How to Move From Competing on Better to Category Creation

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Sally Kohn: I want to give people a little tidbit of something actionable that they can do to move from being just competing on the better access into actually moving into category creation. So, you know, if everyone listening, I highly encourage you to go and buy the book Snow Leopard. You can also sign up for the sub stack, which is a weekly newsletter, paid newsletter. If you're bought in on the idea that category creation is important and you want to spend more time doing it, those are two great ways to go and do that.

Nicolas Cole shares the lessons he’s learned as one of the internet’s most-read writers, including why he’s fascinated with reverse engineering written work—from James Patterson novels to Twitter threads—into templates writers can use, why all great writing changes the reader, why his superpower is his ability to endure boring things for longer than others, and so much more.

“Writers without niches are starving artists. Because again, they’re just competing in these massive competitions. Writers with niches are category kings.” — Nicolas Cole

EPISODE GUIDE (LINKS, QUOTES, NOTES, AND BOOKS MENTIONED)

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CHAPTERS

(00:00:00) - Introduction
(00:07:37) - Service Businesses, Linear vs Infinite Scaling, and Picking a Bag of Problems
(00:10:02) - Ship 30 for 30 and Finding Your Niche
(00:17:01) - The Origin Story of Category Pirates and Snow Leopard
(00:20:13) - Category Creation, Competition, and Being Different vs Better
(00:28:48) - Content-Free Content and Blinding Glimpses of the Obvious
(00:35:34) - The Content Pyramid: Levels One, Two, and Three
(00:49:44) - The Content Pyramid: Level Four (Making Non-Obvious Connections)
(00:55:32) - Debunking Common Myths About Writing and Category Creation
(01:04:10) - The Difference Between More Views and More Dollars
(01:11:37) - What is Category Creation?
(01:14:27) - How to Create a Category: Weird Problem + Weird Solution

ABOUT THE BOOK

Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One by Category Pirates (Nicolas Cole, Christopher Lochhead, and Eddie Yoon) shares why all legendary writers who stand the test of time create a category of one. In decades past, David Ogilvy, Gary Halbert, Leo Burnett, Gary Bencivenga, Al Ries & Jack Trout, and many more master communicators have all written about the psychology behind how messages spread. Snow Leopard builds on their work with dozens of new insights and frameworks, and brings category creation and design into the digital age.

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ABOUT OUTLIER ACADEMY

Learn timeless lessons on work and life from iconic founders, world-renown investors, and bestselling authors. Outlier Academy is the forever school for those chasing greatness. Past Nicolas Coles include Gokul Rajaram of DoorDash, Scott Belsky of Benchmark and Adobe, Joey Krug of Pantera Capital, Mark Sisson of Primal Kitchen, Luke Gromen of The Forest for the Trees, and Brian Scudamore of 1-800-GOT-JUNK.

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ABOUT DANIEL SCRIVNER

Outlier Academy is hosted by Daniel Scrivner. Over the last 15 years, Daniel has led design teams at Square and Apple, turned around a $3M+ ARR SaaS business, and invested in more than 100 companies. He launched Outlier Academy in 2020 to learn from the world’s best founders, investors, authors, and peak performance experts.

Website: https://www.danielscrivner.com

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/danielscrivner

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