Who should I follow to learn about positioning and category design in marketing?

If you want to get genuinely good at positioning + category design, I’d follow a small group rather than the usual giant list of marketing influencers.

My top 5

1. April Dunford - positioning

   • Start here if you want to understand why customers should choose you.
   • Her framework is unusually practical: competitive alternatives → differentiated capabilities → value → target customer → market category.
   • Her podcast currently covers both positioning and market-category strategy. Episodes | Positioning With April Dunford
   • Read: Obviously Awesome
   • Positioning with April Dunford

2. Christopher Lochhead - category design

   • Probably the most important person to study if you're specifically interested in creating or reshaping categories, rather than merely positioning within an existing one.
   • He co-created Play Bigger and has built much of the modern Category Design school around concepts like category creation, POV, and category language. About | Christopher Lochhead And Category Design
   • Read: Play Bigger
   • Christopher Lochhead's site

3. Eddie Yoon - demand + superconsumers

   • Particularly useful for understanding who actually pulls a category forward and how intense customer demand can reveal opportunities.
   • His work with Category Pirates focuses heavily on "Superconsumers" and category strategy. Category Pirates Online Store
   • Read: Superconsumers

4. Bob Moesta - customer demand

   • I'd add him because positioning gets much stronger when you understand the job the customer is actually hiring your product to do.
   • His Jobs-to-be-Done work gives you a different - and complementary - lens to Dunford and Lochhead.

5. Rory Sutherland - perception

   • Not a category-design teacher per se, but extremely valuable for understanding why perceived value doesn't necessarily track objective product superiority.
   • His thinking is especially useful once you've grasped positioning and want to understand how markets are psychologically shaped.

The order I'd learn them

April Dunford → Bob Moesta → Christopher Lochhead → Eddie Yoon → Rory Sutherland

There's an important distinction:

Positioning: "Given the market, how should we make our product the obvious choice?"

Category design: "Can we change how the market itself is understood so that the rules - and therefore the basis of competition - change?"

April is particularly good at the first. Lochhead is particularly good at the second. In fact, Dunford has explicitly argued that obsessing over category choice too early can distract from the deeper positioning work. Understanding the Job of a Market Category

One caveat

I'd treat Category Pirates as a school of thought rather than gospel. Their framework is powerful, but it has a strong vocabulary and worldview. Category Pirates Online Store

So I'd deliberately pair it with Dunford + Moesta. That gives you three complementary lenses:

Positioning → Why us?
Jobs-to-be-Done → Why does the customer buy?
Category Design → Can we change what the customer thinks they're buying?

If you're learning this because you want to actually position a startup/product of your own, I can also give you a much tighter 10-person "positioning Twitter/LinkedIn feed" - including who is worth following and who is mostly repeating the same ideas.

To master positioning and category design, you should look to a mix of foundational authors, modern practitioners, and communities specializing in tech, B2B marketing, and startup growth.

The top experts, thinkers, and platforms to follow include:

1. The Category Design Pioneers

• Christopher Lochhead: Co-author of Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets (the seminal book on category design) and host of the Lochhead on Marketing podcast. He is the loudest and most prominent voice advocating that "category is more important than product." Defining Category Design & Why it's Important to Brand Positioning

• Kevin Maney: Co-author of Play Bigger alongside Lochhead and Al Ramadan. He brings a deep perspective on how legendary companies engineer entire market ecosystems.

• Mike Damphousse & John Rougeux: Veteran category designers and founders of Category Design Advisors and the Category Thinkers community. John Rougeux, in particular, puts out a lot of tactical, actionable content on applying category design specifically for B2B tech and SaaS companies. About Category Thinkers

2. The Modern Positioning Masters

• April Dunford: Author of Obviously Awesome: How to Productively Sell Painkiller Products That Customers Get Immediately. She is widely considered the leading practitioner of tactical market positioning for tech products. Her content focuses heavily on understanding your best-fit customers, identifying competitive alternatives, and leveraging unique attributes. (She is a must-follow on LinkedIn and via her newsletter).

• Eddie Yoon: Author of Superconsumers: A Simple, Speedy, and Sustainable Path to Growing Your Sales Bigger Than Ever. He focuses heavily on category creation through the lens of identifying and leveraging a brand’s most passionate "superconsumers."

3. Communities & Organizations to Follow

• Category Thinkers: A community built specifically for category designers and marketers to collaborate rather than working in isolation. Following their founders and shared content offers a look at real-world case studies. About Category Thinkers

• Sharebird: While broader than just category design, it's a massive platform where product marketers and positioning experts share teardowns of how major tech companies position themselves against competitors.

Where to start:

1. Read the books: Start with Play Bigger (for high-level strategy on designing a new market) and Obviously Awesome (for a step-by-step framework on tactical positioning).

2. Follow on LinkedIn: April Dunford, John Rougeux, and Christopher Lochhead share daily, highly actionable frameworks and breakdowns.

Are you looking to position an early-stage startup, reposition an existing product, or build a brand-new market category from scratch?

If you want to master positioning and category design, the landscape is practically owned by a couple of definitive voices who practically wrote the books on the subjects (literally).

Here are the absolute top experts you should follow, along with where to find their best work:

** April Dunford** - The undisputed queen of practical B2B and tech positioning. If you want a step-by-step, no-nonsense, highly tactical framework for figuring out what your product actually is and how to frame it against competitors, she is your first stop.

• Where to follow: Read her Positioning with April Dunford Substack, listen to her podcast Positioning with April Dunford, and read her foundational book, Obviously Awesome.

Christopher Lochhead - The godfather of "Category Design" and co-creator of the concept. If April teaches you how to position within an existing or shifting market, Christopher teaches you how to build an entirely new market category so you become the "Category King" and make competition irrelevant.

• Where to follow: Check out his Category Creation Podcast, explore his writings and mini-books on Category Pirates, and read his seminal book, Play Bigger.

Marty Neumeier - Essential if your focus leans heavily toward brand strategy, design, and creative leadership. He approaches positioning through the lens of brand and tribal differentiation rather than just pure marketing mechanics.

• Where to follow: Look into his educational ecosystem via Level C and his classic quick-read books like The Brand Gap and ZAG. April Dunford - Positioning for B2B Tech CompaniesPositioning with April Dunford | SubstackPositioning With April DunfordHome | Category Creation With Christopher LochheadCategory Design In Marketing - Christopher LochheadThe Category Design Scorecard By Christopher Lochhead (eBook)10 Best Positioning Agencies for Design Agencies (2026)

Would you prefer to focus more on tactical B2B product positioning (April's style) or radical market creation and disruption (Christopher's style) so I can point you to a specific piece or article to start with?

Follow April Dunford for practical positioning, and the Play Bigger authors - Al Ramadan, Dave Peterson, Christopher Lochhead, and Kevin Maney - for category design. Start with Dunford’s Obviously Awesome and Play Bigger.(tractiondesign.substack.com)(upgrowth.in)

If you want to learn about positioning and category design, there are a handful of standout experts and firms worth following. Each brings a different lens - strategy, narrative, messaging, or execution - so the right choice depends on what aspect you want to deepen.

🌟 Individual Experts

• April Dunford – Author of Obviously Awesome, widely regarded as the go-to voice on B2B tech positioning. She focuses on structured frameworks for defining market position.

• Andy Raskin – Known for his work on strategic narrative, helping companies craft a compelling “big story” that aligns leadership and inspires customers.

• Al Ries & Jack Trout – The originators of positioning theory (Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind). Their work is foundational if you want the classic principles.

• Emma Stratton (Punchy) – Specializes in sharpening messaging so positioning comes through clearly in copy.

• Anthony Pierri (Fletch) – Focuses on homepage clarity and messaging for early-stage SaaS companies. B2B Positioning Experts: Who's Worth Learning From (and How to Choose)

🏢 Category Design & Narrative Firms

• Play Bigger Advisors – The team behind the book Play Bigger, pioneers in category design consulting.

• Category Pirates (Christopher Lochhead, Eddie Yoon, Cole Schafer) – A subscription-based learning community and content hub focused on category creation.

• PitchKitchen(Greg Rosner) – Applies category design thinking directly to deliverables like websites and sales decks, not just strategy decks.

• Velocity Partners – Known for sharp B2B storytelling and narrative-driven marketing.

• Animalz – Content strategy firm that integrates category narrative into thought leadership. Best Category Design and Narrative Firms for B2B CEOs | PitchKitchen

📚 Agencies for Category Creation

• Northbound – Specializes in market research and consulting for new category creation.

• PlanBeyond – Helps B2B firms define and launch new categories with narrative design.

• Outcrowd – Focuses on creative positioning and branding for emerging categories.

• Anderson Collaborative™ – Known for blending storytelling with growth marketing. Top Category Creation Agencies for B2B Success in 2026

✅ My recommendation:

• For theory and frameworks, start with April Dunford and Ries & Trout.

• For strategic narrative, follow Andy Raskin and Category Pirates.

• For practical execution, PitchKitchen and Fletch are excellent.

Would you like me to curate a “starter reading list” (books, podcasts, newsletters) from these experts so you can dive in systematically?