One-Sentence Strategy: How To Create A Powerful Sentence Your Team Can Rally Behind

Your one-sentence strategy is your North Star—you've got to make it shine.

Arrrrr! 🏴‍☠️ Welcome to a paid edition of Category Pirates. This foundational series shares category design principles, strategies, and actionable frameworks to help you design new and different categories. Thank you for reading. And, of course, forward this mini-book to anyone who you think needs to hop aboard the Pirate ship.

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Dear Friend, Subscriber, and Category Pirate,

In the late 1960s, a young entrepreneur named Phil was determined to change the game in sports footwear.

As a former track athlete, Phil understood runners' core frustration—dealing with clunky, outdated shoes that hurt their performance. He knew there had to be a different way. So, he founded a company called Blue Ribbon Sports and began selling running shoes imported from Asia out of the trunk of his car. 

It wasn’t exactly glamorous work.

But Phil was driven by a simple, powerful idea: 

Athletic shoes should be designed by athletes, for athletes, and should deliver genuine performance benefits.

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Still, he faced stiff competition from established brands like Adidas and Puma—both of which dominated the athletic shoe market. Phil knew that for his fledgling company to succeed, it couldn’t just be another sneaker brand. It had to stand for something more.

That something “more” came into focus when Phil partnered with his former track coach, Bill. 

Bill was a tinkerer, always looking for ways to make his athletes faster and more efficient. 

He would experiment with shoe designs in his garage, using everything from waffle irons to custom-made molds. His philosophy was simple: a shoe should be designed with one goal in mind—helping athletes perform at their best. Whether that meant shaving seconds off a runner’s time or providing better support, performance came first. His relentless pursuit of innovation and missionary approach inspired Phil and became a cornerstone of the company’s identity.

He saw an opportunity to differentiate by focusing not on fashion or trends…

…but on the needs of serious athletes.

This simple (yet powerful) idea became the core of their business strategy. They weren’t interested in following trends or mimicking competitors. They wanted to create products that would give athletes a genuine edge. 

So they boiled down their strategy to a single, clear idea: 

“We serve athletes.”

And it was the start of a $125 billion company.

Nike.

As Nike grew, they had to fight the category battle against established giants in the industry. 

But instead of trying to outspend or out-market the big brands, they doubled down on their belief in performance. Every product and decision was filtered through the “we serve athletes” lens. The first major test of this strategy was introducing the Nike Waffle Racer. Inspired by Bill’s experiments with a waffle iron, the shoe featured a unique sole that provided more traction and cushioning than anything else on the market. It was a radical departure from the designs of other athletic shoes at the time.

The Waffle Racer was an immediate hit. 

Athletes loved the shoe’s lightweight design and superior grip, and it quickly became a favorite among runners. It was different. Without compare. Nike’s strategy sharpened. By focusing on athletic performance, Nike had created a product that wasn’t better—it was different. A new category of performance shoe.

This success wasn’t a fluke. 

It was the direct result of a clear, focused strategy that put the needs of athletes first.

We serve athletes.

Athletes noticed. And soon, Nike cemented its place as a Category King. As the company expanded into new sports, this simple “we serve athletes” strategy guided everything they did (except for an early attempt to enter the casual shoe market, which was a disaster and made them refocus on athletes….the category makes the brand.). As Nike grew, so did its commitment to serving athletes beyond running—it expanded into basketball, tennis, and other sports. 

But the focus remained the same: 

Creating innovative products that helped athletes jump, sprint, lay-up, touchdown, and pole-vault at their best.

We serve athletes.

A one-sentence strategy isn’t just a tagline—it’s your radically different future. 

It’s the Superconsumer/niche/Super-geo you hitch your wagon and hold on for dear life. It’s the simple, powerful, and non-negotiable Super/niche/Super-geo that everyone in the company knows and can make an independent decision about. It’s what your company lives and dies by.

When that Superconsumer/niche/Super-geo shows up, you pull out all the stops and give it the Marty Scorsese’s Goodfellas Copacobana-style treatment. 

If you ever lose this, you’ll be adrift at sea—and you’ll drown. 

In the same way the Nike of today is lost at sea, having lost runners to upstarts like Hoka. According to the Wall Street Journal article “How Nike Missed the Boom in Running Culture”:

“Nike, which has long monopolized the attention and wallets of avid runners, in recent years shifted its focus to other areas of its business including the release of limited-edition sneakers. Competitors swooped in, resulting in an increasingly fragmented market that has dented Nike’s finances and prompted a strategic reset at the sneaker company.”

(All because it stopped following its strategy. No wonder it’s struggling!)

Can you imagine if…

1. FedEx wasn’t about “when it absolutely has to be there” (aka urgency) first?

2. Ritz Carlton wasn’t “ladies & gentlemen serving ladies & gentlemen” first?

3. Walmart wasn’t “save money, live better” first?

4. Patagonia wasn’t planet first? 

5. Dude Wipes wasn’t Dude’s first?

6. Salesforce wasn’t Cloud first?

7. Nvidia wasn’t data center first?

The one-sentence strategy isn’t about education and explanation.

The one-sentence strategy is about:

1. Prioritization, even when you know you will piss off 9 people to make 1 person happy. 

2. Urgency, knowing you must act even when you don’t have enough information. 

3. Decisiveness, even in a world of confusion, you don’t have to second guess.

4. Solidarity, with the foreman on the floor and the chairman of the board. 

5. Power, when all act in the same direction at the same time. 

(And if you’re thinking, “What about the Category POV, Pirates??!” Your Category POV is different than your strategy. A POV has more detail about why the past/present is the problem and the future is the solution.)

So, why does this matter?

If you don’t have a one-sentence strategy, you don’t have a strategy.

People cannot remember more than a sentence.

Getting everyone in your company to know, say and use the exact same sentence is a (mega) superpower.

People cannot remember more than a sentence.

Getting everyone in your company to know, say and use the exact same sentence is a (mega) superpower.

People cannot remember more than a sentence.

Getting everyone in your company to know, say and use the exact same sentence is a (mega) superpower.

(Repetition helps with retention.)

Leaders who live and breathe their one-sentence strategies are the ones who change the game. They’re the ones who reject the premise, design and dominate new categories, and leave those following the status quo wondering what the hell happened. If you want to be a category designer, you better have a clear strategy that cuts through the noise and tells everyone exactly what you’re all about. 

(And not about.)

This mini-book is about boiling down your big, hairy, audacious goal into a single, powerful one-sentence strategy that everyone in your company can rally behind.

Now, grab your sharpest sword…

We’re about to help you cut down pages of single-spaced 8-font strategy fluff into one sentence.

🤺🏴‍☠️

The One-Sentence Strategy