
Right out of central casting.
And the size of the freakin’ boat.
Wild.
Hey man.
Don’t we have to go?
We?
Is this newsletter making me talk to myself in my head again?
Can a newsletter make you nuts?
This one can.
🏴☠️