Founder Reading List for Category Design
A short list of essays and books that sharpen positioning before launch messaging hardens.
Category design is easier to discuss than to practice. This reading list is curated to help founders sharpen the difference between a product story, a market story, and the narrative wedge that lets a new company feel inevitable.
The goal is not volume. A short set of texts read carefully can improve positioning more than a large archive of generic startup advice, especially when the team is still deciding what it wants customers to repeat back.
Use the list as a working session input, not a passive library. After each reading, rewrite the company's problem statement, enemy, and promise in one sentence and compare where the language still sounds interchangeable.