── ── Cognitive bias
Positioning — Make It Obviously Awesome (Dunford)
Positioning (April Dunford, Obviously Awesome, 2019) is the context you set so customers instantly understand why your product is great for them. Most weak positioning comes from anchoring to the category you were built in rather than the one where you win. Positioning is deliberate and componentized — not a tagline, but the frame that makes your strengths obvious.
Run Positioning — Make It Obviously Awesome (Dunford) on a real problem
Bring something you're actually deciding — free, in the browser.
How it works
1. List competitive alternatives — what customers would truly use if you didn't exist (often a spreadsheet or nothing, not a named rival). 2. Isolate your unique attributes — features/capabilities the alternatives lack. 3. Map attributes to value — the benefit each attribute delivers. 4. Find who cares a lot — the segment for whom that value is critical (your best-fit customers). 5. Choose the market frame — the category/context in which your value is obvious. Gate: if the default category makes you look like a weak "me-too," pick a frame where your strengths lead. 6. (Optional) layer a trend the market already cares about, honestly. 7. Capture it so sales, site, and onboarding all tell the same story. Gate: if sales and website position differently, you have none.
When to use it
- a product is 'a better X' but nobody gets it
- 'people don't understand what we do', weak conversion despite a good product, choosing a category/competitive frame
- naming what you are
When not to use it
positioning is already clear and validated and the task is execution, not repositioning.
Worked example
Positioning — Make It Obviously Awesome (Dunford)
Positioning (April Dunford, Obviously Awesome, 2019) is the context you set so customers instantly understand why your product is great for them. Most weak positioning comes from anchoring to the category you were built in rather than the one where you win. Positioning is deliberate and componentized — not a tagline, but the frame that makes your strengths obvious.
Install this skill (free, MIT)
npx skills add deciqAI/knowledge-skillsUseful? Star the repo — stars help other builders find it.
Related mental models
Price is a structural decision, not a calculated number.
Most reasoning is binary: will it happen, or won't it?
The Red Queen Effect: competitors must continuously improve just to maintain relative position — because everyone else is improving simultaneously.
The representativeness heuristic is judging probability by how closely something resembles a prototype — overriding actual base rates.