Dive deep into business, brand and strategy.
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What Kal-El and Simba Know About Identity That Most Businesses Don’t
Both have power. Kal-El can fly, bend steel, and see through walls. Simba is a lion. Born to rule Pride Rock. But power means nothing when you don’t know who you are. Their stories tap into something universal: the human battle for identity. Psychologist Erik Erikson referred to this as…
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The $500 Billion Position That Compaq Threw Away
On January 1997, Compaq Computer was about to claim the most valuable mental territory in technology history. Their marketing team, led by George Favaloro and technologist Sean O’Sullivan, had identified a position that would eventually define a $500+ billion market. They’d written a press release about investing in NetCentric, and…
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Does “owning a noun” flatten positioning’s complexity?
Read this post first and then look at the comment section for Michiel. A Note on Michiel’s Challenge To Michiel, thank you for the thoughtful critique. Your questions about whether “owning a noun” flattens positioning’s complexity deserved more than a LinkedIn comment response. You’re absolutely right that positioning involves relationships,…
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The Positioning Test That Destroys 99% of “Experts”
To every copywriter masquerading as a positioning expert, try this experiment. And if you’re hiring one, do this first. Here’s the test: Take these exact words: “We make AI work for you.” Now imagine three companies saying it: Feel the difference? When ChatGPT says it, you believe it. They own…
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How Cluely Owns “Command” and Why Your Tactics Don’t Matter
Note: Monopoly uncovered all the insights you’ll read in this perspective. Why This Series Exists Most business advice is backwards. It starts with tactics (growth hacks, funnel optimization, messaging frameworks) and works backward to strategy. But tactics without position are just expensive experiments. You’re throwing spaghetti at the wall and calling…
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Howie.ai’s Position: The AI Secretary That Owns Delegation
TL;DR Howie doesn’t compete for “best scheduler.” It owns “secretary,” an entirely different mental territory. By reframing scheduling as delegation rather than self-service, Howie created a position where 1,000+ customers pay $25-95/month to CC an AI assistant that handles meetings with human-grade etiquette. The hybrid model (AI + human review)…
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The most dangerous advice comes from those who succeeded without knowing why
Everyone loves that Dakota Meyer quote about not taking criticism from people you wouldn’t take advice from. LinkedIn eats it up. Founders tattoo it on their minds. It’s also completely backwards. Here’s what I’ve learned analyzing hundreds of companies through the positioning lens: Successful founders are terrible at explaining their…
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Why 99% of Experts Would Get Chexy’s position Wrong
Ask a LinkedIn “positioning expert” for Chexy’s position and they’ll give you articulation — who it’s for, how it’s different, what it replaces. That isn’t positioning. That’s framing. Let me show you the status quo (framing) versus the reality (positioning), and why Chexy is the counterexample that proves the rule.…
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The Industry’s Biggest Confusion: Why Framing Isn’t Positioning
Most positioning work isn’t positioning at all. It’s framing. And this confusion is costing companies their shot at mental monopolies. Here’s a simple test. Pull up any company’s “positioning document.” If it starts with “We are…” or “Our product…” or answers “Who’s it for?” and “How’s it different?” That’s NOT…
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The 2.35% Reality of B2B Websites
Over the last month, I wrote and covered that B2B websites influence just 2.35% of your total addressable market. And the response has been… intense. Comments and DMs range from marketers defending their budgets to CEOs questioning their spending. And surprisingly, a lot of agreement from people who’ve suspected this…
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Why Everything You Know About Go-to-Market Strategy is Backwards
Note: Grant’s post about choosing between “rabbits” (many small customers) and “whales” (a few large enterprises) perfectly illustrates how even smart people can confuse tactical distribution choices with strategic positioning. He thinks he’s describing how to choose your go-to-market strategy, but he’s actually documenting symptoms while missing the disease (the…
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The Day I Stopped Believing in Product Superiority
What would you have to believe for positioning to be more important than product? I’ve been asking this question for 20 years. To Fortune 500 CEOs. To startup founders. To myself. Most people think it’s a ridiculous question. Of course products matter more. Products are real. Products solve problems. Products…
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