The Best Of Category Pirates 2024

Dive in to the most popular posts of all time and get a piratey start to 2025.

Arrrrr! 🏴‍☠️ Welcome to a 💎 free edition 💎 of Category Pirates. Each week, we share radically different ideas to help you design new and different categories. As a paid subscriber, you get access to an archive of 99+ mini-books, audiobooks, jam sessions, and every future post.

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Dear Friend, Subscriber, and Category Pirate,

This year, Category Pirates achieved incredible milestones — and it’s all thanks to you, our community of different thinkers.

Here are some of our proudest moments from 2024:

1. Helped 50 category designers find their superpowers in the Category Design Academy.

This year, our Category Design Academy graduates proved what’s possible:

• Mike Steadman built a razor-sharp POV, attracting Superconsumers and closing two $25,000+ contracts within 90 days of starting the Academy.

• Pablo Gonzalez reframed trade shows with his "Digital Word of Mouth" category, increasing his engagement fee by $10,000 and earning equity stakes in clients’ businesses.

• Holley Miller designed her "Revenue Reliability" framework, helping innovative medical device companies 4x their revenue.

Our first cohort of graduates found what makes them unique and are already changing the world with their category design skills. And our second cohort is two months into their training! We couldn’t be more proud of them — and are excited about what they’ll achieve this year.

2. Expanded the category design content library.

Published over 50 pieces of original content, including new frameworks like the One-Sentence Strategy, The Problem Is Your Problem, and The 2-4-8 Sales Strategy Framework. We also experimented with AI and released 21 audiobooks so you can listen and hone your category design skills at the gym, during a walk, or on the (Category King) throne.

3. Grew the Category Pirates Ship.

Welcomed thousands of new pirates as subscribers, starting fresh conversations and collaborations around Category Design. We also honed our POV on how to help people find their unique category superpower and get paid for it (which is the topic of our upcoming book!)

4. Explained Category Design in action.

Experimented with videos sharing our category lens on topics like brand hierarchy, Languaging, grief, AI, and more to prove the transformative power of Category Design. We’re considering a (potential) podcast, so let us know if you’ve enjoyed these conversations.

5. Gave feedback on 55 one-page strategies in Strategy Therapy.

Taught category designers how to create bold and different one-page business strategies. On top of the course, we held 8 live workshops to help students hone their strategies, ask questions, and get insights from the community. We also launched the free 5-day Strategy Sprint email course to teach you the fundamentals of strategy.

Now, more than ever, we believe in the power of category design to make a radical difference.

Here’s a sneak peek at what we have planned for 2025 (no promises!):

• Paid To Be You: Launch a new book, course, and podcast to help you discover what makes you different, leverage that to create massive value for others, and get paid (exponentially) for it.

• Unleash 1,000s of Category Designers: Help people understand and leverage category design through the Category Design Academy, Strategy Therapy, and Paid To Be You courses and communities.

• Share Practical & Tactical Ways to Design Your Dream Career: We understand how AI is changing work for everyone — and we want to help you get ahead of it. So, in addition to sharing Category Design theory, we’ll also give you practical frameworks and examples on how to design a legendary career in an increasingly Native Digital world.

If you’re ready to stop competing on someone else’s terms and start creating on your own, you’re in the right place.

To help you do that, here are our top posts of all time — organized by the problem you need solved.

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💸 I want to design my dream career and own my niche.

Start with Living Your Category POV to unlock your unique point of view. Then explore:

1. How To Have A Legendary Career (Part 1)

2. How To Have A Legendary Career (Part II)

3. Position Yourself Or Be Positioned: The Personal Category Design Playbook

4. Category Superpower: Why Your Greatest Strength Depends On Making A Difference For Others

5. The Power of Outcomes: How to Generate High-Impact Outcomes That Create Enduring Value For Your Company And Yourself

6. The Value Of Your Value: How To Elevate Your Pricing And Move From Hourly Wages To Outcome-Based Wealth

7. Paid To Create: How To Leverage Your Intellectual Capital To Accelerate Your Career & Achieve Financial Freedom

8. How To Achieve Your Own Personal IPO: A Very Different Approach To A Legendary Career

9. How To Create A Category As A Small “e” Entrepreneur: 7 Legendary Ways To Niche Down

10. Radical Resilience: How To Be Mission-Driven When The Odds Are Against You

11. Engineering Exponential Moments: How To Recognize & Capitalize On Opportunities To Create A New & Different Future

12. The Mentor Myth: What Native Analogs Can Learn From Native Digitals (And Vice Versa)

🏆 I want my business to lead a new and different category.

Begin with The Magic Triangle: Why Category Design Is The Single Point Of Failure. Then dive into: