You’ve built something that makes industry veterans do a double-take and mutter “why didn’t we think of that?” Your early users are hooked, your beta feedback is glowing, and you’re pretty confident you’re about to flip an entire industry on its head. There’s just one tiny problem—the rest of the world has no idea your offer exists…yet.

Welcome to the wild, wonderful, and occasionally panic-inducing world of marketing for category creators. You’re not just launching a product; you’re essentially teaching the world that they need something they never knew they were missing. It’s like trying to sell the first-ever smartphone to people who are perfectly happy with their landlines.

While your future competitors are busy fighting over crumbs in established markets, you’re over here trying to convince people that a whole new bakery exists. The good news? You get to write the rules. The challenging news? You have to write the rules too.

Most go-to-market strategies assume you’re entering a market where people already understand they have a problem and know what solutions look like. But when you’re launching a disruptive product, you’re starting from scratch—building awareness, education, and desire simultaneously.

Here’s how to turn “nobody’s ever heard of this” into your unfair advantage.

The go-to-market trap that kills most breakthrough ideas

Most founders fall into the same trap when launching a disruptive product: they rush straight to tactics without laying the foundational work that makes those tactics effective. It’s like trying to throw a dinner party before you’ve figured out what you’re cooking or who’s coming.

Jumping into ads before anyone knows what you’re selling

The biggest mistake we see? Founders who burn through their marketing budget running awareness campaigns to audiences who have zero context for why they need this revolutionary solution. They’re essentially paying to confuse people at scale.

When you’re a category creator, throwing money at Facebook ads before your positioning is clear is like trying to explain Netflix to someone who’s never heard of television. You’re not just competing for attention—you’re competing for understanding.

Leading with features when you should lead with transformation

Here’s the thing that trips up most category creators: they’re so excited about what they’ve built that they lead with how it works instead of why it matters. They assume their target customers understand the problem as deeply as they do, which is almost never the case.

Traditional businesses can say “we’re like Shopify, but cheaper.”

You, on the other hand, have to explain why e-commerce needs to work completely differently, why the current approach is limiting businesses, and why your method unlocks possibilities they never considered.

Trying to sound like established players

When founders see low conversion rates, panic sets in. The instinct is to retreat to what feels “safe”—using messaging that sounds more like established companies in adjacent categories. But for disruptor brands, this strategy backfires royally, spectacularly, and totally. When you use the same language as everyone else, you lose the very thing that makes you special.

Your startup go-to-market (GTM) strategy should amplify what makes you different, not hide it.

Your real first step: problem clarity beats product features every time

Before you can sell anyone on your solution, you need to get crystal clear on the problem you’re solving—not just the logical problem, but the emotional and practical frustrations that make people ready for something completely different.

Define what’s actually broken in the current approach

Most category creators are solving problems that exist but aren’t obvious. Your first job is to help people recognize and articulate the frustration they’ve been feeling but couldn’t quite put their finger on.

Maybe people didn’t know they hated how complicated expense reporting was until you showed them a solution that takes 30 seconds instead of 30 minutes. Maybe they didn’t realize how much mental energy they were spending on meal planning until you eliminated that decision fatigue entirely.

Your go-to-market strategy needs to start with problem recognition, not product education. And that’s exactly where most disruptive brands fail. 

Paint the picture of what becomes possible

Once people understand what’s broken, you need to help them envision what life looks like when that problem disappears. This isn’t about listing features—it’s about describing the emotional and practical transformation that becomes possible because of your offer.

Instead of “our app automates expense reporting,” try “imagine never having to dig through receipts or remember what that random $47 charge was for.” Connect your features to outcomes that help people achieve a goal or sidestep a problem.

Position your solution as the obvious bridge

Here’s where startup go-to-market (GTM) strategy gets savvy: you’re not just solving a problem, you’re creating a new category of solutions. Your job is to position your approach as the logical—and obvious—evolution of how this challenge should be solved.

Focus on the journey you’re taking customers on, not just the destination. Help them understand why your approach makes everything that came before feel outdated.

Slack executed this positioning brilliantly.

Slack didn’t just say “we’re better than email for team communication.” They positioned themselves as the obvious bridge from the outdated world of email chaos to the future of organized workplace collaboration.

The Journey They Created:

• From: Drowning in email threads, losing important messages, and working in silos
• To: Transparent, organized, searchable team communication that actually enhances productivity

How They Made Email Feel Outdated: Slack reframed workplace communication around key shifts:

1. Organization shift: “Why dig through email threads when conversations can be organized by topic and searchable?”
2. Transparency shift: “Why work in email silos when your team can stay aligned in real-time?”
3. Integration shift: “Why switch between 12 different tools when everything can connect in one place?”

The Genius Move: They didn’t position against specific email providers—they positioned themselves against the entire concept of using email for internal team collaboration. They made it feel like an obvious evolution that modern teams naturally needed.

Their messaging essentially said: “Remember when we used to fax documents? That’s what using email for team collaboration feels like now.”

By the time Microsoft and others launched competing platforms, Slack had already established that the future of work communication looked like organized channels, not cluttered inboxes. They made customers feel like they were stepping into the obvious next era of how teams should actually work together.

The strategic framework that turns category creators into market leaders

Marketing for category creators requires a phased approach that builds understanding before it builds urgency. 

Here’s how to structure your go-to-market strategy when you’re creating something entirely new:

Phase 1: nail your messaging foundation

Before you create a single piece of marketing content, you need messaging that makes sense to people who’ve never heard of your category. This means extensive testing with real customers—not just surveys, but actual conversations where you can hear how they describe their problems and what language resonates.

Try posting different ways of explaining your solution on social media and see which explanations get the most “wait, tell me more” responses. Pay attention to the language people use when they share your content with others. That’s your messaging goldmine.

Your strategy lives or dies on whether you can explain what you do in a way that makes people immediately understand why they need it.

Phase 2: build a website that educates while it converts

When you’re launching a disruptive product, your website can’t just be a brochure—it needs to be a conversion education machine. Structure your site around your customer’s journey from “I’ve never heard of this” to “I need this right now.”

This means leading with the problem, not your product. Help visitors recognize themselves in the frustration you’re solving before you explain how your solution works. Your value proposition should be so clear that someone could explain it to their colleague after spending 30 seconds on your homepage.

Design every page to move people closer to understanding why they need what you’ve created, not just what you’ve created.

Phase 3: focus on quality conversations over quantity of leads

Here’s the thing about marketing for category creators: you need fewer, deeper relationships in the early days, not broad awareness. Think of it like this—you could have 600 people visit your bakery, but if your cookies look stale and nobody buys any, those visitor numbers don’t matter. Focus on conversion first, traffic second.

Start with high-touch approaches that let you build real relationships with early adopters. This might mean direct outreach, speaking at industry events, or partnering with complementary businesses. Every early customer should feel like they’re part of something special, because they are.

Use these early relationships to build case studies and testimonials that help later customers understand exactly how your solution changes things.

Phase 4: scale with systems that amplify what’s working

Once you’ve proven your messaging and positioning with early adopters, you can start layering in automation and paid strategies. But here’s the key: you’re scaling proven messages, not experimenting with new ones.

Expand to multiple channels using the exact language and positioning that worked in your high-touch phase. The startup GTM strategy that will work for category creators is all about proving things work small before you scale them further.

Real talk: timelines and expectations for category creators

Creating a new market takes longer than competing in an existing one, and that’s totally normal. Most go-to-market strategy timelines assume you’re entering a market where people already understand they need a solution like yours.

Why foundation work can’t be rushed

When you’re launching a disruptive product, the education phase is everything. Rushing to scale before people understand what you do is like trying to run before you can walk—you’ll just fall flat on your face with a bigger audience watching.

The compound effect of getting your early positioning right means that every customer you convert becomes a brand ambassador who can explain your value to others. Get this wrong, and every customer becomes someone who sort of understands what you do but can’t really explain it to anyone else.

The best marketing for category creators relies on slow and steady momentum. When done right, growth tends to build quietly before taking off all at once.

When to expect traction (and what traction looks like)

For category creators, early traction looks different than traditional metrics. You’re looking for signs that people “get it”—customers who can clearly articulate your value to others, organic word-of-mouth referrals, and inquiries from people who found you through existing customers.

Real momentum usually takes 6-12 months of consistent messaging and relationship building. But when it happens, it feels like everything clicks at once.

The balance between patience and persistence

Here’s the tricky part: you need to be persistent with your vision but flexible with your execution. If your core message isn’t resonating after extensive testing, it might be time to pivot your positioning. But if people are starting to understand and get excited about what you’re building, stay the course even if growth feels slow.

Signs your startup GTM strategy is working: customers start explaining your value better than you do, competitors start trying (and failing) to emulate you, and people begin asking “how did I live without this?”

Pitfalls that derail category-creating brands

Even the best strategies can fail if you fall into these common traps:

Trying to be everything to everyone

When you’re creating a category, it’s tempting to appeal to anyone who might benefit from your innovation. But broad messaging confuses people who are trying to understand something completely new. Focus on one specific audience until you own that segment, then expand.

This is the difference between “We have something for every pet” and we “create the comfiest dog collars for picky dogs.”

Scaling tactics before proving positioning

Just because you have funding doesn’t mean you should immediately start running ads everywhere. Scale your proven messages, not your experiments. The marketing for category creators that works focuses on proving things work before amplifying them.

Ignoring customer feedback because you’re “visionary”

Yes, you’re creating something new that customers couldn’t have asked for. But once you’ve built it, listen to how they talk about it, what problems it solves for them, and what hesitations they have. Your vision created the product; their feedback should shape how you market it.

Your 30-day action plan for category creation

Ready to start building your go-to-market strategy? Here’s what to tackle first:

Week 1-2: Conduct customer interviews to understand how people currently solve the problem you’re addressing and what language they use to describe their frustrations.

Week 3: Develop 3-5 different ways to explain what you do and test them with potential customers. Pay attention to which explanations get the best reactions and the most intriguing follow-up questions.

Week 4: Create simple landing page variations that lead with different problem/solution combinations and see which generates the most interest.

Remember: the goal isn’t to have perfect messaging immediately. It’s to start the conversation with your market and learn what resonates. Marketing for category creators is iterative—every conversation teaches you something that makes your next conversation more effective.

Time to turn your breakthrough idea into a market breakthrough

Launching a disruptive product is like being the first person to bring tacos to a sandwich convention—you know you’ve got something amazing, but you need to help everyone else see it too. The best marketing for category creators combines big-picture vision with nitty-gritty execution, bold moves with smart listening.

Building a go-to-market strategy from scratch? We’ve helped dozens of category-creating founders navigate this exact challenge, turning “what exactly do you do?” into “where do I sign up?” Ready to stop over-explaining and start converting. Let’s build the strategy that makes your breakthrough idea impossible to ignore. Get the ball rolling by filling out our contact form so we can talk about exactly what this would look like for you and your breakthrough idea.