Being a category of one sounds daunting because we *think* it requires some singular world-class superpower. My idea is that it doesn't, and at the end of this post I'll give you an exercise you can run today. The key concept here is that you gotta find rareness at the intersection of 3-4 common skills. Practical example: > A great coder is common > A great coder who understands behavioral economics is rare > A great coder who understands behavioral economics and the specific regulatory hurdles of the healthcare industry is a category of one. When you combine these layers, you create a logic that your competitors cannot follow without dismantling their own business models. They might be better coders, or better economists, or better compliance officers, but they cannot be that specific combination. A lot of people try to build a "solution" and then go looking for a problem. I try to consistently do the opposite. Every complex problem has a specific jagged shape. Standard industry solutions are usually round: they are designed to fit as many holes as possible. They leave gaps. You need instead to look at the jagged edges of the client's specific pain and assemble your capabilities to fit that exact geometry. Admittedly, it doesn't always work... The "secret" to being the only is the willingness to be the wrong choice for almost everyone else. Incidentally, a book I gift to every new analyst I hire is "The Courage to be disliked": if you haven't read it, you should. Differentiation tries to please the whole market while being slightly different, but a category of one is designed to be perfect for a specific problem and useless for everything else. This isn't actually harder than traditional competition. In fact, I believe it's easier! Competing to be "better" is an endless (and frankly exhausting) treadmill. Instead, building a category of one is simply a matter of looking at your existing tools and *deciding* to arrange them in a way that solves a problem no one else is willing to touch. Do this exercise. Look at your own set of skills or your organization's assets: which 2 or 3 "standard" capabilities do you have that, if forced together, would make your competitors uncomfortable? Start from there. Let me know.
