Christopher Lochhead

Product-market fit is often a 'better trap' that leads to competing for small market shares rather than dominating a new space.

"What product market fit has come to mean is... 'achieved product market fit.' ... categories make products not the other way around. What you want is you want to design a market category for your prod..."

The most critical information often surfaces when the formal structure of a conversation ends.

"Before we wrap, is there anything else? ... the interesting thing about that question, you can spend three hours with somebody... And at the very end you say, 'Hey, Susan, before we wrap, is there any..."

Provocative questions reveal a candidate's self-perception and ability to handle ambiguity.

"My first favorite is, so Lenny, are you legendary? ... I want to get a read on that person and how they respond to a purposely provocative question about themselves."

Strategic language is required to shift consumer thinking and create a demarcation point from the past.

"Languaging, which is the strategic use of language to change thinking. And a mistake that a lot of entrepreneurs make is they use old language to describe their new thing."

Owning the vocabulary of a category allows a company to control the perception of value.

"The company that creates the languaging for the category wins. ... New languaging creates new thinking, and a demarcation point in language creates a demarcation point in thinking, which can create a..."

Traditional positioning often focuses on competing within an existing category rather than creating a new one.

"Positioning in the modern context is for losers. That is to say people who are fighting over the 24%. ... Positioning has become sort of category design for the cowards. It's like, 'Well, I know that..."

Concentrated 'lightning strikes' are more effective than 'peanut butter' marketing that spreads budget thinly over time.

"What if you did that as a software company? What if you launched a thing... the way Hollywood launches a movie? ... the idea of a lightning strike is, if you are in our target audience for that day or..."

Market categories dictate the ultimate value and perception of the products and brands within them.

"The category makes the product, the category makes the brand, the category makes the company."

Visionary leadership involves an obsession with a future state where a specific problem no longer exists.

"Legendary entrepreneurs don't just think they know the future is going to be different, because they're designing that different future. And the problem they're focused on matters to them so much that..."

True innovation competes against the old way of doing things, not specific rival companies.

"Category designers do compete, but not against a product, not against a company, not against a brand. Category designers compete against the status quo. ... The enemy is the status quo. That is to say..."

Category creation is rooted in either discovering a new problem or fundamentally changing how an existing problem is perceived.

"Problems create categories, and you either have to A, solve a new problem, or B, reframe, name and claim an existing problem in a... very different way. And if you reframe the existing problem such th..."

Deeply understanding the customer's perspective of the problem is more valuable than internal product brainstorming.

"Spend more time on the problem than the solution."

Backcasting allows entrepreneurs to envision a radical future without being constrained by current limitations.

"He calls it backcasting as distinct from forecasting. ... standing in that future, five years out, looking back to the present, what did we do to make this different future happen? That's category des..."