Ready to build your own Founder-Led Growth engine? Book a Strategy Call
Frontlines.io | Where B2B Founders Talk GTM.
Strategic Communications Advisory For Visionary Founders
Actionable
Takeaways
Category Creation That Solves Your Problem, Not the Customer's, Will Always Fail
The most common mistake Andrea has seen across high-growth startups is using category creation as a solution to a business growth problem rather than a buyer pain point. Her own experience launching the "Decision Augmentation" category — which was supposed to reframe a PR tool in the age of early AI — is the case study. The campaign had strong thought leadership, analyst investment, and even a conference "lightning strike" moment. It still fell completely flat because customers didn't recognize the pain it claimed to solve. The diagnosis: the company was trying to fix its own positioning problem, not a real gap in the market. Before any category conversation starts, the only question that matters is whether your buyer is actively feeling a pain that no existing solution addresses.
The Three Hell-No Signals for Category Creation
Andrea's framework for when to kill the idea immediately: (1) There's no clear, unmet pain — if customers aren't frustrated with existing solutions, there's no whitespace. (2) Existing solutions are already meeting the pain adequately — you'd be creating confusion, not clarity. (3) Buyers aren't asking for a new way to think about the problem. If your customer interviews aren't surfacing language that points toward a gap in how the market is organized, you're ahead of the market in a way that will cost you enormously to bridge.
You Cannot Force a Category Into Existence — and You Can't Have a Category of One
A category only becomes real when buyers recognize it and when multiple companies orient around it. One of the reasons "Decision Augmentation" failed is that no other company associated themselves with the term — it was a category of one. Practically, this means that if you're serious about creating a category, you need third parties (analysts, industry publications, research firms) to bucket multiple players together. Companies can't do this alone, and founders who think they'll get competitors to collaborate are usually in for a rude awakening.
The True Cost of Category Creation Is Wildly Underestimated
The resource requirements aren't just financial. You're committing your marketing team and product team to sustained market education — the equivalent of a full rebrand in terms of internal lift. You'll need a serious PR investment, deep analyst relations work, and company-wide evangelism. Andrea points to the SaaS security category: five years in, with consistent market education investment, Gartner still doesn't recognize it as a standalone category. One founder Brett spoke with spent eight years and raised $400M before Gartner created the magic quadrant for his space. If you're a Series A or B company, this math almost never works.
Gong Got It Right — Here's the Specific Reason Why
Gong's "revenue intelligence" category works because it was anchored to a real, felt pain: sales teams wanted more visibility into their deals and pipeline. The category name described the solution to that pain in plain language. It wasn't invented to differentiate Gong from competitors — it emerged from what buyers were already struggling to articulate. That's the test. If you swap out your company name and the category still makes sense as a description of a buyer's problem, you might have something. If the category only makes sense when your company is the reference point, you don't.
Descriptive Positioning Is Underrated and Underused
When category creation isn't the right move, the alternative isn't to do nothing — it's to get ruthlessly descriptive. Andrea's current challenge at Reco is combining SaaS security and AI governance without accidentally positioning as an "AI security" company (which is too broad and confusing). Her approach: resist the temptation to be cute and clever, and instead describe what you do in plain language that a buyer would use at a cocktail party. Differentiation can live in efficiency claims, consolidation messaging, or cost-to-value framing — none of which requires inventing a new category.
AI Will Fundamentally Change How Buyers Discover and Evaluate Solutions
The analyst relations model that underlies category creation — get into Magic Quadrants, influence research reports, compete for positioning in market guides — may have a shorter shelf life than most marketers assume. As buyers increasingly use AI agents as buying tools (running queries directly against Claude, ChatGPT, or browser-enabled agents), the ability to influence an AI's output becomes more valuable than placement in a Gartner report. Andrea's prediction: influencing what an AI browser returns for a buying query will be more efficient and cost-effective than the traditional analyst relations playbook.
Conversation
Highlights
In this episode of The Marketing Front Lines, we sit down with Andrea Bailiff-Gush, Head of Marketing at Reco, a SaaS security and AI governance company. While most guests on shows like this make the case for category creation, Andrea does the opposite — drawing on a failed category launch, years in cybersecurity marketing, and a front-row seat to the AI security space to explain why the strategy fails far more often than it succeeds, what the real warning signs are, and how sophisticated marketers can stand out without creating a category at all.
Topics Discussed:
- Why category creation is often a solution to a company problem, not a customer problem
- The “Decision Augmentation” failure: what went wrong and why
- The three hell-no signals that mean you should abandon category creation
- Why you can’t have a category of one — and why competitors won’t save you
- How Gong got it right (and what most companies get wrong when they try to copy that playbook)
- The hidden resource cost: PR, analyst relations, content, and internal evangelism
- How AI is going to upend analyst relations and category-based buying altogether
- What to do instead: descriptive positioning, differentiation without category creation
- Book recommendation: Play Bigger
Recommended Founder
Interviews
Justas Malinauskas
CEO & Co-Founder of Whatagraph
How Whatagraph generates 500+ marketing qualified leads monthly through competitor pain point SEO | Justas Malinauskas ($10+ Million Raised)
Hikari Senju
CEO and Founder of Omneky
Hikari Senju, CEO and Founder of Omneky: $10 Million Raised to Empower Brands With AI-Powered Ads To Maximize Performance
Patrick Woods
CEO and Co-Founder of Orbit
Patrick Woods, CEO and Co-Founder of Orbit: Over $22 Million Raised to Power the Future of Communities
Marty Ringlein
CEO & Co-Founder of Agree.com
Marty Ringlein, CEO & Co-Founder of Agree.com: $3M Raised to Transform Contract-Based Revenue Management
Sam Mallikarjunan
Co-Founder & CEO of OneScreen
Sam Mallikarjunan, Co-Founder & CEO of OneScreen: $10 Million Raised to Power the Future of Offline Advertising
Daniel Saks
CEO & Co-Founder of Landbase
Daniel Saks, CEO & Co-Founder of Landbase: $12.5 Million Raised to Power the Future of GTM Automation
Sarah Gavin
Interim Chief Marketing Officer; Chief Communications Officer of Zendesk
How Zendesk rebuilt a 40-person in-house comms team in 9 months and eliminated all agency spend | Sarah Gavin
Rebecca Corliss
VP of Marketing of GrowthLoop
Why GrowthLoop Ditched Paid Ads for Influencer Marketing
Lars Grønnegaard Hansen
CEO and Co-Founder of Dreamdata
Lars Grønnegaard Hansen, CEO & Co-Founder of Dreamdata: $12 Million Raised to Build the Future of B2B Revenue Attribution
Cassandra Gholston
CEO & Founder of PartnerTap
Cassandra Gholston, CEO & Founder of PartnerTap: $9 Million Raised to Revolutionize Partner Orchestration
Dan Rua
CEO of Admiral
Dan Rua, CEO of Admiral: $28 Million Raised to Build the Future of Visitor Relationship Management
Vitaly Pecherskiy
CEO and Co-founder of StackAdapt
Building stackadapt: how three founders turned failure into a 1,600-person company | Vitaly Pecherskiy
CEO and Co-Founder of Sendoso
Creating the Sending Management Category with Sendoso’s Kris Rudeegraap
Daniel Erickson
Founder and CEO of Viable
Daniel Erickson, CEO of Viable: $9 Million Raised to Build the Future of Customer Feedback Analysis
Max Elster
CEO & Founder of Minoa
Max Elster, CEO & Founder of Minoa: $2.7 Million Raised to Build the Go-to-Market Value Intelligence Platform
Pulkit Agrawal
CEO & Co-Founder of Chameleon
Pulkit Agrawal, CEO & Co-Founder of Chameleon: $15 Million Raised to Build the Product Adoption Category
Ori Entis
CEO and Co-Founder of Staircase AI
Ori Entis, CEO and Co-Founder of Staircase AI: $5 Million Raised to Power the Future of Customer Revenue Growth
Sam Fonoimoana
Founder & CEO of Datajoin
Sam Fonoimoana, Founder & CEO of Datajoin: $3.5 Million Raised to Help Brands Leverage Customer Behavioral Insights
Pierce Ujjainwalla
CEO of Knak
Pierce Ujjainwalla, CEO of Knak: $25 Million Raised to Empower Enterprise Marketers with Codeless Email and Landing Page Creation
Sam Kellett
Head of Marketing of ProfitMetrics.io
Why ROAS Is Lying to Your CFO About Campaign Performance
Ksenija Rohrkamp
Director of Marketing of Buynomics
Why Product Marketing Should Be Your First Category Creation Hire
Jared Siegal
CEO and Founder of Aditude
Jared Siegal, CEO and Founder of Aditude: $15 Million Raised to Build the Future of Publisher Monetization
Chris Strahl
CEO of Knapsack
Chris Strahl, CEO of Knapsack: $7 Million Raised to Build the Future of Design Systems
Mark Keaney
Chief Revenue Officer of Greenfly
How Greenfly doubled revenue and headcount by staying inside three tightly defined verticals instead of expanding TAM | Mark Keaney
Michael Bamberger
CEO and Founder of Tetra Insights
Michael Bamberger, CEO and Founder of Tetra Insights: $7 Million Raised to Power the Future of Qualitative Research
Robert Thelen
CEO & Founder of Rownd
Robert Thelen, CEO & Founder of Rownd: $3.3 Million Raised to Build the Future of App Onboarding
Ishveen Jolly
CEO and Co-Founder of OpenSponsorship
Ishveen Jolly, CEO and Co-Founder of OpenSponsorship: Over $5 Million Raised to Build the Future of Sports Influencer Marketing
Cory Schmidt
Head of Marketing of Heyflow
Mastering Organic Growth: Insights from Heyflow’s Head of Marketing
Jonathan Legge
Co-Founder and CEO of &Open
Jonathan Legge, Co-Founder and CEO at &Open: Over $35 Million Raised to Create the Future of Corporate Gifting
Omed Habib
VP of Sapient AI
Omed Habib, VP of Marketing at Sapient AI: A Technical Founder’s Guide to B2B SaaS Marketing
Creating the Marketing Automation Category with Mark Organ
CEO of Eloqua
Creating the Marketing Automation Category with Mark Organ
Stephen Karaolis
Marketing Director of Cleary
Stephen Karaolis, Marketing Director at Cleary: Mastering Speed to Market – The Key to Dynamic Content Strategy
Matt Martin
CEO & Co-Founder of Clockwise
Why organic referrals drive 80% of Clockwise’s growth after a decade of marketing experiments | Matt Martin
Danielle Pederson
Chief Marketing Officer of Amaze
Why Amaze Markets Experiences Over Channels
Parry Bedi
Co-Founder and CEO of Tingono
Parry Bedi, CEO of Tingono: $7 Million Raised to Help Companies Boost Net Revenue Retention
Alex Mann
Head of Growth of Lunos
What’s the ROI of Bringing a Horse to Wall Street? (Ft. Alex Mann)
Adrien Menard
CEO and Co-Founder of Botify
Adrien Menard, CEO and Co-Founder of Botify: $82 Million Raised to Build the Future of SEO
Katy Carrigan
CEO of Goody
Katy Carrigan, CEO of Goody: $32 Million Raised to Build the Future of Corporate Gifting
John Jahnke
CEO and Co-Founder of Tackle.io
John Jahnke, CEO and Co-Founder of Tackle.io: $148 Million Raised to Build the Future of Cloud Go-to-Market
Ashish Nagar
Founder & CEO of Level AI
Ashish Nagar, CEO of Level AI: $35 Million Raised to Power Contact Centers of the Future
Rajat Mishra
Founder & CEO of Prezent
Rajat Mishra, Founder & CEO at Prezent: Over $24 Million Raised to Build the Presentation Productivity Platform Category
Avi Avital
VP of Customer Success of Nimble
How Nimble evolved CSMs from technical support to revenue owners with NRR/NGR targets | Avi Avital
Jason Zintak
CEO of 6sense
Jason Zintak: The GTM Story of 6sense ($5.2 Billion Valuation)
Vinay Jain
Founder of MadMen AI
Vinay Jain, Founder of MadMen AI: $4.5 Million Raised to Build the Future of AI-Powered Marketing Platforms
Creating the Go to Market Category with ZoomInfo’s Bryan Law
CMO of ZoomInfo
Creating the Go to Market Category with ZoomInfo’s Bryan Law
Franklin Morris
Vice President, Marketing of Alloy.ai
Why ChatGPT Converts 30x Better Than Your Website
Daniel Frohnen
Founder and Fractional CMO of FrohnenGTM
Category Design Is a Company Strategy, Not a Marketing Exercise
Dirk Wolf
CEO of Market Logic Software
How Market Logic rebuilt customer segmentation to stop optimizing for the loudest accounts | Dirk Wolf
Natasha Woods
Senior Director Communications of The Linux Foundation
How GitLab’s comms team workshopped the “iPhone for DevOps” analogy for CNBC’s IPO interview | Natasha Woods
David DeWolf
CEO & President of Knownwell
David DeWolf, CEO & President of Knownwell: $2 Million Raised to Build the Future of Commercial Intelligence
Zack Rosenberg
CEO and Founder of Qortex
Zack Rosenberg, CEO & Founder of Qortex: $11 Million Raised to Build the Future of Video Analytics
Andy Mowat
CEO and Co-Founder of Gated
Andy Mowat, CEO and Co-Founder of Gated: Over $3 Million Raised to Build Noise Cancelling Headphones for Email
Tara Robertson
Director of Marketing of ContactMonkey
Why ContactMonkey Spent 50% of Marketing Budget on Events in 2025
Marc Bernstein
CEO and Founder of Balto
Marc Bernstein, CEO and Founder of Balto: $52 Million Raised to Power the Future of Contact Centers
David Walsh
Founder & CEO of Limelight
How Limelight validated the B2B creator market by interviewing 100+ creators before building | David Walsh
Steve Keifer
Chief Marketing Officer of Ordway
100K Outbound Emails Monthly Without Getting Blocked
Elio Narciso
Co-Founder & CEO of Scalestack
How Scalestack landed MongoDB as their first enterprise customer through cold email | Elio Narciso ($3.1 Million Raised)
Sangram Vajre
Co Founder and CEO of GTM Partners
Behind the Category: Creating the Account-Based Marketing (ABM) Category with Sangram Vajre
Rush Shahani
Co-Founder & CTO of Persana AI
Rush Shahani, Co-Founder & CTO of Persana AI: $2.3 Million Raised to Power the Future of GTM
Jonathan Corbin
CEO & Co-Founder of Maven AGI
Jonathan Corbin, CEO and Co-Founder of Maven AGI: $28 Million Raised to Build the Future of Customer Experience
Chris Golec
CEO and Founder of Channel99
Chris Golec, CEO and Founder of Channel99: $5 Million Raised to Power the Future of B2B Marketing
Adam Haskew
Associate Director, Brand Experience at Redis of Redis
How Redis trained a custom GPT on rebrand documentation to automate brand compliance | Adam Haskew
Philipp de la Haye
Senior Vice President of Marketin of FrontNow
AI Will Cut Marketing Teams to 2 People – Here’s the Playbook
Thomas Millay
CEO of DemandJump
Thomas Millay, CEO at DemandJump: Over $25 Million Raised to Power the Future of Content Strategy
Marty Kausas
CEO & Co-Founder of Pylon
Marty Kausas, CEO & Co-Founder of Pylon: $20 Million Raised to Build the First B2B Support Platform
Andrew Forman
Founder of Givz
Andrew Forman, CEO of Givz: $3 Million Raised to Make Donating, Not Discounts, eCommerce Brands Ultimate Growth Lever
Corey Kleinbauer
Fractional Chief Revenue Officer and Founder of Kleinbauer
The 3-question rule Corey Kleinbauer uses to diagnose a broken pipeline | Corey Kleinbauer
Dan Malgran
VP of Marketing of Steno
Dan Malgran, VP of Marketing at Steno: Elevating Legal Tech with Revenue-Driven Marketing Strategies
Tom Lee
Co-Founder of LOVO AI
Tom Lee, Co-Founder of LOVO AI: $7 Million Raised to Build the Future of AI Voiceovers
Anthony Lye
Chairman & CEO of Quid
Why the next great tech companies will sell outcomes, not software | Anthony Lye
Marc-Alexander Christ
Co-Founder of SumUp
Marc-Alexander Christ: the Story of SumUp ($8.5 Billion Valuation)
Tyler Strand
Co-Founder and CTO of Air
Tyler Strand, Co-Founder and CTO at Air: $38 Million raised to Build the Creative Operations Category
Matt Krebsbach
Senior Vice President of Thought Leadership & Brand Awareness of Acquia
From Politics to PR: Building Unassailable Market Position
Canay Deniz
CEO & Co-Founder of Ren Systems
Canay Deniz, CEO & Co-Founder of Ren Systems: $8.8 Million Raised to Build the Future of Relationship Intelligence for Dealmakers
Alex Reynolds
Alex Reynolds, CEO & Co-Founder of Vendelux: $20 Million Raised to Build the Future of Event Intelligence
Tine Karlsen
Co-Founder & CEO of Vev
Tine Karlsen, CEO and Co-Founder of Vev: $7 Million Raised to Power the Future of No-Code Visual Design
Taylor Lint
CEO and Founder of Swantide
Taylor Lint, CEO and Founder of Swantide: $7 Million Raised to Revolutionize How Companies Design and Build Their GTM Infrastructure
Jonas Rinde
CEO of Nomono
Jonas Rinde, CEO of Nomono: $15 million Raised to Power the Future of Podcasting
Leena Joshi
CEO of CloseFactor
Leena Joshi, CEO of CloseFactor: $15+ Million Raised to Automate Repetitive Sales Processes
Woody Klemetson
Founder of AskElephant
How AskElephant achieved 400% growth with zero marketing spend | Woody Klemetson