Play Bigger

The how-to playbook for start-ups and established companies on how to define a new category, develop it and then dominate it over time.

'The new how-to guide for entrepreneurs and executives who want to build legendary, enduring companies'
Jim Goetz, Partner, Sequoia Capital


Winning today isn't about beating the competition at the old game. It's about inventing a whole new game: creating a new market category, developing it and dominating it over time. The companies that succeed in this become Category Kings, famous brands that define the whole category - think Xerox, Google, Uber. Category kings are almost impossible to dethrone and take the lion's share of the category's economics. They play bigger than other companies.

In this farsighted, pioneering guide, the founders of Silicon Valley advisory firm Play Bigger introduce the new discipline of category design and its mechanics. By applying category design, companies can create new demand where none existed, conditioning customers' brains to change expectations and buying habits. While this discipline is crucial in the tech industry, it applies to every kind of industry and even to personal careers.

Play Bigger will show how any company can position themselves at the top of their own category, reap the rewards and alter the future.

In today's world, it's no longer enough to create great new products; rather companies now must create whole new categories that destroy old ones. Uber created a new personal transportation category and destroyed taxis and limos. Salesforce.com created a new category of cloud-base sales automation, dethroning the old CRM industry. Airbnb, Workday, Tesla and Netflix are all winning by creating entirely new business categories that destabilise old ones.

The category is the new strategy.

The conclusion: If you want to build a legendary company, you need to design and build a legendary category at the same time, and dominate it over time. Your company needs to be a Category King. And if you don't design a Category King, you're creating a failure.

Drawing on examples from within and beyond our own practice, PLAY BIGGER shows both entrepreneurs and established enterprises how to define, develop and rule a category over time.