Bowling Pin Market Entry
Dominate one underserved niche, then knock over adjacent segments until you can challenge the leader
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 88%
The most reliable way to take a large market is not category creation but a bowling-pin sequence: define a narrow segment the market leader underserves, win it completely as a beachhead, use that win to reach the three adjacent segments, and repeat until you're big enough to challenge the leader. Most successful 'category creators' actually started as a niche play in an existing category.
Origin
Attributed by April Dunford to Geoffrey Moore (Crossing the Chasm / Inside the Tornado). Dunford contrasts it with category-creation advocacy, noting most legendary companies (Google, Facebook, Salesforce, Snowflake, Qualtrics) did not create their categories.
Core principles
- 01Category creation is a way to build a big business, not the only way, and not the most common
- 02An existing category answers 'what is this thing' for you, so it's easier to get early traction
- 03Win a narrow underserved segment fully before expanding to adjacent ones
- 04Most category creators lose their market to fast followers with fresh funding
- 05Companies extend their category boundaries only after dominating a niche at $200-400M revenue
How to run it
- 1
Position inside an existing category, narrowly
Enter as a niche play in a category buyers already understand — 'CRM for very small businesses' (early Salesforce), 'data warehousing for the cloud' (early Snowflake), 'survey software' (early Qualtrics). You skip the cost of explaining a brand-new category.
Pro tip The category's job is to answer 'what is this thing all about' — borrow an existing one to get traction fast.
Watch out Attempting category creation before you dominate anything is high-risk for early-stage companies.
- 2
Pick the lead pin the market leader ignores
Define a segment of the big market that is underserved by the leader and easy for you to capture — the leader probably doesn't care about it. Dunford's early company chose 'CRM for investment banks.'
- 3
Knock over the lead pin, then the adjacent three
Win the lead segment completely to establish a beachhead, which enables you to reach the three neighboring segments. Investment banks → retail banking → 'CRM for banking.'
Pro tip Literally draw the pins for investors: lead pin, next three, then the branch beyond.
- 4
Expand the beachhead until you can challenge the leader
Repeat the knock-over sequence across adjacent segments — banking → insurance → 'CRM for financial services' — until you're large enough to take on the market leader directly.
Pro tip Once you dominate, you can extend category boundaries and rename the category to keep growing (Qualtrics → customer experience, Snowflake → cloud data).
Watch out Fast followers with fresh funding often knock off the true category creator 'right when you think you made it' — dominating a niche first is the defense.
In the wild
Dunford's early-career company narrowed from 'enterprise software' to 'CRM for investment banks' as the lead pin, planning to knock over retail banking next to become 'CRM for banking,' then insurance to become 'CRM for financial services,' then challenge Siebel for enterprise CRM.
→ Rather than reaching the final pin, the company was acquired by Siebel for roughly a billion dollars.
Both are cited as category-creation successes, but Qualtrics was plain survey software until ~$300M revenue and Snowflake was cloud data warehousing in an existing market — only after dominating did they rename their categories to customer experience and cloud data.
→ Demonstrates that celebrated category creators actually followed bowling-pin entry first, then extended boundaries from a dominant position.
Common mistakes
Treating category creation as the only path
The vast majority of legendary businesses — Google, Facebook, Salesforce — did not create their categories; claiming it's the only way is disingenuous and pushes early companies into an unnecessarily risky play.
Creating a category before dominating a niche
A first-mover often does the hard work of creating the category only to be overtaken at the peak by a fast follower with more funding that learns from their mistakes (MySpace, Ask Jeeves, Siebel).
Is it for you?
Best for
Early-stage B2B founders deciding go-to-market strategy in a large existing market with an entrenched leader
Not ideal for
Companies already dominating their niche and ready to extend category boundaries, or the rare true status-quo-only market
From the transcript
“It's what Geoffrey Moore called bowling pin strategy. Almost all successful companies follow bowling pin strategy”
“The easiest way to take over a great big market is to define a segment of the market that is underserved by the market leader”
“most category creators actually get overtaken by fast followers”
“they were survey software up until they were 300 million revenue, just like everybody else in an existing category”
From the episode
A step-by-step guide to crafting a sales pitch that wins
April Dunford (author of Obviously Awesome and Sales Pitch)