Problem-First Content: How to Build a Category Through Search Intent

Start With the Problem, Not the Category

“When we started 2019, no one was going into Google and searching for identity orchestration,” Eric explains. Instead, customers were searching for their specific challenges: “What they were doing is they were searching for their problem.”

This insight led Strata to focus their early content on addressing tactical challenges: “How to manage two identity providers. We use Okta and we use Microsoft. How do we make them work together?”

The Long Game of Content Authority

Building category authority through content requires patience. “The long play that I would recommend to every founder is to get your content search engine optimized,” Eric advises. But this isn’t about quick wins – it’s about consistent value creation over time.

“Over a long, many years of time, you start to build authority in that space,” Eric notes. “So that now when you do a search for identity orchestration, you’re going to find my company strata, at the top of the list. And we don’t pay Google for that.”

Research as Content Foundation

Strata’s content strategy is deeply rooted in customer research. Their “State of Multicloud” report began as customer development questions and evolved into a powerful content asset. “The way it started was customer development, right. We were trying to build inventory of the concerns that people have with multi cloud,” Eric explains.

This research-first approach provides:

• Data-driven content fuel
• Peer comparison value for readers
• Credibility with analysts and media
• Longitudinal market insights

The Value of Evergreen Problem-Solving

Some of Strata’s most successful content was created years ago. “One of the most popular pieces of content is something I wrote back in 2020, and we get a lot of hits and people coming to our website,” Eric shares. This longevity comes from focusing on fundamental problems rather than trending topics.

Beyond SEO: Building a Content Moat

While SEO is important, Eric emphasizes that it can’t be the only driver: “We don’t pay it. In a search engine marketing standpoint, our budgets, there are next to nothing.” Instead, the focus is on creating content that genuinely helps solve customer problems.

The ROI of Patient Content

This approach has created significant business value. “Typically for every hundred applications that you secure with orchestration, you’re going to save anywhere from seven point five to fifteen million dollars,” Eric notes. But communicating this value proposition required first helping customers understand their problems.

Content Evolution Strategy

Strata’s content strategy evolved through several stages:

1. Problem Documentation “We spent almost whole year just interviewing companies and say hey, what were your biggest problems?”
2. Solution Exploration “We’re really focusing and winnowing down the focus of what we’re doing, bringing to market the product expands, but our message contracts.”
3. Category Definition “We’ve really oriented our go to market message around a very concrete, tangible set of value propositions, solving very tactical things.”

The AI Challenge

Eric sees parallels between today’s AI hype and previous tech waves: “What I see there is a lot of what we saw in the nineties, where people are now just saying whatever the business problem may be, and they’re going to throw some AI onto it, as if that somehow makes it a good thing, and it doesn’t.”

This perspective reinforces the importance of focusing on real problems rather than trendy solutions.

Practical Implementation Steps

1. Start with Customer Language Document exactly how customers describe their problems, not how you describe your solution.
2. Create Problem-Focused Content Write content that addresses specific challenges before introducing category terminology.
3. Build Authority Through Consistency “It’s really one of those things that the more content that you can create, and it doesn’t have to be expensive, long form content or just maybe five or six paragraphs.”
4. Use Research as Foundation Let customer research guide content creation rather than keyword volumes alone.
5. Focus on Value Documentation “We also have gotten a lot of success working with making business cases legitimate.”

For founders creating new categories, the lesson is clear: start with customer problems, not category definitions. By building content that helps customers solve real challenges, you create the foundation for category ownership. As Eric’s experience shows, the path to category leadership begins with understanding and addressing the specific problems that drive customer searches.