Strategic Product Positioning

After working with 6 early-stage startups in the last 6 months, I've learned that most positioning advice falls apart when you're creating something from scratch. There are many great frameworks (April Dunford's is my fav), but most of them assume your buyer knows the problem you solve. But the reality is, most buyers don't. That's the trap when there's no existing, established category. Your real competitor isn't another vendor – it's the status quo and inertia. Most recently, I've been helping a startup position a product that has zero "direct competitors." No analyst coverage. No line item in the budget. Here's what I learned: – You can't lead with your product. You have to lead with the shift happening in the market. – Your messaging has to make the problem obvious before your solution even makes sense. – Your first goal isn't conversion. It's re-framing the buyer's mental model. So I tweaked the playbook. Instead of starting with "competitive alternatives," we started with: 1️⃣ What has changed in the world? 2️⃣ Why is the old way broken? 3️⃣ What new lens helps the buyer see it? Only then did we introduce the product as the natural solution to the new problem. Positioning isn't about shouting louder, it's about educating buyers and rewiring how they think. Curious to the other PMM and marketing leaders: How have you approached positioning when you're in a new and emerging category?

Your AI product could be the go-to in your category. But you're positioning it like everyone else. Here's the difference: Positioning that converts prospects: - Speaks to their exact daily frustrations - Uses the language they actually use internally - References specific tools they're already using - Mentions the precise time wasted on manual tasks - Addresses the moment when their pain hits hardest - Connects features to real workflow improvements - Shows understanding of their current process gaps - Demonstrates knowledge of their industry constraints Positioning that gets ignored: - Uses generic pain points like "save time" - Relies on buzzwords and marketing speak - Focuses on features without context - Makes broad claims about efficiency gains - Ignores the prospect's current reality - Talks about benefits in abstract terms - Sounds like every other competitor - Fails to show specific understanding The difference? Research depth. I spend hours listening to sales calls, reading support tickets, and analyzing how prospects describe their problems. Most founders skip this step and wonder why their messaging feels flat. They write copy based on assumptions instead of real conversations. But when you nail the specifics - like mentioning the exact frustration of switching between Slack, Asana, and three spreadsheets just to update one client - prospects stop scrolling. They think: "This person gets exactly what I deal with" That's when your product becomes the obvious choice. P.S.: Still using generic pain points like "save time"? DM me to position your solution so prospects immediately see the value. ______________________________ 👋 I’m Marina Kogan 🌊 I help founders position tech products as must-have solutions.

Your product’s biggest strength? Might be the reason you're losing. Stop me if you've seen this before: A rep walks into a demo, guns blazing with the flagship feature. Patented AI. Endless integrations. Dashboards so pretty you want to frame them. The problem? None of that matters if the buyer doesn’t care. It’s like offering a juice cleanse to someone who just asked for a steak. This is the trap: we confuse differentiation with default positioning. Just because something is unique doesn’t mean it’s useful. Just because something is premium doesn’t mean it’s priority aligned. I’ve lost deals this way. You probably have too. Brian LaManna broke this down during a Sales Assembly course last week. His thesis is that the game isn’t about showing what makes you great...it’s about showing why you’re exactly right for them. Here’s how to make the shift: 1. Start with strategic fit, NOT product strength Before you drop into demo mode, answer this: What strategic priority does this prospect actually care about? - Reduce CAC by 15% - Launch in Europe by Q3 - Retain 95% of enterprise accounts - Improve onboarding velocity for ramping reps If your feature doesn’t map to one of those? It’s window dressing. No matter how powerful it is. 2. Quantify the cost of staying put Sellers love to sell the future. Buyers make decisions based on the cost of the present. If your differentiation doesn’t help them: - Close the gap between current and ideal state - Avoid a known risk - Or capitalize on an urgent opportunity... …it’s irrelevant. Build the business case around urgency, not just capability. 3. Use differentiation to de-risk the decision Great sellers use differentiation to reduce perceived risk. Bad sellers use it to inflate perceived value. “We’re the only vendor with XYZ” Only matters if: That feature ties to a must have outcome AND you make it feel safer to choose you than to stall or default to the status quo Otherwise? You sound like every other overengineered solution they don’t need. 4. Tailor the pitch by segment and stage Early stage startup? They care about velocity, not sophistication. MM? Probably looking for plug and play solutions with high ROI. ENT? Stability, compliance, scale...and political cover. Same feature, totally different framing. Differentiation that doesn’t flex by buyer type fails. Differentiation isn’t about being better. It’s about being the right answer to their very specific problem - right now. You’re not selling a Ferrari. You’re selling a way out of whatever corner they’re currently stuck in.

How do you win when your product costs 4x more than competitors? I faced this exact challenge with a client last month. Their product: Premium lumbar support selling for $120. The competition: Basic back supports at $20-40. Sales stuck at 5 units per week when they needed 20. "Maybe we should just give up and start over," they said. But I knew the problem wasn't the product. It was the positioning strategy. They were fighting a price war they could never win. Here's what changed everything: We stopped competing where everyone else was competing. Instead of targeting "back support" (dominated by $20 products), we targeted "high-quality lumbar support." Instead of generic product terms, we targeted specific pain points. The strategy: • Find low-volume, high-intent keywords where quality matters more than price • Target people actively seeking solutions, not just products • Position against the problem, not against competitors The results: Within 60 days, we were ranking #1 for multiple quality-focused terms. Sales increased from 5 to 18 units per week. ACoS improved by 40%. The framework: → Pain-point targeting: Focus on what the product solves → Quality modifiers: Add "professional," "medical-grade," "therapeutic" → Long-tail dominance: Win 10 keywords with 200 searches vs fighting for 1 keyword with 5,000 → Buyer intent matching: Target people researching solutions The key insight? Premium products shouldn't compete on the same battlefield as budget alternatives. They should create their own battlefield where quality matters more than price. I'm the founder of GigaBrands.ai, helping Amazon brands develop positioning strategies that command higher prices. Your move: • Research long-tail keywords with quality modifiers • Target specific pain points vs generic categories • Focus on buyer intent, not search volume What's your biggest challenge positioning premium products against budget competitors?

For the longest time, we all thought building the product was the hardest part, but that has changed significantly. With AI, products can be built, tested, and launched faster than ever before. Which means the real challenge now is no longer about can you build this? but about how do we get people to care about this? I've conducted many workshops with product builders - be it PMs, sales, engineers, and designers. When you ask who the product is truly for, what it meaningfully replaces, and why a customer would choose it over their current way of doing things, the answers are different. Sales will often describe competition based on recent deals. Product will frame it in terms of where the roadmap is headed. Marketing will respond to what the market appears to reward. And let's be honest, a user doesn't look at the product like that! So then, I ask this one question: If this product did not exist, what would the customer do instead? Would they rely on an existing tool? Would they create a workaround? Or would they continue with the status quo? Positioning, then, is not about describing the product in isolation. It is about defining it in direct relation to that default choice. It requires identifying the specific context in which the product creates a form of value that is immediately comprehensible to the customer it is intended for. And that specific context is especially helpful when the teams are building internally! Ofcourse, this narrows the scope more than teams are initially comfortable with, but it is precisely this specificity that creates clarity. Remember, it is not what you build that's the differentiator. It's how much clarity you have on it that separates you from the rest.

Is Product Positioning really a Marketing problem? Think Again. Let me share why positioning is fundamentally a CEO's responsibility, not just another marketing or sales initiative. 1. THE TRIPLE INSIGHT REQUIREMENT Effective positioning demands deep understanding of: - Customer pain points and aspirations - Competitive landscape dynamics - Company's long-term vision Only the CEO sits at the deepest intersection of all three. 2. WHY MARKETING ALONE CAN'T OWN IT Marketing teams excel at execution, but they: - Lack full competitive intel - Miss strategic board-level discussions - Don't have complete revenue visibility - Cannot make fundamental product decisions 3. WHY SALES CAN'T DRIVE IT EITHER Sales teams are closest to customers, but: - Focus on short-term wins - See only their territory view - Miss the broader market context - Cannot influence product roadmap 4. THE CEO'S UNIQUE POSITION The CEO is the only one who: - Holds all the strategic cards - Can align all departments - Makes final product decisions - Shapes company vision - Has complete market view 5. THE RIGHT APPROACH Success comes when: - CEO drives the positioning strategy - Marketing crafts the message - Sales validates with customers - Product delivers on the promise At PipeBagger, we've seen this pattern repeatedly. Companies struggling with positioning often have delegated it too far down the chain. Want to build authority in your market? Start by getting positioning right at the top. Interested in learning more about building market authority through strategic positioning? Let's connect. This is exactly what we help B2B founders achieve - turning their unique market position into sustainable growth. Positioning is a business strategy. Revenue is a business strategy. Sales is a revenue strategy. And so is marketing. #SaaS #RevenueGrowth #Positioning

𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗜𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝗕𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴—𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗣𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗠𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗕𝗲. I once worked with a client who sold notebooks. Plain, brown, recycled-paper notebooks. And he came to me saying, Geeta, I don’t know how to market this. It’s just… a notebook. But here’s the thing—products aren’t born boring. They’re just misunderstood. We flipped the script: • Not just a notebook → a mindfulness tool • Not just recycled paper → zero-guilt creativity • Not just stationery → a daily reset button We sold the emotion, not the object. The identity, not the item. Six months later? He had built a cult-like customer base that didn’t just buy notebooks—they told stories about them. This applies beyond business. Your skills, your brand, your offers— They’re not boring. You might just be telling the wrong story. Positioning isn’t about exaggerating. It’s about uncovering what already makes you valuable, and leading with that. Because in a noisy world, how you say something is as important as what you’re saying. What’s something you thought was “boring”… until you looked at it differently?

The most important element of your positioning strategy is the use case you choose. A quick definition: Use Case — workflow(s) performed by potential customers that could be supported by your product The "width" of your use case determines your positioning strategy. If you position for a very narrow use case, the competitive alternatives and your differentiation will be very different than if you position for a very broad use case. When a company like Lavender 💜 says they can help SDRs "write better emails" (i.e. the use case), they are positioning AGAINST writing emails manually and showing how their AI email coach drives better reply rates. If you position for a very wide use case, your competitive landscape changes — and should your differentiation strategy. When Apollo.io says they are "the only solution you need to run a world-class sales organization," they are trying to own the end-to-end workflow/use case of "doing sales." Obviously, this a HUGE set of workflows that are accomplished by a variety of tools, manual processes, etc. And so they must back up their claim with strong product differentiation and social proof. A few takeaways: → If you own a wide use case that is very important to companies, you can command a higher ACV... yet your market is likely "smaller" in the true TAM sense. This is the problem with software companies relying too heavily on marquee design partners in the early days. They can end up functioning as high-paid consultants building software that serves one enterprise and one enterprise alone. → If you own a very narrow use case, your target market is likely "larger" in the pure TAM sense... though you'll likely need to take a more PLG approach with a lower ACV. → There is huge success to be found in positioning on very narrow use cases AND very wide use cases, as demonstrated from the diagram below. Additionally, being most known for a narrow use case (i.e. with a company like Gong being known for call recording) does not mean you can't also cover adjacent use cases. The diagram below does not fully summarize what all these companies CAN do... it's simply a quick stab at what most people associate with them.

When you pitch your startup, competitive strategy is key. I saw a company this week offering a 𝟰𝘅 better product than the competition for a 𝟭𝟬% 𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗲𝗿 price. It wasn't selling; they had made a crucial positioning mistake. Let's see why, using the diagram. First, look at the solid curved line: that's a cost/performance tradeoff, with higher cost on the left and lower cost on the right. As you approach the maximum possible performance, cost gets very high; at minimum cost, performance is low. The curve shows the competitive state of the art. Our competitor, "Them," occupies the white circle. Now look at the dotted curved line. That's the cost/performance tradeoff available to Us. Our startup has a better technology, which puts us up and to the right of the competition. Ideally we would be able to use our advantage to move anywhere along this higher curve; in practice, of course, our technology has constraints, so we may not be able to reach all parts of the curve. The three competitive positions in green ovals are obvious winners, provided our advantage is large enough. We can match competition's performance for lower cost (same for less), offer higher performance for the same cost (more for same), or land somewhere in between (more for less). In game theory we'd say these positions are dominant. The red zone is where the startup I saw is positioning: higher performance - in this case much higher - but at a higher price. In that zone you're not going to replace the Them circle; it's not your actual competition. There may be a competing higher-performance product - shown by the white dotted circle - that's your real competition; or you may have to create a new segment. Either way, it's likely a lower-volume niche. If you can't match the competition's price, you also can't claim their entire TAM. Why is this so? The 4x product has much better price/performance, but customers don't buy price/performance, they buy price 𝗽𝗼𝗶𝗻𝘁. Consider a disk drive example. Suppose we have a novel storage technology. Our target customer's high-volume product ships with 256GB and they pay $15; we offer 1024GB for $18. For the high-volume product we're in the red zone, and we're not going to win. If there's a higher-capacity model, we might play for that one; otherwise we're begging them to create such a model. Yuck. The yellow zone, less for less, is interesting. Christensen's Disruption Theory is based on the observation that technology can overshoot market need. The competitor's "performance" should be measured by its utility to the customer, not by raw specifications. Blue Ocean Theory applies here as well: we can offer 𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 in some dimensions in order to provide 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 in others. In both cases we'd be developing a different segment, not replacing the Them circle. Finally, what if you don't have competition? Actually, you do. At minimum, the status quo is your competitor, as most customers do nothing - use that as your "Them"!

Most companies fail at landing on a positioning that wins. Here’s why. Over the past 2 years, I’ve worked with 8 CEOs on repositioning their companies and/or products. Here are 5 key takeaways: 👉 Know your customers, really know them Too many companies only scratch the surface when it comes to understanding their customers. They miss the deeper motivations and real pain points. It’s not just about demographics; it’s about understanding what your customers are trying to accomplish, the processes they are trying to improve, and how you make their lives easier. Dig deep. The answers aren’t in your office; they’re out there with your customers. 👉 Differentiate or die Your key differentiator isn’t always a flashy feature. Sometimes it’s a unique customer experience. It might be something you think is minor, but for them, it’s not. Don’t just ask what feature they love most. Ask what they would miss most if your product was no longer available. Repeat this question for any alternative solution they might have used in the past. The answers will surprise you—and they’ll reveal what truly sets you apart. 👉 Competitive reframing: your secret weapon Competitive intelligence is critical, but competitive reframing is what truly changes the game. This means redefining the competitive landscape to position your company/product in a way that highlights your strengths while de-positioning your competitors. It’s not about telling how bad your competitors are but helping your prospects understand why you are a better fit across the criteria that matter to them. 👉 Organizational alignment: the CEO’s mission Repositioning isn’t just a marketing exercise; it’s an organizational one. The CEO must lead the charge. Yes, you read that right. Everyone from the C-suite to the front lines needs to be on the same page. Consistency is key. Most importantly, if your team doesn’t believe in the new positioning, neither will your customers. Want to know if your organization is aligned? Send a DM to all your employees (and board members) and ask them in one sentence to describe what you do for your clients. You’ll be shocked. 👉 What you are really building is a muscle Positioning takes work. You can’t rush it in a day or two. It’s a process that requires continuous refinement. Think of it like growing a plant—it needs time to mature. In my experience, it takes 4-6 weeks to refine your ICP, clarify the problem and alternatives, identify your differentiated value, and land on a concise positioning/messaging blueprint. Then, you need another 4 weeks for the first phase of rollout. Test your positioning as you develop it through sales conversations, CEO discussions with investors, and other channels. This is a great way to validate your hypothesis and market point of view while refining your positioning and messaging. If you’re interested in more insights on this topic or need help finding a winning position in the market, let me know 😉