Elevate a Profession, Not a Category
Instead of creating a software category, make a job into a meaningful identity people will fight for.
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 90%
Category creation (getting a new Gartner square) is usually an enormous, low-return lift in B2B SaaS. A far more effective move that feels like category creation is to elevate a profession or job — because a job is an identity people fight for, whereas a software category is just a budget line item nobody is excited about.
Origin
Zoelle Egner's contrarian take on product marketing, citing Gainsight (customer success) and the rebranding of DevOps.
Core principles
- 01A job is an identity; people will fight for an identity
- 02A software category is a line item on a budget — no one is excited about it
- 03Make the movement about the profession, not about you
- 04Be willing to invest in things without immediately obvious ROI for you, because they build community
How to run it
- 1
Choose a profession to champion
Identify an existing or emerging job whose practitioners want to be taken more seriously, then decide to make that role meaningful, important, and sexy.
Pro tip Pick a role adjacent to your product's value so elevating it naturally pulls people toward you.
Watch out Don't confuse this with carving out a tiny niche category where you claim to have no competitors — that's not how buyers work.
- 2
Build community around the identity, not the product
Create community, content, and metrics centered on the profession's importance so practitioners adopt it as part of their career identity.
Pro tip Notion-style: let people push their own beautiful creations/templates so it feels like they're advancing themselves, not shilling your product.
Watch out If it feels self-serving, it loses power; success requires investment that benefits the community more visibly than it benefits you short-term.
- 3
Let identity-holders carry you with them
As the profession becomes an identity people fight for, you become part of that career identity and practitioners bring you along as they move between jobs.
In the wild
Gainsight built its position by making 'customer success' a recognized, important profession rather than merely selling a software category. Similarly, companies rebranded DevOps into a sexy, serious job to have.
→ Practitioners adopted the identity and fought for it, carrying the associated tools with them — far more durable than a Gartner category.
Common mistakes
Chasing a Gartner category to be 'the epitome of product marketing'
Category creation is an enormous lift with often little payoff in B2B SaaS, and a tiny no-competitors niche misreads how buyers actually evaluate options.
Making the movement obviously about your company
When elevation feels self-serving it fails; the community must sense it's genuinely about the profession, which requires investing without immediate ROI.
Is it for you?
Best for
B2B marketers and founders tempted by category creation who have a profession adjacent to their product they can genuinely champion.
Not ideal for
Companies with no clear associated profession or communities, or those unwilling to invest in non-self-serving community building.
From the transcript
“a lot of people think that like the epitome of product marketing is creating your own category”
“if you can elevate a profession instead of a category that can make way more sense”
“a job is an identity and people will fight for an identity right a category of software is like a line item on your budget…”
“gain site creating customer success or like many companies all together carving out devops”
From the episode
Lessons from Airtable’s unconventional growth strategy
Zoelle Egner