Episodes

Josh hosted a live workshop to help folks get their positioning back on track. Topics included: The Three Hard Positioning Problems everybody faces. The best tool to fix each one. And why everything will fall into place when ...

Josh shares the Gold Front Category Design Canvas, a tool that helps you ask and answer the essential questions for crafting great category strategy. Plus, there’s a Mario-themed mnemonic that makes the canvas easy to remembe...

Join Josh and Anna Furmanov for live strategy work. Anna is the founder of Furmanov Marketing, who’s been called the “Marie Kondo of startup marketing”. Josh and Anna talk about: Gold Front’s category strategy. The unique pro...

We are back! Josh explains category design. Topics include: Why category design sometimes gets people so angry. Strategy is just thinking before you act. And category as a force multiplier for strategy. Submit questions and s...

Josh shares 5 foundational principles that category creators can use to stay focused on the work that really matters. It’s easy to lose your way when creating new categories, use these tools and insights to keep yourself, and...

Josh answers listener questions about category creation. My boss, the VP of marketing, wants to test everything, even an Instagram story, and I think it's making us late to get content out. Have you dealt with this? What are ...

Josh shares 5 laws for branding to help you design original, interesting, and un-boring brands. Submit questions and subscribe to our newsletter here: categoryfirst.substack.com

Josh shares his process for writing strategy. Submit questions and subscribe to our newsletter here: categoryfirst.substack.com

Josh talks to Paul McDonnell, Vice President at one of the world's largest private equity firms, Insight Partners, about the qualities and mindset that successful category creation teams must have. In his work at Insight's Ma...

Josh answers listener questions about category creation. What are the biggest mistakes you see category creators make? Have all these hype-first startups like Theranos, WeWork, FTX, etc. made investors skeptical of companies ...

Josh tries to teach ChatGPT to be his strategist, which gets him thinking the future of knowledge work. Later, he shares four “New World Skills” that will be in high demand as AI takes off. Submit questions and subscribe to …

We hate to break it to you, but your website probably sucks. (Even ours needs some TLC). But don't stress, Josh will walk you through the 5 reasons why your website is not looking so good, and how to make …

Josh hosts a special Q&A episode with John Weeke, a Product Marketing Manager at Iron cloud, to talk about the differences between positioning and category strategy. Some highlights: How positioning can sometimes lead to comp...

Josh answers listener questions about category creation. Who are your biggest mentors and influences? You work for a lot of startups. Is business slow? Should my company design a category now for cheap? Or wait until we hopef...

​​Josh answers Patrick's questions about category creation. Why do we urge clients to stick to the "shift, gap, category idea" story structure? What do you disagree with or do differently than the book Play Bigger. What's the...

Josh answers listener questions about category creation. How does Andy Raskin's idea of "the old way vs. the new way," when creating a strategic narrative, relate to category? There's a lot of chatter about companies creating...

Welcome to a new feature of the pod: Let's Write a Book. Josh and Ben talk through ideas for the first chapter of the Category First book, entitled “Strategy Is Thinking”. Highlights include: Why "Strategy is thinking about w...

ChatGPT-4 is out. How will AI change category design (and everything else under the Sun)? Josh shares "Three Stages of AI" as it relates to category creation. Submit questions and subscribe to our newsletter here: categoryfir...

Josh answers listener questions about category creation. Our story is way too safe, but our CEO is one of those engineering types that overanalyzes everything. How do I get them to take some chances ? How do we adjust messagi...

Josh talks to Latané Conant, Chief Market Officer at 6sense. Latané takes us behind the scenes at the creation of 6sense's new category Revenue AI. We get a first hand account of some of the challenges they faced, the ups …

Josh answers listener questions about category creation. How would you launch a category in 2 months? What launch deliverables should we prioritize if our budget is tight? How do you come up with a good campaign line? Submit ...

Josh answers listener questions about category creation. How did you get so interested in category design? How does category designing your own agency differ from the work you do with clients? We're thinking about writing a c...

Josh talks to Ben Hughes, VP of creative at Squarespace, about their shared love for ads, brands, writing, and good creative work. Ben leads Squarespace's in-house creative team, which is responsible for crafting one of the m...

Josh answers listener questions about category creation. Who should be on my category design team? How do you get the most out of video (especially on a budget)? How does category design work alongside product design? What's ...