Welcome to Category Pirates. Each week, paid subscribers get one radically different framework for turning what you already know into a category you own, instead of a market you fight over. Sign up for a Founding subscription to ask the Pirate Eddie and Christopher Bot your category design questions and get complimentary digital copies of all 7 of our big books.
Dear Friend, Subscriber, and Category Pirate,
There are about 3.6 million births per year in the US.
So why do Americans buy exponentially more pregnancy tests than there are births?
We did some back-of-the-envelope calculations and estimated the total US pregnancy test category at $500 million dollars (triangulating various research reports). We used the best-selling pregnancy test on Amazon at $19 price for a 5-pack of tests. This implies well over 100 million pregnancy tests. Over 25 times more than there are births.
Why?
There are, of course, more pregnancies than there are births. And the number of potential pregnancies is likely higher than the number of actual pregnancies.
Pregnancy tests matter so much because the results range swing a trillion dollars of spending and lead to even more tears of joy or despair.
Imagine if you could build a pregnancy test for your category?
Something powerful enough to produce a result in minutes that had a comparable range of opportunities and outcomes for your prospects and customers?
A legendary diagnostic frames the problem/opportunity personally and specifically for the customer. It’s like trying on a jacket in a store. Once you see yourself in it. You might really want it.
What would potential customers need to get off the fence and decide? What would need to be true for them to take action? What do you think happens when actions lead to outcomes and outcomes lead to word of mouth?
What if we told you building a pregnancy test like diagnostic for your category was easier than you thought?
How about we give you 12 simple steps to create and commercialize a diagnostic? What if we gave you 30 diagnostics across a myriad of life examples to be inspired by? How about detailed stories about how other pirates like you did just this?
Read on, Pirate!
This mini-book is for a specific type of Pirate that is near and dear to our hearts.
It is for the Pirate who is incredibly valuable to their teams, customers, and investors. Everyone who has worked with them wants to work with them again. But their value is too invisible beyond those who know them personally. No one has heard of them. Their value is non-obvious on LinkedIn.
These people know their value, but are stuck and don’t know what to do about it.
If this is you, maybe you thought there is a book in me, but you can’t quite put pen to paper. You are a great public speaker when asked, but don’t know how to get on stage. You know you have expertise to share, but you can’t quite codify and commercialize it.
This is for you.
Let’s start with the easiest and most effective way to create Intellectual Capital.
Designing a diagnostic as part of a Lightning Strike to drive your revenue.
Hey Ho, Let’s Go!
Creating Intellectual Capital Is Crucial, But Feels So Hard
Our mission is to unleash 100,000 Category Designers into the world.
Some Category Designers will be material impact executives. Some will be entrepreneurs who create the next generation of Category Kings that will change the world. Some will be Creator Capitalists who love what they do, answer to no one, and are amazed to get paid to create.
All Category Designers need Intellectual Capital. Every business has Intellectual Capital at its core. Every legendary career has Intellectual Capital at its foundation.
But building legendary, differentiated, valuable IC that converts into products, services, and categories can feel like climbing Mount Everest in a bikini.
Writing a book feels daunting. We know. Public speaking is a top-tier fear in life. We remember. Telling the world, “This is an important idea, it is mine, and you should get it!” makes stomachs queasy.
Grab one of your favorite things to drink. Sit in one of your favorite chairs. And let’s see if we can make creating Intellectual Capital (a little) easier, less scary, and more effective.
And dare we say, fun.
Diagnostics Drive Massive Value
We are surrounded by diagnostics in our everyday life.
What happens at your annual doctor’s visit? They weigh you, take your temperature, and your blood pressure.
What do you do when you want to go out to eat? You pull up Yelp for ratings. Or for special occasions, how many Michelin stars or pizza choices do they have?
What do you do when you need a ride somewhere? You fire up Uber and look at the rating of the driver. Guess what, the driver is also looking at your rating before deciding to pick you up.
Diagnostics drive trillions of dollars of commerce.
Total US Household debt was $18.8 trillion dollars in Q1 of 2026. Mortgages, auto loans, and credit card debt. None of it happens without a three-digit number. Your FICO score.
Once you know to look for it, you’ll see diagnostics everywhere in category design. Most people see how diagnostics is a critical capability in almost every domain. Marketing, Engineering, Support, Finance, etc. But most people can’t see diagnostics as a critical part of what makes the whole market category work.
Don’t believe us?
GLP1s did $132 billion in sales in 2025. What does the FDA say about it? It’s for folks with a BMI of 30 or more. Body Mass Index drives hundreds of billions in revenue.
The global diamond market was worth $101.9 billion in 2023. None of it gets sold without the GIA (Gemological Institute of America), which gave us the 4Cs:
Carat (how much it weighs),
Cut (how it is shaped),
Color (graded D through Z)
Clarity (Flawless down to I3).
GIA made things much simpler for Pirate Eddie at the age of 25 when he asked his wife to marry him.
Diagnostics aren’t perfect, but they drive forward progress in business, leisure and life.
A sales rep trying to close a deal does way better pitching a low-cost, low-risk diagnostic. Does the diagnostic have perfect prediction power? No, but it moves the prospect one step closer to becoming a customer in a way that is personal. The diagnostic frames the opportunity for the customer: “What value could we capture or create if we invested in this?”
Diagnostics move customers towards action in B2C too.
When you weigh vegetables at the grocery store, you are using a diagnostic to inform your buying decision. When you fill out forms, you’re driving a diagnostic. Buy things online? Many purchases require a diagnostic. That’s what the “size chart” is. Never mind more sophisticated tech to show the customer how they’d look in something. Or what information is required to make an informed recommendation for what to buy, and why?
P/E ratios don’t tell you everything you need to know about a stock. But it does help you take one step closer to doing more due diligence before you buy a stock.
Nielsen ratings are far from perfect. They measure only a sample of US households. They can’t measure who is on the couch watching TV. They can’t tell if you’re on your phone or glued to the show. But it is enough of a diagnostic to help create a multi-billion-dollar advertising market between advertisers and networks.
All diagnostics take knowledge, experience, judgment, taste, and wisdom and convert them into a number that is easy to understand. An easy-to-understand number is easy to take action on. An action drives outcomes. Outcomes drive revenue and word of mouth.
A diagnostic takes your Intellectual Capital that is trapped in your brain and simplifies it into a score that leads people to actions and outcomes they want.
And revenue for you.
Diagnostics Solve The Problem of Customer Indecision
The problem diagnostics solve are for customers sitting on the fence.
Every category has potential customers who have analysis paralysis.
Do I actually need this category? Is this the right time to buy it? From whom should I buy it from? Is this a good price? How will I know if I made a smart or dumb decision?
Sometimes the indecision is inherent in the customer.
Sometimes the category is both arsonist and firefighter due to customer indecision.
When Pirate Eddie went to IMCAS (International Masters Course on Aging Science) in Paris for the first time with Pirate Clint Carnell, it was eye-opening.
Every major aesthetics company and brand is there. They shell out a ton of money for huge booths with swag and demonstrations. Everyone in aesthetics shows up. It’s like Comic-Con for beauty.
When Pirate Clint asked Pirate Eddie what he thought, Eddie said, “Word salad.”
Every brand was saying the same thing. Skin conditions (fine lines, wrinkles, crows feet), product features (“mine goes to 11”), and nonsense branding things. They all blur into each other, and it’s a wonder any business gets done.
Diagnostics dramatically simplify this.
Pirate Clint solved it with a simple set of diagnostics when he was the CEO of HydraFacial.
For the consumer, it was the gunkie: a small vial of all the blackheads, whiteheads, and dead skin the Hydrafacial machine just sucked out of your face. Once you saw what came out of your face, you immediately signed up for the next one. Consumers would post their disgusting gunkie on social media, and Hydrafacial went viral.
For the practice and provider, it was payback. Buy one machine for $25,000 and make your money back in 4-6 months. Providers said, “Great, where do I sign?” Providers were so enthralled with the payback of Hydrafacial that they would show up to marketing events and donate their time for free.
A good Diagnostic shortens the sales cycle.
A great Diagnostic increasing your pricing power, revenue, and margins.
A legendary Diagnostic gets shared on social media and creates an army of superconsumers and a neverending word of mouth (WOM) factory for free.
We’ll walk you through six steps to create your diagnostic first. Then, we’ll walk you through six steps to commercialize your diagnostic.