The Category Creation Formula

Innovative concepts, tools and playbooks for discovering, defining and taking charge of new market categories, by two of the leaders of the category design movement.

The most exciting—and often most valuable—companies create, develop and win new categories of products or services. Examples range from the Zamboni company a century ago to OpenAI today. Such companies can be giants like Amazon, creator of the online everything store category—or a niche player like Bob Chandler, creator of the monster truck category.

Category creation and development should be the goal of any company that wants to make a difference. And the way to achieve that is through the discipline of strategic category design.

Kevin Maney helped introduce category design in his bestseller Play Bigger. Now, he and Mike Damphousse—an experienced CEO, investor and marketing executive—share the secrets that they’ve learned over the past decade. Their advisory firm has worked on strategic category design projects with more than fifty companies and guided workshops for hundreds more at incubators and VC portfolio gatherings. The Category Creation Formula reveals the processes they rely on and the truths about categories that they’ve uncovered, clearly laid out so any entrepreneur or leadership team can benefit from them, too.

The Category Creation Formula expands on ideas introduced in Play Bigger and enhances the discipline’s hands-on practices, including how to write a powerful category point of view and how to set the rules for a category so your company always maintains an advantage. From forming an initial category-winning strategy to relentlessly executing on that strategy, The Category Creation Formula is the crucial resource for anyone who has the ambition to change the way we live and work.

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The Category Creation Formula

Innovative concepts, tools and playbooks for discovering, defining and taking charge of new market categories, by two of the leaders of the category design movement.

The most exciting—and often most valuable—companies create, develop and win new categories of products or services. Examples range from the Zamboni company a century ago to OpenAI today. Such companies can be giants like Amazon, creator of the online everything store category—or a niche player like Bob Chandler, creator of the monster truck category.

Category creation and development should be the goal of any company that wants to make a difference. And the way to achieve that is through the discipline of strategic category design.

Kevin Maney helped introduce category design in his bestseller Play Bigger. Now, he and Mike Damphousse—an experienced CEO, investor and marketing executive—share the secrets that they’ve learned over the past decade. Their advisory firm has worked on strategic category design projects with more than fifty companies and guided workshops for hundreds more at incubators and VC portfolio gatherings. The Category Creation Formula reveals the processes they rely on and the truths about categories that they’ve uncovered, clearly laid out so any entrepreneur or leadership team can benefit from them, too.

The Category Creation Formula expands on ideas introduced in Play Bigger and enhances the discipline’s hands-on practices, including how to write a powerful category point of view and how to set the rules for a category so your company always maintains an advantage. From forming an initial category-winning strategy to relentlessly executing on that strategy, The Category Creation Formula is the crucial resource for anyone who has the ambition to change the way we live and work.

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The Category Creation Formula

The Category Creation Formula

The Category Creation Formula

The Category Creation Formula

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Available for Pre-Order. This item will be released on February 24, 2026

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Overview

Innovative concepts, tools and playbooks for discovering, defining and taking charge of new market categories, by two of the leaders of the category design movement.

The most exciting—and often most valuable—companies create, develop and win new categories of products or services. Examples range from the Zamboni company a century ago to OpenAI today. Such companies can be giants like Amazon, creator of the online everything store category—or a niche player like Bob Chandler, creator of the monster truck category.

Category creation and development should be the goal of any company that wants to make a difference. And the way to achieve that is through the discipline of strategic category design.

Kevin Maney helped introduce category design in his bestseller Play Bigger. Now, he and Mike Damphousse—an experienced CEO, investor and marketing executive—share the secrets that they’ve learned over the past decade. Their advisory firm has worked on strategic category design projects with more than fifty companies and guided workshops for hundreds more at incubators and VC portfolio gatherings. The Category Creation Formula reveals the processes they rely on and the truths about categories that they’ve uncovered, clearly laid out so any entrepreneur or leadership team can benefit from them, too.

The Category Creation Formula expands on ideas introduced in Play Bigger and enhances the discipline’s hands-on practices, including how to write a powerful category point of view and how to set the rules for a category so your company always maintains an advantage. From forming an initial category-winning strategy to relentlessly executing on that strategy, The Category Creation Formula is the crucial resource for anyone who has the ambition to change the way we live and work.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780063483781
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication date: 02/24/2026
Sold by: HARPERCOLLINS
Format: eBook
Pages: 256

About the Author

Kevin Maney is a bestselling author, award-winning commentator and a founding partner of Category Design Advisors. He co-authored Play Bigger, which has influenced company strategy throughout the technology ecosystem. His past books include the New York Times bestseller The Two-Second Advantage: How We Succeed by Anticipating the Future . . . Just Enough, and the de facto history of IBM, The Maverick and His Machine: Thomas Watson Sr. and the Making of IBM. He has written for USA Today, Newsweek, Fortune, The Atlantic, and Wired, and often appears on radio and television. He lives in New York.



Mike Damphousse brings an experienced, pragmatic aspect to strategic category design from three decades as a company founder, CEO, CMO, startup advisor and a limited partner with Stage 2 Capital. He was most recently founder and CEO/CMO of Green Leads, which was acquired by Next 15. He has served on several boards of both commercial and non-profit ventures, and speaks regularly at conferences such as Dreamforce and Inbound. Mike holds a BS in Computer Science from Merrimack College and has three daughters, two granddaughters, and a grandson. He lives on the water in both New Hampshire and Florida with his wife and business partner, Linda.

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