A practical way to think about why products win
Most people don’t notice positioning when it’s working.
They notice it when a product feels obvious.
When the explanation is short.
When comparisons don’t drain energy from the conversation.
I learned this the hard way early in my career, working on a product that looked dead on arrival—until we realized it wasn’t the product that failed. It was how we framed it.
This post is a quick, no-fluff way to understand positioning if you build, ship, or sell software—and want your product to make sense faster.
The early mistake: believing positioning is messaging
Positioning often gets confused with:
taglines
homepage copy
brand voice
pitch decks
Those are outputs.
Positioning is the input that shapes all of them.
When positioning is unclear, teams compensate by explaining more. Longer docs. Bigger decks. Custom demos. More objections handled manually.
That’s not persuasion. That’s cleanup.
Positioning is how you set expectations before the details
Think of positioning as the mental shortcut a buyer takes before they fully understand your product.
The moment you say:
“This is a ___ tool”
People immediately assume:
what it replaces
what it should roughly do
who it’s meant for
what “good” looks like
what it probably costs
Those assumptions can work for you—or against you.
When the assumptions are wrong, your team spends its time undoing them.
Why the classic “positioning statement” rarely helps
Many teams are taught to write a single sentence that neatly describes:
the market
the customer
the value
the differentiation
The problem isn’t the sentence.
The problem is pretending there’s only one right answer for each part.
Most products can fit into multiple contexts.
The real work is choosing the one where your strengths matter most.
A fill-in-the-blanks template won’t tell you that.
A more useful way to break positioning down
Instead of starting with what you want to say, start with how buyers already think.
Here’s a sequence that works because it follows customer logic—not internal logic.
1. What do customers use if you don’t exist?
Not competitors you admire.
Not companies analysts mention.
What actually shows up in deals:
another tool
spreadsheets
scripts
internal workflows
or no change at all
This is your real baseline.
2. What can you do that those options can’t?
This isn’t about having more features.
It’s about having capabilities that change what’s possible—or reduce something painful that others force users to live with.
If the difference only matters in a comparison table, it’s probably not a differentiator.
3. What does that difference unlock for someone?
Capabilities matter only because of the outcomes they enable.
Faster decisions.
Fewer handoffs.
Lower risk.
More confidence.
Less rework.
If you can’t explain the benefit without naming the feature again, the value isn’t clear yet.
4. Who feels that benefit the strongest?
Many people might like what you do.
A smaller group needs it.
Look for users who:
adopt quickly
don’t need heavy convincing
keep using the product the same way
struggle most with the alternatives
Those users define your center—not your edge.
5. What context makes your value feel obvious?
The final step is choosing the frame where everything above clicks naturally.
Sometimes that’s an existing category with a narrower focus.
Sometimes it’s a familiar category with a twist.
Rarely is it a brand-new category buyers have to be taught from scratch.
The best category is the one where customers say:
“Oh. I know why this exists.”
Where teams usually get stuck
Two mistakes show up again and again.
First: treating every possible competitor as equally important
If buyers never mention them, they don’t belong in your positioning.
Second: assuming growth requires inventing a new category
Most products win by being clearer—not by being clever.
Why this matters beyond marketing
When positioning is clear:
sales conversations shorten
product decisions get easier
roadmap debates get sharper
marketing stops explaining and starts asserting
When it’s fuzzy, every team compensates in isolation.
That’s when growth feels heavier than it should.
Closing thought
Positioning isn’t about finding better words.
It’s about choosing the context where your product makes sense without effort—and then being disciplined enough to stay there.
If your product is strong but still hard to explain, that’s usually where the work is.
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