The category problem: when you're not just choosing a niche — you're inventing one

A niche is a slice of an existing category. 'Skincare for men' is a niche of 'skincare'. The customer already knows what skincare is and what it costs. You compete on price, ingredients, channel.

A category is a new way the customer thinks about a problem. 'Direct-to-consumer telehealth for chronic conditions' wasn't a category until someone built it. The customer had to be taught it existed. Then the inventor owned it.

Category leaders capture 70–80% of the economics of their category. The number-2 captures 10–20%. Everyone else fights for scraps.

Niche players in a defined category are stuck inside the cap of that category. Category creators set the cap.

Customers describe their problem in words that don't match any existing category. They cobble together solutions from 3–4 different categories. They tell you 'I wish there was a thing that...' and the thing doesn't exist.

When these three signals show up together, you're not picking a niche — you're naming a category.

Bad category names are clever. Good category names are obvious. 'CRM for designers' is forgettable. 'Headless commerce' is a category. The name has to describe the thing well enough that customers can use the name to search, recommend, hire.

Test the name: would a customer Google it? Would a job seeker put it on a CV? Would an analyst use it in a report? If yes, the name has legs.

You can't buy a category into existence. You earn it through content: articles, podcasts, talks, reports that define what the category is and what good looks like inside it. Customers learn the category by reading the leader's content.

Hubspot built 'inbound marketing' the category by publishing 2000+ articles defining it. Salesforce did the same with 'CRM in the cloud'. The pattern repeats.