The 6 Types of Ownable Ideas (And How to Find Yours) with Katelyn Bourgoin, Founder of Unignorable

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The 6 Types of Ownable Ideas (And How to Find Yours)

Podcast: The Dave Gerhardt Show (Exit Five)
Host: Dave Gerhardt
Guest: Katelyn Bourgoin, Founder of Unignorable
Date: April 7, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode features a deep-dive conversation between Dave Gerhardt and Katelyn Bourgoin about “Ownable Ideas”—the core concept or narrative a company or founder can claim and be known for in their market. Rather than just another take on positioning or category creation, Katelyn frames ownable ideas as a strategic asset, especially vital as AI commoditizes more aspects of marketing and product differentiation. The duo discuss the six types of ownable ideas, real-world examples, and actionable strategies for marketers and founders to develop, refine, and own their ideas in the crowded modern landscape.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Is an Ownable Idea?

[06:43–11:06]

• Definition: An ownable idea is a strategic territory—a memorable, easily articulated concept so tied to you or your company that it echoes when used elsewhere.
• Not Just Positioning or Category Creation: While related, an ownable idea is often simpler, more actionable, and becomes shorthand for your story or worldview.
• Examples:
  • “Atomic Habits” – James Clear
  • “Start With Why” – Simon Sinek
  • “Boring Businesses” – Cody Sanchez
  • “Conversational Marketing” – Drift

Katelyn: "Idea ownership is really, like, the biggest strategic advantage for entrepreneurs right now... The people we want to reach are super overwhelmed and we need to be crystal clear about what spot we want to own in the brain." [07:02–07:24]

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2. The Six Types of Ownable Ideas

[13:20–18:37]

Katelyn introduces and details the six archetypes of ownable ideas marketers and founders can leverage.

1. Category Creation

• Claiming a new market or solution (“Conversational Marketing” at Drift; Amanda Natividad’s “Zero-Click Content”).

2. Coined Problems

• Naming previously unnamed pain points (e.g., “Nose blindness” – Febreze, “The Law of Shitty Clickthroughs” – Andrew Chen).
• B2B Example: Chris Walker’s “Attribution Gap” and targeting “dark social.”

3. Method or Framework

• Developing a named, systematic approach (“Challenger Sale,” “Story Brand Canvas”).

4. Identity Label

• Giving your audience a label or new identity to aspire to (e.g., “Growth Hacker”).

5. X vs. Y (This vs. That)

• Creating a clear distinction and forcing a choice (e.g., “Deep Work vs. Shallow Work” – Cal Newport).

6. Signature Solution/Big Idea

• A unique organizing concept that makes your approach distinct even among similar offerings.

Katelyn: "A category is one type of ownable idea... Oftentimes you don't need to create a new category." [12:46–13:16]

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3. Why Most Companies Struggle with Ownable Ideas

[18:37–22:13]

Common Pitfalls:

• Most founders and teams lack clarity about their real audience and unique perspective.
• Companies often try to “own” something too generic, or obsess over analyst/category fit instead of how people actually talk.
• The “Expert’s Paradox”: Founders are too close to their genius to recognize what’s unique or interesting to outsiders.

Katelyn: "You have to help people basically identify their central argument that their ownable idea is built off of." [19:57–20:11]

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4. Finding and Refining Your Ownable Idea

[18:37–28:23]

Actionable Steps:

1. Identify the Central Argument:

   • What is the deep-seated belief or unique insight your company/founder holds about your market or problem?
   • Often uncovered by mapping founder beliefs, market desires, and competitive white space.

2. Match to Market Desires:

   • Don’t just articulate what you think; ensure it resonates with what your audience wants and needs.

3. Iterative Process:

   • Rarely a "eureka" moment—often takes time, repeated reframing, and feedback from real conversations.

Katelyn: "It's about saying a thousand good ideas and trying to own a good one." [19:47]
Dave: "I think just like, anything that seems obvious to you is usually nobody else has the guts to say it or share it." [33:56]

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5. Role of Founders and Marketers in Crafting the Message

[29:03–32:56]

• The most successful ownable ideas typically stem from founder conviction.
• Marketers play a vital role in extracting this unstated wisdom and making it clear to the world, even if the founder doesn’t initially recognize its value.

Katelyn: "If there's a founder that doesn't want to—that doesn't have big thinking on the problem, the space that they're in, like, that's like a you should run kind of scenario... marketing can't fix that." [32:02]

• Marketers must proactively mine for these ideas, interviewing, nudging, and sifting through daily work for flashes of clarity.

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6. Making It Repeatable & Realistic Action Steps

[32:40–36:13]

• If you don’t have an ownable idea, that’s your strategic homework. Have conversations, workshop ideas, test with customers, iterate.
• Marketers should view their role as extracting and refining, not necessarily inventing from scratch.

Katelyn: "...the marketing team's job should be to get it out of [the founder]." [32:56]

• “Chocolate-Covered Almond Analogy”: Blend value and entertainment—nutrient-dense content with a craveable coating. This is where great B2B content thrives (educational + delightful). [26:49–27:32]

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7. Building Authority and Consistency

[37:22–40:02]

• Once you have an ownable idea, repeat it consistently in all your channels (“say the same thing a thousand times”).
• Use the Authority Flywheel Formula:
  • Talk about:
    1. The problem you solve
    2. Your unique point of view
    3. The big promise/result
    4. Proof/results/case studies

Katelyn: "Finding this way of saying the same thing a thousand times, because that's how it moves... everything else is just more impactful." [37:39–38:37]

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8. The Increasing Importance of Ownable Ideas in the Age of AI

[40:32–41:58]

• AI will commoditize tools, tactics, and distribution—which puts even more weight on original thinking, creativity, and story.
• Creative marketers and founders will be the MVPs—the only ones able to continually create new value as noise increases.
• You can’t out-AI everyone; you can out-human and out-story them.

Katelyn: "I fundamentally believe that marketing is going to be even more important in these coming years... The creative people get to set what the next thing is." [40:32–41:58]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the importance of ownable ideas:
  "Idea ownership is really, like, the biggest strategic advantage for entrepreneurs right now... The people we want to reach are super overwhelmed..."
  — Katelyn [07:02]

• On founder/marketer partnership:
  "Marketing is literally everything the customer touches and sees... that's the 99 of it. All the other stuff that we argue about online about attribution and MQLs, it's nonsense. It's all solved by that."
  — Dave [30:28–31:22]

• On making your “boring” product interesting:
  "Ultimately, what you hit on there is that central argument which is like, most webinars are boring, but they shouldn't be because the best converting ones are actually fun."
  — Katelyn [27:56]

• On the challenge of sticking with a message:
  "Most teams don't want to say that because it's scary and they'd rather change it every couple of months... but you really need to have the conviction to say, like, we believe in this and we're going to go deep."
  — Katelyn [34:12]

• Chocolate-covered almond analogy (content strategy):
  "You get something valuable, but it's tasty and fun and you crave it. That’s our job as marketers."
  — Katelyn [26:49]

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Key Timestamps

• [02:32] – Episode intro & why Katelyn’s buyer psychology/idea ownership work stands out
• [06:43] – Defining ownable ideas using well-known examples
• [13:20] – The six types of ownable ideas
• [18:37] – Why creating an ownable idea is hard; central argument approach
• [26:49] – Chocolate covered almond analogy for B2B content
• [29:03] – The crucial role of founders and marketers in articulating a unique POV
• [32:02] – Why you can't fake founder conviction on an idea
• [37:22] – How Katelyn executes and repeats her ownable idea in content
• [40:32] – The accelerating need for ownable ideas thanks to AI

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Actionable Takeaways

• Marketers: Start with customer desires, mine for founder convictions, and stress test for white space in your landscape before picking your ownable idea.
• Founders: Prioritize clarity on your central argument—why do you exist, why now, and why you?
• Companies: Don't fear simplicity—make your big idea easy to echo and hard to ignore.
• Everyone: Remember, the ownable idea is your moat as tools and tactics flatten out.

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Resources & Further Learning

• Katelyn’s Newsletter: beunignignorable.com ([36:20])
• Follow Katelyn on LinkedIn for frameworks and examples
• Listen to her episode on Jay Clouse’s podcast ([26:31])

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Final Thought

Katelyn: "Any company that’s been a breakthrough success... you can see that they have one [ownable idea]. And if that's a reality... then you should probably take it seriously yourself." [37:13]

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Transcript

[A]

Hey, it's me, Dave. Our friends over at Customer I.O. are sponsors of today's episode. They're a really cool company that helps marketers turn first party data into engaging customer experiences across email, SMS and push. And they built their platform for marketers who actually care about the craft. Because marketing is a craft. It takes creativity, thought and taste. Right now, everyone thinks they're magically a marketer because they have access to AI and the result is kind of painful. More robotic emails, more noise, more bullets. Bl AI isn't magic. It's not going to fix bad strategy or write great copy for you magically. But the best teams also aren't ignoring it. They treat AI as infrastructure. When it's built the right way, it actually makes marketing feel more human, not less. And that's what Customer IO is doing. Their AI handles repetitive work like setup, orchestration and tasks that should be automated so that you can focus on what actually matters. The craft of marketing, the strategy, the creativity. This is how good marketers are using AI right now. Not to replace thinking, but to support it. If this landed with you at all, this idea about the craft of marketing, I want you to go and check out customer IO. It's customer IO. Exit 5. Go and check them out. Customer IO, exit 5. Hey, it's me, Dave. Today's episode is brought to you by Consensys, the interactive demo platform. Look, most of your buyers have already decided whether they like you before your sales team ever gets on a call with them. They've asked ChatGPT and Claude about your product. They found reviews about you online. They've talked to peers who've used your product before. And by the time they hit request a demo on your site, they've often already come to a decision. So you're losing control of the narrative before the first touch point. And now they have to wait three to five days for a demo. Consensus gives you that control back. They help you meet your buyer where they actually are with interactive, personalized AI demos that live on your site. When a buyer shows up wanting to poke around on their own terms, you give them what they want. Plus, you get to see exactly who's watching, what they clicked on and and who the decision makers are. So stop being a bystander. While LLMs sell or even unsell your product. Category leaders like Atlassian and Autodesk use consensus to turn invisible researchers into high intent leads. Go and check them [e-mail] Exit 5 Go consensus.com Exit 5 you're listening to the Dave Gerhardt Show.

[B]

Exit. 1221234.

[A]

This week, I sat down with Caitlyn Burgoyne. She's a serial entrepreneur, buyer psychology expert, and founder of Unignorable, an agency that helps founders find the one idea that they'll be known for. This was a really fun conversation. We got to revisit some of my path as a marketer, and we went deep on this concept of creating your ownable idea. Not really a positioning framework, not category creation, but the actual idea that becomes so tied to you that that it sounds like an echo coming from anybody else. So an example would be at Drift, we called it conversational marketing. Caitlyn said, hey, when you think of James Clear, what do you think of? I said, atomic habits, Right? We talked about a bunch of examples of creating your ownable idea on this podcast, and I think it's something that more companies need now than ever. Hey, if AI is going to commoditize everything else, the last great thing that we have is our story and our brand. And I really like this framing of creating your ownable idea. So if you need help with positioning storytelling, here's a great conversation with Caitlin Burgoyne. What did you say? How was our event? Is that what the question was?

[B]

Yeah. You just got back from the event. It looked amazing.

[A]

It was amazing. I was really nervous about doing it. I didn't want to do this event. This was Dan's idea, but I never told him that until just now. And it was awesome. They pulled it off. Like, we have one big event in September, and I didn't really have an appetite to do more because it's very stressful and it's a lot of work. And so we kind of did this one, and the response initially was slow. And then we were halfway into January and the tickets were slow. And then we also found out that it was a heavy week of, like, people's kids had school break, but it ended up selling, I think 100 was, like, the right amount. And it was awesome. It was really, really, really fun. The NPS was 88, which is amazing. The only two, like, negative detractors. The negative response that we got were two people who didn't pay for tickets. They were invited for free.

[B]

So it's like, you appreciate what you pay for, right?

[A]

For sure. But you'll appreciate this, right? So, like, the big hook for this one was really just like, this bet that people really want a peer group, especially if you're, you know, CMO of a larger company, you feel like you can't really share stuff online. You spend all your day talking to AI and chat GPT and the whole value prop was like, their peer group. So we did, like, application only. You had to be currently in house running a marketing team at a company over a certain revenue stage. And it was painful because some people also didn't like that. But the people that were there, they were like, this was the best event I've ever been to because I felt like everyone that was in this room was my peer. We could be hanging out at the pool, having a conversation, having lunch. And so it was like, it just reinforced, like, that bet with the positioning.

[B]

I love that. And I mean, you are that audience. You were that audience several times over. Like, how many times did you ever get to do something like this?

[A]

It would be rare. I can remember going to an event like Saster as an example when I was like, a VP of marketing, and you happen to get invited to someone's lunch, and the lunch is awesome. It's almost like having friends who are, like, parents are going through the same stage of life that you are. It's just so nice to be able to relate. And we just. The niche happens to be like, B2B marketing, but it's really like the cross section of people that are just there, like, just kind of and vent. And, you know, it's. It feels really good.

[B]

It's really therapeutic, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it's nice not to have to settle that context up, because I think that's one of the biggest challenges when it comes to, like, any entrepreneur things. It's like, yeah, you can get people in the room and like, maybe they're, like, running different types of companies and they're in different industries, but they're all at the same revenue level. And it's like, yeah, but there's so much context that doesn't need to be said. It just allows for, like, real talk so much faster.

[A]

Well, like, even if you don't have an answer, you feel like you're talking to someone who. All right. I'm not alone in going through this thing in my business. Anyway, I'm excited to have you on, Caitlin. How do you say your last name?

[B]

Burgoyne.

[A]

Caitlin Burgoyne. I don't know. It's like ships passing the night multiple times. I've tried to have you on, and finally Aaron reached out and we got you on. So I'm really excited. I see you in the LinkedIn comments, but who the heck are you? Who are you?

[B]

I love that you're asking me this question. I feel like the first time you invited me on the show, my answer would have been very different. So I'll kind of explain what it is I do. But before I do, I kind of want to demonstrate it. So let me ask you a question. When I say atomic habits, who comes to mind for you?

[A]

James Clear. Right?

[B]

Right. What about when I say start with why?

[A]

Simon Sinek.

[B]

Okay, last one.

[A]

Wait. Also, I know these because I'm really smart and well read.

[B]

Obviously these are very hard and you are killing it. Last one. Boring businesses. Is there anybody that kind of leaps out when you hear boring businesses?

[A]

Cody Sanchez.

[B]

All right, so yes, you are incredibly smart. I wonder for our listeners, I would wager a bet that most people are three for three and that's because these people are idea owners. Right. I believe that idea ownership is really like the biggest strategic advantage for entrepreneurs right now. And it's always been true. You've watched it, you've done it inside of companies. Like, I think it's more true than ever now. And so all the people we want to reach with our message, they're just super overwhelmed and we need to be like really crystal clear about like what spot we want to own in the brain and how we want them to think of us. And so that's what I'm doing today. So I've kind of made some changes from where some of your listeners might know me from my previous company, why we Buy. But now I'm going all in on Unignorable. And Unignorable is the ownable ideas agency. So like we help these big brained experts distill their best thinking into one idea that makes them impossible to ignore.

[A]

Awesome. But like your background, you kind of circle around a couple of. So like if we looked at your. Because I was just going through the notes from Erin and it was she was kind of like, well, you know, her background's not really in B2B marketing. I'm like, no, but that's actually why I want you to come on because our audience is in is B2B marketers. But your, all of your stuff is about like psychology, understanding how people make decisions, this power of naming things. How did you get to be that person in marketing versus like why aren't you like the SEO person? Right?

[B]

Well, it's funny you ask that because like I used to very much be the B2B marketing person. So previously if I want to do like a little bit of like I'll do a very abbreviated background. I started off as an agency owner and was Working with a whole bunch of different clients. Like, wanted to kind of do guerrilla marketing, but really I would take anyone who would pay and. But you know, it worked out well. Got some big clients like Target and Holiday Inn. And I got the big idea. I was like, I don't want to sell time for money anymore. I'm going to do something different. And at the time, this is 2013, I was like, but courses are too crazy. Like, it's too congested, there's no space there. I'm like, I'm going to do a tech startup. How hard could that be? Now I'm a non technical founder and this is 2013. Let's just say it was really fucking hard, but went off, raised like VC funding, built what Forbes said was going to be the next LinkedIn for women. Failed miserably. It did not work. Went bankrupt and came out of it. And I was like licking my wounds and like trying to figure out what I was going to be when I grow up. And I was lucky in that our lead investor had a portfolio of companies, mostly led by like technical, brilliant founders. And I would go, and they're like, we need them to be better at marketing. And like, they're good at product, they're bad at marketing. You are like bad at product, but you're good at marketing. I'm like, yeah, I know, thanks for rubbing it in. But yeah. And so I went and I sat down with all these genius people and I would ask them the question that we care about as marketers, which is like, tell me about your audience. Who are your customers? And I was shocked how often I couldn't get a good answer out of them. Like they would be competing with, like, they'd be like, oh, well, we go after this audience, but also this one. And one time a founder looked me in the eye and he goes, our audience are B2B businesses with anywhere between 10 and 500 employees who sell online. And like he was like thinking like, oh, I nailed it. Like, I know them so well.

[A]

Yeah, right?

[B]

So like everyone, okay. And that led me to realize I was like, oh, there's this real huge pain point in that people need to better understand their customers. And to do that, they need to do customer research. And I'm going to build a productized service agency all around helping b2b SaaS companies do customer research. Guess what I learned? B2b SaaS companies do not care about customer research. But they did care about my little newsletter that I started off as a pipeline builder for my research agency, which was all about behavioral science and marketing and buyer psychology. And so that was kind of like the first ownable idea for me was I became known as, like, the buyer psychology person and saw the impact of that in my own business and realized through the work I did with building the original unignorable challenge with the team at Demand Curve, I was like, oh, this is where I want to live. Like, this is the space I'm excited about.

[A]

Okay, let's do today's episode with a lens towards. I want to really focus on. Let's go deep on this topic of an ownable idea. And the audience for this is people who. Some founders listen to this podcast, but I would say the majority are like, I'm doing marketing at a company. And so the lens would be like, I want to improve the way we tell our story. And this stuff that we learned from Caitlyn is going to help us do that. Okay, so first, you've kind of already answered this, but, like, let's just set the stage for an ownable idea. Is you talked about book titles. Is there more than that?

[B]

Oh, yeah. So, like, I see an ownable idea is, like, it's the strategic territory that you can claim and become known for. So it's that concept that becomes, like, so identified with you that it sounds like an echo coming from anybody else. So in a lot of times, by

[A]

the way, I like this. The reason why I like this is because I think this is related to positioning, storytelling. People talk about category creation, but break something down that's just really simple. It's not some official, you know, complex name. It's not. You're not trying to do some. Some crazy, like, what is your ownable idea? I love when people can simplify things that way.

[B]

So, yes, I think people need to be communicated with that way too. Right. Like one of the things from behavioral science. And it's not just a behavioral science thing. Like, there's two sides of the brain that we were talking to, and one of them you have to earn time with. And that's the one that actually takes time to process your message. Most of the time, you have to. Have to get it right away. And if they don't get it right away, they're not going to pause, lean in, pay more attention. So I think so often we try to, like, create these, like, really clever categories. And it's like, this is like this thing that, like, sounds really fancy and exciting. And I feel like the reason that ownable ideas aren't just about categories. A category is one type of Ownable idea. Oftentimes you don't need to create a new category. Like I'm like, I'm not a believer in like category creation is always the answer. I think it can be the answer. And I've seen you and other brilliant marketers help teams do it really frigging well, but it's not always the answer. But there's other ways that founders can go off and become known and create a conversation in their space beyond a category.

[A]

Okay, so you have six, there's six type of ownable ideas. Can we hit on them each?

[B]

Yeah. So I started breaking this down because I was thinking like, how do we actually make this really actionable for folks so that they get it? And like, yes, a category is one of them. So you know, a category that's like the new type of solution or market specific space that you're going to be the obvious leader in. So you think about what your the work you did at Drift. It was the conversational marketing, right? That was a new category from a person who's like a thought leader perspective. Amanda Tibet, I don't know if you've ever had her on the pod, but she's brilliant and like she's created like zero click, zero click content. Yeah, that's her category. Right? So that's just one type. Another thing that you can become known for are coined problems. So there's examples of this like Seth Godin has the diploma. Andrew Chen has the law of shitty click, shitty clickthroughs.

[A]

Oh yeah, these are really good. I'll give a podcast listener and Exit 5 member shout out. Brendan Hufford, he has one that he talks about, but he's named Checkbox Marketing.

[B]

I love that for him. Right?

[A]

Right.

[B]

And suddenly he puts a name to something and as marketers were like, that's what I've been doing and why I

[A]

know the problem is like when people try to do it for their like software companies, it becomes like the first AI native purpose built solution for H vac contractors. And it doesn't work the same.

[B]

Nobody gets it. And so like this is the thing I feel like from a company perspective, like, yeah, category is an obvious one, but it doesn't always need to be the one. Think about like this isn't B2B but like think about. One of my favorite examples of a coin problem is Febreze. They had nose blindness, right? Like it's like people didn't realize that their house stunk so they educated them by creating a problem nose blindness. And sales spiked, right? Because like, oh, My God, I do have pets. I do have kids that play sports. My house probably does stink and I'm just nose blown to it. Like, it's such a great way of taking something that exists in an existing category and showing the problem. I think that, you know, Chris Walker did this so well when he talked about the attribution gap, and he basically created a assault against attribution. And, like, he's like, dark. Social is like, the answer. Right? Like, you don't know what's actually happening.

[A]

Yeah. It's almost like sometimes we obsess too much over, like, the name for it and where it's going to fit in G2 and how Gartner might think about it and, like, the analyst name versus, like, what sounds like. Specifically when you said Chris and you said the word, like, assaulting this category, it's like he was going after attribution. And so it's like, oh, yeah, it's like, name the problem.

[B]

Right?

[A]

It doesn't have to be the. Like. I remember Act Drift as an example. We hated the name Conversational Marketing because it was, like, so literal. We wanted something, like, cooler than that.

[B]

You know, when you were at Drift, I remember hearing Conversation Marketing and thinking it was really good. But I remember you named an enemy and it was like, the form.

[A]

No forms. Yeah.

[B]

I was absolutely not, like, probably the best target customer for Drift because at this point, I'm like, off just doing a consultant, but hell if I didn't. Go on a call with your team, end up getting the conversational forms, using them.

[A]

Sure. Wait, can we talk about why that worked?

[B]

It absolutely works. Because at the end of the day, we need somebody to explain to us why the thing that we're doing isn't working in a way that we actually want to buy into. And so often when people try to push their narrative down our throat, it's telling us that what we're doing is wrong, but not giving us an alternative. Right.

[A]

So you said it perfectly because we didn't want to alienate the people that we were trying to sell to. And so the message wasn't like, hey, dummy, you're doing it wrong. Like, do it our way. So we like. The whole story that we told was like, it's not your fault. It's the tools that you were given to do this. And the form. We made the form the enemy. By the way, what's so funny is to this day, I will say something and someone will be like, well, you used a form for this. I'm like, that was one company 10 years ago. I'm the head of marketing there. You don't think I'm going to be pumping the company's narrative and you help

[B]

build that and it friggin worked, right? Like you guys were an underdog. You're coming in. You created like it was a beautiful display.

[A]

What else? What are the other types? This is a fun topic for me, so I'm being distracted.

[B]

All right, so we've got method or framework, right? So when you think about like a method, a great example is like the story brand canvas.

[A]

We've all Challenger sale.

[B]

Yeah, exactly, right. Like these are great ones. They're particularly strong for kind of like expert entrepreneurs, but absolutely works in it, like selling tech too. Then you've got like the identity label, right? Like Sean Ellis came with the growth hacker. Let me tell you, when my startup died and I was trying to decide what I wanted to be when I grew up, there was a very long period of time where I was thinking I was going to be a growth hacker. Ultimately it was not the right fit for me too.

[A]

Me too.

[B]

I realized I'd much rather be a storyteller. But like the identity label, giving somebody like that thing that they can step into and then one that I think is really cool and it's fringe and there's not as many of them. But when it works, but damn, does it work is like what I call like the X versus Y. So it's like creating like a this versus that distinction that changes how people think about their choices. And that person I love who does this really well is like Cal Newport. He's got deep work versus shallow work, right? You hear that and you're like, well, wait, what am I doing my whole day?

[A]

Shallow work.

[B]

Oh man, that'd be. There's too much of it. But like immediately it changes your thinking. Immediately you're like, I want that other answer. And these are the types of ideas that I think when you really nail it, this is the type of thing that can make a career. This is the kind of thing that can make a company, but it's really hard to do.

[A]

Like, so like I. Let's say I'm listening to this and I. My company is like a. We make webinar software. There's a million other vendors out there. We charge a little bit more than everybody else, but it's really good. But it's not different, right? It's like, where would you start? Like, obviously it's so high level, but

[B]

yeah, so here's where I would start because this has been What I've been trying to grapple with, it was like, ultimately, like, when I went into doing this work, like, I. So I ran the unignorable challenge with the team at demand curve. 1900 entrepreneurs went through it trying to build an unignorable personal brand. The last exercise was always identify your big idea. And it was the thing that was the hardest and the ones that figured it out, it was the thing that was the catalyst. And I saw, I was like, this is actually what it's all about. All the other stuff that we talked about in that program, 30 days, I'm like, that shit was nice. This is the piece that actually matters the most. And can this actually be broken down and taught in a way that creates impact? I don't freaking know. Because it seems like usually when it happens, there's a bit of magic involved, right?

[A]

Question is it hard? Because in order to have a good one, you have to like, say no to certain things or have a differentiated point of view about like, who are not for.

[B]

It's about saying a thousand good ideas and trying to own a good one. But here's the thing. Like, so when I went into. Started doing this work, so I started doing some work with like our beta clients. I've only like, I'm very new to this. I'm still learning so much. There's like, you might talk to me in a year and I'll have a completely different opinion. But like, at this stage, what I found is like, after, like digging through, trying to do this with five different entrepreneurs, relying on gut, intuition, judgment, which is like, not repertoire. Like, you can't reproduce that like in a meaningful way. I was like, I had this aha moment in the fifth one I was running, and I realized the thing that connects it, the thing you need to do first is you need to help people basically identify their central argument that their ownable idea is built off of. So going back to your webinar example, right? Why in the world would these founders, knowing how competitive the webinar space is, knowing that there's a million different solutions out there, why would they actually decide to get into that game? There's probably some bet that they made some belief that they have about what's wrong with the other solutions, about what the markets deserves and isn't getting, that was foundational to them deciding to go into that game. And what you need to do is you need to dig in and you need to find that. But you don't just find it. And asking the founders, because guess what? The founders aren't going to have the right answer. You need to also map it to what the market wants and what they need to hear. So it's like, what is the founder saying? What does the market want to hear? What's other people saying in the landscape that we can avoid so that there's white space? That's the part that makes it hard. But if you can figure out that central argument, you can, like, build everything on top of it. So, like, I think about you and I was chatting with Aaron on your team in prep for this and like, I was like, what's Dave's central argument? Because, like, I've been following you for a long time and I love the work that you do and there's a few that are like qualifiers. And I'm like. But I think the thing that for me, I remember when he said this, it was like one of those like mind blow moments. And I feel like it's a thread that runs through so much of what you do. And you can tell me straight up if I'm completely wrong about this deal. I think that the central argument for you is that B2B companies should act like media companies. Like, they should pay attention to what's happening outside of B2B. They should put a space in front of you that you actually care about and invest with like a charming character that you can like buy into. They should think about entertaining and not just trying to like ram specs down your throat. Like, I feel like that's something that when I think of Dave, like, that feels like it's key to the work you do. Would you say that that's true?

[A]

I would take that, sure. Hey, it's me, Dave. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Knack. Knack is a no code email and landing page creation platform focused on a problem every marketing team runs into. Have you ever had a really good marketing idea, but then it takes forever to actually ship it out the door? It's usually not because your idea is bad, but because the process in the middle is slow. Briefs, more briefs, approvals, reviews, tiny fixes that somehow turn into weeks and by the time the campaign is finally ready to go out, it barely even looks like what you originally wanted to ship. Yep, that right there, that is the gap that Knack exists to close. Knack is a no code email platform built for modern marketing teams. They have AI built into the platform that lets you prompt ideas and instantly generate on brand email assets so you can create, review QA and launch your email all in the same Place no jumping between tools or messy handoffs halfway through after the email goes live. Knack also gives you performance insights and recommendations so you can see what worked and how you can make the next send better. So if execution is the thing slowing your marketing down or you just want one system that takes you from idea to shipt to learning to improving, you should check out knack. Go to knack.com exit5. That's K N A K.com SL exit5. I can't say that I set out intentionally to do that, but I think if I was to put a rapper, if I were to like, weave the things now, and I think if I were going to go start a new company and build a product, right, we would absolutely trade on that story and use that to tell that story, right? It's like, you know, Zoom, the founder of Zoom, Eric Yuan, he was like, I forget exactly what it was, but he was like the lead engineer at WebEx. And it's like when Zoom came out, everybody had known what video conferencing was. It was just like he was probably at the top of his game and wanted to spin out his own thing and he made his own thing. And that's the reason why you should. They made it better, faster, because the engineer was proven right. It was like in the Drift story, it was like, hey, these guys were part of. The founders of Drift were integral part of building the product at HubSpot. And so therefore they're the perfect guys to rewrite the playbook because they wrote the original one, right? And it's like, you look in the pantry and my kids snacks, it's always like, healthy granola bar. You know, Caitlin was a mom who was fed up with feeding her kids, you know, sugary ingredients. So she created blah, right? It's like that. But I think people listening to this, like, well, I hear you, but like, I work for this, like, you know, cybersecurity company or I work for, you know, manufacturing company in, you know, Cleveland, it's. That doesn't work for me, Caitlin.

[B]

So here's what I would say to them, is that, like, it is really hard to do, but I think it's either gonna happen in one of two ways. It's not gonna happen, which is like, boo woo. Like, that sucks. And you could win without having figured this shit out, but oftentimes when you win big, it's because it's so clear. It's because that message is so compelling and like, there is a way to kind of like reverse engineer your way to this and so, like, again, I talked about, like, you have to think about, like, what is the founder story, but you also have to think about, like, what does the market want to hear? Like, I'm a big buyer psychology nerd, right? And so, like, you start with, like, what does the market's desire, right? Like, what is it that they're trying to achieve? This feels a little bit reminiscent of, like, the whole, like, story brand, like Hero's Journey. It's kind of like a shortened version, but it's like, what's the person actually trying to achieve? Like, what's their desire? What's blocking them? What's the problem? What's your unique insight as a company? Like, what are you going to share that's unique? Like, I remember when you said B2B companies should act like media companies. I was like, that explains so much about why things don't work and it explains so much about what Drift's doing and why.

[A]

I'm sorry for that, by the way. I'm the reason that, like, every SAS company has a podcast. I'm sorry about that. We don't need that.

[B]

But also, thank you because, like, I'm

[A]

sure we don't need that. I'm sorry.

[B]

Those marketers are probably doing a better job because they're actually able to get the founder to talk and to share their genius in a format that it's probably hard to get out of them most of the time because they're so freaking busy.

[A]

All right, side note, usually I have slack open during these conversations because I have like a podcast channel with my team and I'm like, I send the screenshots or I'm writing things you're saying because we're going to come back to it from later. I always get a comment from someone. He's so distracted. But Matt, Matt on my team. This must be because you're Canadian.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

He said, oh, dude, she's awesome. I listened to her on Jay Claus podcast. I love that episode. I regularly. This is no bullshit. I regularly think back to her frameworks. He said, if she hasn't already, you should ask about the chocolate covered almond analogy. So I don't even care if this is a complete break from what we're talking about. Can you please tell me what is the chocolate covered almond analogy?

[B]

So this is basically B2B companies should act like media companies. The idea is that, like, I feel like there's two types of content out there. There is just plain snackable, kind of like pure entertainment. And there is, like very, like, logical, dense value like, in terms of, like, this is how you solve this problem. Specifically, I think the middle ground, what I tried to build with why we buy was a chocolate covered almond, which is something that was like nutrient dense and almonds good for you, you're not going to feel that guilty about it. You get something valuable, but it's tasty and it's fun and you crave it. And like. So I tried to make learning behavioral economics, which is not the most sexy thing, fun. And like I turned it into a chocolate covered almond. And I feel like that's our job as marketers. Depending on what industry you're in, there's no.

[A]

That's a great shit. That actually ends up being a great segue into like what we were just talking about. Because you could be like back to that webinar example. Couldn't. One of the ways you could create your ownable idea here if you lean into the fact that like most webinars are boring, most webinar software is boring, it's clunky. And so we just made a completely different, fun, irreverent way of doing it. And that's why we're different.

[B]

Yeah. And that could be it. Right? And you could talk with these little few features that you might have that you frame in a way that make them the fun webinar. Right? Like this is like the way, like, yeah, it's like you turn it into your chocolate covered almond. Ultimately what you hit on there is that central argument which is like, most webinars are boring, but they shouldn't be because the best converting ones are actually fun. And like, that's an argument that's different, that's unique. Show me that in your marketing. Show me that in your content.

[A]

I like these questions because I think it's like, if you're listening to this, the goal is not to like instantly have one of these ideas. But it's almost like there's like a worksheet here which is like, if you can't answer any of these questions, then you gotta go sit down and figure out your angle. Cause I actually think that's the most realistic outcome is a lot of times people are like, well, we don't have any of these things. Okay, then we got to go back to the drawing board and be strategic. Right?

[B]

But I mean, I want to ask you because like, you've done this inside of multiple companies now. So like, let's look at drift as an example because like, I think that so many of your listeners will understand that, like, what was your process for Pulling out of the team what you needed to help them shape that story that was so successful.

[A]

I had the best setup ever. This is unfair. I. David, who was the founder and CEO, my boss, was, like, a super genius at marketing.

[B]

That is a nice advantage.

[A]

And so everything I learned, I learned from him. Fact, fact. You know, I've obviously, like, innovated, you know, taken some of that stuff, and it's shaped who I am. But he. And I think this is why it can't be faked. He genuinely. Both of them, the founders, David and Elias, were like, they didn't see the company. To them, like, the product roadmap and strategy was marketing. And any great founder, like, understands this. It's not an afterthought. And so it's like, the product, okay? They had a strong point of view on, like, the type of company that they wanted to create in a particular category, what they wanted to disrupt, which brands they liked, how they wanted to do it. And I just got to be there and, like, soak it all in and execute it. And so my ultimate, like, meta lesson there is, like, I think the founder needs to have a strong point of view on marketing, because marketing is not just promotion and, like, which ads you're gonna run. Like, marketing is a fundamental piece of the DNA of a successful business. Dave Kellogg at our event. I want to try to look this up really quick. He had this quote from Peter Drucker quote, Peter Drucker quote about marketing. And I had never known that. Peter, do you know this quote?

[B]

I know a bunch of his, but I don't know if this is marketing.

[A]

One business has only two basic functions, marketing and innovation.

[B]

And he said that back then, like, how much more true does that.

[A]

This was in 1954. But he basically. I'll find the quote later. But the point is basically, like, marketing is literally everything the customer touches and sees. So, you know, back then in the 50s, that was different, but today, that's your website. How people interact with your, you know, customer service team, how they show up at an event. And I think those guys just believed in that from the beginning. And so I think the real thing is, like, if you want to compete and win and see marketing as an opportunity, like play offense with your company, then it needs to be taken seriously at the founder level. And then everything that I've learned From doing Exit 5 and all my last companies is I realized, like, that's actually the. That's the 99 of it. All the other stuff that we argue about online, about attribution and MQLs and this and that, and it's nonsense. It's all solved by, like, that. And that's why I'm really relating to this idea of ownable idea.

[B]

I love this. Like, I've been thinking, I have this post I want to write about how, you know how they say that people's dogs come to look like them. Like, I think that, like, people, like, if you look at the most iconic companies in history and then you look at the founders, like, they're shadows of the founders. Like, you look at Jobs like, you know, he was a calligraphy nerd and he bought very few things, but when he did, they were exceptionally beautiful. And, like, you look at, like, Elon Musk, like, he's kind of a big child, and there's like a fart sound in the car. Like, these are like, absolutely.

[A]

Look at Toby at Shopify is another good example. I don't really have a design example of this, but just the way he writes, I feel like that has.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Found it.

[B]

Basecamp, right? Like. Like, you can see the fingerprints of the founders all over it. And, like, for your listeners who are at companies right now, like, if there's a founder that doesn't want to. That doesn't have big thinking on the problem, the space that they're in, like, that's like a you should run kind of scenario. And I don't hate to say that because, like, but the reality is, like, you've got to have strong opinions on why you're doing what you're doing and how it's why now and why you. And, like, if that's not there and that's not clear and it's not coming from the top, marketing can't fix that. Marketing can extract that when it's unclear. Because it's often unclear. Yes.

[A]

Would that be the most realistic, like, action item from this conversation? Like, maybe there are founders that are listening. Okay, I got to go work on that. I sharpen that. If it's not you, you. You know, you talk about how the marketing team's job should be to get it out of them. Is that one of the takeaways here? Like, if I'm listening this, and I'm

[B]

a marketer 100% and the marketing shop is to take it out of. Because here's the other thing, and I'm sure we've all experienced this in our own life, I am a huge believer in what I call the experts paradox, which is this idea that, like, when you are too close to your own thinking, it doesn't feel that novel or interesting to you, and therefore you might have, like, this brilliance in you, and you don't even think to share it because it's just so commonplace. So you've got these founders, like, if they're not spouting off wisdom all of the time, it's not because it's not there. It's because it's not being mined properly. And they don't actually see it. Like, it's like, what is this saying? The cobbler's son has no shoes. Right. Like, we just don't see our own brilliance in a way that allows us to capture it well. And that's why having a team and a marketer who can actually go in and kind of extract that. Like, I remember when you were doing Drift, you had the podcast with Dave and you would just go and, like, pull good stuff out of him all day long. Right? Stuff that he probably wouldn't think to share because for him, he's like, oh, doesn't everybody do it this way? No, you're effing genius. Like, not everyone thinks about it that way.

[A]

Well, also, I think just like, anything that seems obvious to you is usually nobody else has the guts to say it or share it. And so it's like, sure, it might be obvious, like, you read that book, but, like, you know, you're the only one talking about it.

[B]

So

[A]

what else?

[B]

So, I mean, I think that when it comes down to this stuff, at the end of the day, like, my belief is that we have to be very deliberate, as you believe, like, you have to be very deliberate with the space you want to own in the minds of your target audience. And I think now with, like, AI generated content, like, there's always a lot of noise. Like, it's just exponential noise now. And so I think it takes guts to say, like, this is the thing we want to own. And most teams don't want to say that because it's scary and they'd rather change it every couple of months and they'd rather, like, you know, like, oh, like this competitor said this. So we're going to make this slight adjustment. But it's like, you really need to have the conviction to say, like, we believe in this and we're going to go deep in this. Yeah, we're going to listen to the market. Yeah. If it's not working, we're going to be open to changing, but, like, let it have a chance to work too. Which I think a lot of leaders don't give marketers the chance to do.

[A]

Yeah, that's a good piece of advice because it's hard because it's not always obvious. And so it's not like, eureka, we got this. This is the name, this is the idea. You kind of have to feel, like, pretty strong about it. Then you have to go out there and kind of test it in different ways. But I think you have to in the drift examples, like we were testing messages, but the core idea was never going to change. I think today too many companies can become guilty of just, like, too quickly changing the whole thing. It's, you know, I did it when

[B]

I was building my tech company. Pivoting was like, celebrated. Right? Like, I remember telling people, I was like, well, you know that, like, Instagram started as like a gaming thing. Like, it was just like, it was so easy to go like, oh, this isn't working right away. And I understand that because, like, when you have a limited Runway, or like, in my case, like, when we were starting, like, I was paying my dev team out of my own pocket. Yeah, you need to work. And, like, that's a lot of pressure that founders are under, and therefore their teams are under a lot of pressure too. But at the same time, nothing will ever work if you keep jumping.

[A]

Okay, so we want people to think about this ownable idea. Is there a resource, anybody? If I want to go work on this? If I want to, like, give like a Mad Libs or something, like, how can I go sit down and dedicate? Do I just go for a walk in the forest and think about what my ownable idea is? How can I make this happen?

[B]

So you could read our newsletter? Because, like, in the newsletter, like, we're breaking down all the time. Like, we're sharing the different components.

[A]

Yeah. What is it? How does somebody get it?

[B]

So it's beunignignorable.com you go to beyondignorable.com and you'll be on the signup page for the newsletter. At this stage, that's what exists because we're in the weeds, kind of like doing the work with clients. And so we're not. Actually, there's not. I'm not teaching all the methodology because I'm figuring it out as we go. And this is the reality, too, that I think a lot of people are afraid to say. It's like there are answers that I don't have yet because it's going to take a number of reps for me to be able to see. Yeah, I can tell you that's the way to do it, because I've done it a few times, and that's come out of it that way. So, like, right now, I'm very much in, like, that, like, honeymoon phase of, like, I've figured this out, like, for five clients. I helped them find it. It wasn't repeatable until the last one. And I'm hoping that I'm going to go into this and make it repeatable again. So I can't tell you what exactly the process looks like. What I can tell you is think about any company that has been a breakthrough success. Think about any individual thought leader that you aspire to be like, and you can see that they have one. And if that's a reality, it's like, you're like, these people have these ownable ideas. It's clear to me what they're about. Then you should probably take it seriously yourself. Right?

[A]

I like that. Okay. You as a creator, as somebody trying to. Now you're more focused on the client side. So maybe your newsletter isn't as big a deal. But you spend time on X, you spend time on LinkedIn. I've seen you on podcasts and videos. What's working for you right now and how are you spending your time when it comes to social media?

[B]

Good question. I would say what's working for me is like finding this way of saying the same thing a thousand times, because that's how it moves. And so for me, it's like, now that I know what my ownable idea is, right? I know, like, what my central argument is, and I'm really clear on that. It's like, I built this thing, which could be helpful for some of your listeners, because we're always told, like, say the same thing a thousand times. But how do you do that? For me, I like, there's this thing called the authority flywheel, which is basically, if you talk about the problem that you're solving, you share your point of view on the problem, you share the big promise that people are going to get from working with you, from using your software, and you share the proof, and you do that consistently. And it's all wrapped around your ownable idea. That allows you to kind of get traction, and that allows you to kind of really start building momentum. And so for me, what's been working is just that, like, I create all my content, I know what my center is, and because I'm clear on my center, everything else just is more impactful. And so I'd say that finding that center and committing to it is what's working for me.

[A]

I like that. Do you have a goal? Do you try to publish a certain amount of time post per week or are you just like creating when something comes to you?

[B]

So I have like, I've got like a. I don't know how you do your creative stuff. I feel like everybody wants there to be this like incredible system that's so easy for me.

[A]

Well, you almost have a hundred thousand followers on LinkedIn. And someone once told me, if you have a hundred thousand followers on LinkedIn, you might as well be Mr. Beast. So like you basically made it.

[B]

Well, you have how many?

[A]

Oh, I don't know, like 197,000 something.

[B]

So you're like Mr. Beast.

[A]

Who's counting?

[B]

Yeah, but like, for me, I like when an idea comes to me, I go for a walk every morning. I think I use that time to think as opposed to like always consume. And I have a Claude project. What I use, like to help me co create and like create content. And I like just drop the idea. Then I'm like, this is what I'm thinking. This is like the angle. And I use those four lenses of like, okay, this is a problem post. I just like saw somebody post with us. I want to share my point of view on it. And it's not this big systematic thing. I remember I was chatting with Sahil Bloom's COO and like, I was like, tell me about like the backend system. Like, how are you guys doing content? How do you play it? And he's like, he just writes anything so it that day. And like, nobody wants to admit that a lot more of that happens than we want there to be this like brilliant system. But oftentimes it's like when it comes to true thought leadership stuff, and it's like, this is my thinking. It comes to you in the moment. You just like share it because you're.

[A]

Which is like, that's the whole thing. Going back to this ownable idea thing that was also a key thing from like the drift stage. I think so much of those good messaging and positioning ideas, they didn't come like, Caitlin and I weren't like meeting and having like a brainstorm session. It just was like you talk about it at work and then you just go away and then you're on a walk in the woods and like, bam. Oh, it hits you like, you have to, you know, we have to remember this is a creative pursuit. I think you have to give yourself space for that. So it's nice to hear it. Nice to hear. I'm not alone there.

[B]

I think, like, and I posted about this today, like, I was just thinking about Andrew Chen's like, Law of Shitty Clickthroughs. Like, the one thing that I keep thinking, I want to share this with your marketing audience because I feel like they're probably at the stage where I am, like, I am feeling overwhelmed by all the change from AI. And the thing that I keep going back to is I'm like, I fundamentally believe, and maybe this is just like confirmation bias, but, like, I fundamentally believe that marketing is going to be even more important in these coming years and that the marketers that like, really like, just commit and like, dive in. Like, because things are going to speed up so quickly. Like the things that work, the lob, shitty clicker. Like, this rate at which something stops working is going to be so much faster. But guess what that means? It means that the creative people get to set what the next thing is and the next thing and the next thing. So we're still going to be important. We're not all going to be somebody's Mac Minis that they're running OpenClaw on and their whole marketing team is like, fired. I really think that marketers have a huge opportunity to win in this future and that this is our time, really. I think there was a long time at tech. You've worked in tech for a long time. I worked in tech for a long time. I think that there was a long time where marketers were like this second class citizen and everyone just thought you just layered it on and if you actually had to do marketing, your company was doing something wrong. There was very much a stigma around marketing. I think that now we're going to be the MVPs and that the companies that see that are going to win and the companies that don't aren't. And so like, yay for us.

[A]

Well, that's good because my whole entire YouTube feed is how everybody replaced their marketing team with Claude Code. So I, I hope you're right.

[B]

All right, Caitlyn trying to rake up the ad revenue, right?

[A]

Yeah, Fair. Also fair. Whatever. Nas said, it's a dirty game. Is any man worthy of fame? I guess.

[B]

There you go.

[A]

Anyway, it's great to have you on. Thank you for coming and sharing this. Caitlyn Burgoyne. Check her out. She's on LinkedIn. Check out her newsletter, send her a message and be like, yo, I need some help thinking about my. My ownable idea. How does this sound? And I love it. It makes me think, like, what is the. You know, I think sometimes I get too caught up in, am I using this positioning framework versus this and this. And then it's like the concept of an ownable idea is good and bring me back to the no forms roots. So great to see you. Thanks for coming on.

[B]

Good to see you, Dave.

[A]

Hopefully first of more conversations in it.

[B]

Absolutely. Thank you.

[A]

Hey, thanks for listening to this podcast. If you like this episode. You know what, I'm not even going to ask you to subscribe and leave a review because I don't really care about that. I have something better for you. So we've built the number one private community for B2B marketers at exit 5. And you can go and check that out. Instead of leaving a rating or review, go check it out right now on our website exit5.com our mission at Exit 5 is to help you grow your career in B2B marketing. And there's no better place to do that than with us at exit 5. There's nearly 5,000 members now in our community. People are in there posting every day, asking questions about things like marketing, planning, ideas, inspiration, asking questions and getting feedback from your peers. Building your own network of marketers who are doing the same thing you are so you can have a peer group or maybe just venting about your boss when you need to get in there and get something off your chest. It's 100% free to join for seven days, so you can go and check it out risk free. And then there's a small annual fee to pay if you want to become a member for the year. Go check it out. Learn more exit5.com and I will see you over there in the community. Today's episode is brought to you by Converter. They're an enterprise lead data management platform. If you're running marketing at a large B2B company, like many of you listening right now, are you know this problem well. Leads come in from LinkedIn, webinars, events, content, and the data is a mess because one form captures job title, another one doesn't. One says United States, another one says usa. By the time it hits, your CRM, records are incomplete, fields don't match, and your routing is broken before the lead ever touches a sales rep. It's annoying. And now that everyone's plugging AI into their tech stack, bad data isn't just an inconvenience, it's actually a real liability because AI is going to scale whatever you feed it feedback, feed it garbage, it's going to scale garbage. Converter is the layer that sits between your lead sources and your systems. With Converter, every lead gets validated enriched and standardized before it touches your CRM or marketing automation. This gives you clean data every single time. Companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle and Stripe use Converter today. So if you're dealing with this, you're not alone, and there's a great fix. You can check out Converter right now at converter IO exit 5. That's C O N V E R T R IO exit 5 converter IO exit 5.