Confessions of a serial billion $ category creator

One of the last sessions at SaaStock18 was a bonus chat that brought a double dose of Canadian accents - April Dunford, the world’s foremost expert on positioning sat for a conversation with Mark Organ, CEO and founder of Influitive. Even though they spoke at 4;20 on the day weed was legalised in Toronto, the topic they covered on the day was slightly different - category creation. On this week’s episode we are bringing you their entire chat.

Category creation had been coming up again and again during the two days of the conference. It’s something that Mark, who has started 7 companies in his career, two of which category creators, is all too familiar with. His first one was Eloqua, which he founded 20 years ago and the second is his current company, Influitive, which he started 8 years ago. In their conversation, April and Mark talk about the origin story of each, to what extend Mark realized he was creating categories at the time, how he sold the idea to funders and customers, and many other. Both agree just how difficult category creation is and why you need to be built for the ordeal it would take.

Mark and April also touch on the subject of the future of marketing and where the industry as a whole is going.

Both Mark and April will be returning to Dublin, for SaaStock19. There, they will be joined by SaaS thought leaders such as Claire Hughes Johnson, COO, Stripe, Leela Srinivasan, CMO, Survey Monkey, Kathryn Petralia, COO, Kabbage, and Girish Mathrubootham, CEO, Freshworks. Grab a ticket now at the best possible price.

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