Choose a category with room for the vision
⏱ Untimed topicGago describes category creation partly as choosing the scope a product wants to occupy. Miro's visual-collaboration framing, in her account, brought different jobs together. A broader phrase still needs to make sense to buyers; ambition alone does not establish a category.
Listen when buyers keep the old category
⏱ Untimed topicShe recounts a Greenhouse effort to promote recruiting optimization that did not displace applicant-tracking language or budgets. The team shifted from renaming the category to increasing its value. The example is her retrospective, not an independently verified company history.
Use customer language for positioning
⏱ Untimed topicGago says her strongest positioning comes from conversations about customer problems, how people solve them and how they describe the product. Capture those words before selecting a market label. Internal enthusiasm is not a substitute for understanding the buyer.
Test the story in public-facing channels
⏱ Untimed topicShe discusses PR as a way to put a category claim into the world and test whether it resonates. In B2B, analyst and directory sites also influence how buyers see categories. Those relationships and buyer education take work; a new label is not created just by publishing a headline.
Account for the cost of category creation
⏱ Untimed topicGago describes a substantial investment in content, thought leadership and buyer education. A company can keep serving existing categories while developing a larger vision. Creating a new category is not the only path to differentiation.
Run a name-changing rebrand as a product project
⏱ Untimed topicA name change reaches legal work, contracts, the website, product and links. Her Miro approach used owners, sprint teams and reporting rather than treating it as a marketing-only reveal. Align the process and involve the affected teams before launch.
Connect brand to product and values
⏱ Untimed topicGago argues that a strong brand cannot compensate indefinitely for a poor product, and that product quality alone may not create a thoughtful brand. Company values and how people interact with customers can make the brand more authentic. Selected coverage omits the final Culture Amp performance-review section.
