Increased choice among goods and services may contribute little or nothing to the kind of freedom that counts. Indeed, it may impair freedom by taking time and energy we’d be better off devoting to other matters.
Barry Schwartz The Paradox of Choice
Putting things swiftly in categories is a quirk of our minds to deal with complexity.
Our brains are governed by more that fifty different cognitive biases that push us toward decisions based not on facts and logic. It’s a shortcut system in our brain–a way to make decisions faster and easier, especially when overwhelmed by too much information.
Play Bigger: How Rebels and Innovators Create New Categories and dominate Markets
Category design is the mindful creation and development of a new market category, designed so the category will pull in customers who will then make the company its king.
Defining a new category, designing it will increase your chances of success. This includes defining and marketing the problem, then you can help people understand that you are best placed to solve the problem better than anyone else.
This is not about first mover advantage. This is about making it easy for customers to understand the category of problem that you are solving. If done successfully customers will come to associate you with the category, then due to our cognitive biases, it becomes very hard for competitors to replace you.