We recently hosted a workshop as part of our Nauta Collective series, bringing together founders from our community for Operator-led sessions which focus on common challenges faced by B2B software startups.

This session was focused on 'The Art of Positioning'. Positioning is one of those vague, fluffy terms that feels hard to define - but it's actually very simple. ​It's about taking a position so you can attract the right customers who instantly recognise you're the right fit for them. At least, that was the perspective of our host - Katy Turner.  

Katy is an exited founder, CMO, product leader, VC and angel. She's worked with hundreds of startups to grow brands and maintain culture, tell stories and shape vision, raise rounds, funds and hype. ​She guided us through the definition of brand; the company design stack; the difference between purpose, mission and vision; and how all of this affects our positioning to customers, investors, and talent.

The company design stack

Much like software companies have technology stacks which power their product, Katy’s view is that brand all starts from and is powered by ‘the company design stack’. The company’s mission, purpose, vision provides a foundational layer to define how we do things, who our customers are, and how we speak to them.  

This in turn feeds our value propositions for each audience type and ultimately defines the company’s go to market practices. Only by clearly setting the mission, purpose and vision can a founding or leadership team empower the whole organisation to successfully sing from the same hymn sheet and grow in the right direction.

What is the difference between mission, purpose and vision?

Although intrinsically linked and with similarities in terms of guiding the company, these are three distinct foundational areas for a startup and its leadership team to build upon. They are the equivalent to your backend in tech terms.  

Katy emphasised that it’s important to regularly review each area in a sensible time frame (2-3 years) as market dynamics might cause you to pivot the company, which might mean an altered PMV and therefore, different positioning.  

• Purpose: the reason for existence. The one true north. Why you do it. Helps to build culture, shape communications and forge community.

• Mission: the measurable ambition. With a clear end point. What you’re doing. Sets the strategy, operate the business, agree objectives.

• Vision: the promised land. The future you want to create. Where you’re going. Imagine the future, long-term thinking, ensure alignment.

It is worth recognising that the purpose and the vision are typically things which we’re comfortable sharing publicly, whether to customers, investors or talent. But usually the mission is an internal (often including investors) ambition.

How does all this feed into positioning and value proposition?

Once you have settled on the purpose, mission and vision of your company, it feeds directly into your positioning and your value propositions to different audiences. Positioning, simply put, is all about taking a position. That position informs the customer of whether you’re the right supplier for them.

In a competitive B2B software market, the danger is that customers see you as just another provider, only selecting software based on the price or on relationships / trust with someone in the sales team.  

This is why your positioning becomes so important. It enables you to stand out amongst your competitors and gives the customer a reason to say “that’s the product / solution / software partner for me”. Whether they’re aligned with your view of the incumbents, your future vision or just your contrarian messaging / marketing, the best positioning wins customers on your behalf (wouldn’t that be nice!).

It is important to note that the degree to which you need to stand out is subjective.  

Take the four examples below:

B2C

1. Innocent: In a highly competitive space (fruit juice) it needed to stand out and be different to the existing products. So, they produced totally unique branding and bottle shapes (with accompanying bobble hat).  

2. Kindle: On the flipside, to avoid being too far from the product that people have known and loved for centuries (books), they launched something which looked as much like a book as possible.  

B2B

1. Salesforce: Ran a now infamous campaign in 2000 declaring ‘the end of software’, promoting the use of cloud-based accessed via a web browser, as opposed to installing a solution on a server. Instead of simply launching an online CRM, they led a market-shaking campaign which drew lots of attention (and they won!).  

2. Notion: In more recent times, Notion has been really successful with its billboard ads (typically reserved for B2C products) with simple, clean messaging and nice cartoon graphics, reflective of the simplicity of the product itself.  Despite being in a space which you might consider boring and competitive, Notion found a way to stand out through excellent positioning.

How do you put this into practice?

Katy’s advice for the best place to start is with the founding team. Getting together to answer some of the fundamental questions surrounding the company’s mission, purpose and vision, gives you a very solid foundation (the backend) on which to build.

Some of those questions: What do we do, make or provide? Who do we do it for? How do we do it? What are the benefits? What don’t we do? What makes us special? What is our measurable ambition? What does the promised land look like? Why do we exist?

In answering these questions (which should be revisited after 2-3 years), you create internal alignment and can build a team / community / investor base which believes in your business.

You can find Katy on LinkedIn and if you want to be involved in future Nauta Collective workshops please contact a Nauta team member or email info@nautacapital.com.