Dear Friend, Subscriber, and Category Pirate,
Kilauea has been erupting on the Big Island for the last 35 years straight.
This is a photo a friend of Pirate Eddie took, which is amazing and a bit spooky, if you know about Pele (IYKYK). Visiting the volcano is a must-see experience that Pirate Eddie and his wife wrote about here in the Big Island Memory Making substack (which Founding Subscribers get for free).
Every single one of you is a dormant volcano of Intellectual Capital waiting to erupt.
You have enormous trapped wisdom that can help so many. But you don’t know how to talk about it. You haven’t framed, named, and claimed it yet. And you are really unsure of how to commercialize it.
We know because this is what happened to us.
🔊 Want to listen to this mini-book instead? Head to the audiobook.
Pirate Eddie’s first Intellectual Capital was a Microsoft Excel macro he built in 1999.
He was tired of manually searching for, highlighting, and then building PowerPoints that called out weird data. If a consumer benchmark exceeded plus or minus 20% from the norm, it was a candidate for weird data. He built it, shared it with the firm, and it changed the trajectory of his career.
His Excel macro started a lifelong obsession with Superconsumers.
He got client outcome after client outcome using the Superconsumer approach. In 2009, he published his first HBR article called Tap Into Your Superconsumers. In 2011, he wrote his first HBR article on Category Design. In 2013 and 2014, he published two articles in the HBR magazine, Why It Pays to Be a Category Creator and another, Make Your Best Customers Better. In 2016, he went on HBR’s podcast, Ideacast, about Superconsumers. In 2017, HBR published Pirate Eddie’s first book, Superconsumers. He also went on the HBR Idea Podcast and Pirate Christopher’s OG podcast, Legends and Losers. He started doing paid speaking all around the world. Then, in 2019, he did his first CNBC TV segment about Tesla’s Model 3 consumers. Then, in 2020, Pirates Eddie, Christopher, and Cole started Category Pirates. Which led to 8 figures of consulting revenue, hundreds of mini-books, dozens more podcasts, 7+ Big Books, and 2 AI bots. That’s 27 years of continuous Intellectual Capital eruption.
Podcasts get your Intellectual Capital party started.
Your podcast can lead to a Substack. This can lead to a Mini-Book, then a Big Book. Your Big Book can lead to paid speaking events. A video reel of a speaking event can get you on live TV. Live TV can book you clients. Clients lead to marketplace outcomes. And outcomes lead to more Intellectual Capital that you discuss…on a Podcast.
The truly weird data is how much more productive and faster Intellectual Capital was being created. This infographic captures all of the HBR articles and Category Pirates mini-books, podcasts, Pirate Street Journals, Deep Dive Reports, and podcasts by year.
Pirate Eddie’s first HBR article took 10+ years.
His 2nd HBR article took 2 years. In 2026, as part of the Category Pirates band, Pirates Eddie and Christopher create Intellectual Capital every 4.9 days.
We know you can do the same in less time and with even greater outcomes.
Because Podcasts can accelerate and kickstart the journey.
This is Part 2 of our Podcast Category Design Mini-Books.
As you recall, we’re answering five big questions about Podcasts in two mini-books.
Part 1–Strategy and Design
Why should I care about podcasts?
How do I design a different podcast?
How can I be sure I’m not a donkey?
Part 2–Execution and Practical Tips
What are the main traps to watch out for?
How can my podcast kickstart a nonstop flywheel of Intellectual Capital?
The nitty-gritty, practical tactical, and seemingly silly but seriously important little things that make a big difference. Some of these are quick-hit tips. Some of these are long stories longer. All of them came from Pirate Christopher’s heart, his wounds and his wins.
We broke it down into three phases: Design, Record, and Compound.