Positioning in a crowded market

A couple of years ago, I worked with a start-up that made beautifully engineered coffee grinders.

Their problem was simple to describe and painful to live with: nobody could tell them apart from a dozen rivals.

Every brochure in the category boasted the same things: precision burrs, sleek design, whisper-quiet motors.

When everyone claims the same benefits, those benefits stop being a reason to buy and become the price of entry.

So rather than adding yet another feature, we went back to the customers who already loved the product.

It turned out that most of them ran small cafés and cared far more about consistency during the morning rush than about looks.

That insight reshaped everything, from the tagline to the sales pitch to the way the sales team qualified leads.

We deliberately walked away from home baristas, which felt risky, but it made the message razor-sharp.

Within a year, the brand was the default recommendation among independent café owners.

The lesson is counterintuitive: the narrower your positioning, the easier it is for the right customers to choose you.