The Chord Commerce Guide to Category Creation: Building a Commerce Data Platform Category

Creating a new market category isn’t just about having innovative technology – it’s about recognizing a fundamental shift in how an industry operates. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Bryan Mahoney shared how Chord Commerce identified and defined the commerce data platform category by challenging conventional wisdom about what brands really need.

Identifying the Category Opportunity

While most commerce platforms focused on storefront experiences and checkout optimization, Chord saw a deeper need. As Bryan explains: “Each one of these apps creates a data silo that makes it increasingly difficult for you to have a really holistic view of your entire customer.”

This observation led to a crucial insight: the future of commerce wasn’t just about better storefronts – it was about better data infrastructure.

Evolving the Category Definition

Chord’s category definition evolved through multiple iterations. Bryan notes: “Recently, we have decided to focus almost exclusively on that latter part, the commerce data platform, where we’re more agnostic to your storefront technology and your order management system or commerce back office technology.”

Challenging Industry Assumptions

A key part of category creation is challenging established industry beliefs. Bryan takes aim at a common one: “There’s sort of like this fascination around attribution, like pixel perfect attribution… It’s kind of like a false promise. It’s about showing up consistently where your customer is and giving them a really great product and a great experience.”

Educating the Market

Rather than pushing point solutions, Chord focused on educating brands about fundamental changes in commerce. As Bryan observes: “Nothing makes me laugh more than when people like say direct to consumer is dead. I’m like, direct to consumer is just getting started. If you’re not collecting great data, if you’re not leveraging your own channels to learn more about your customers, then you’re going to be left behind.”

Defining the Ideal Customer

Category creation requires clear definition of who needs your solution most. Bryan describes their ideal customer as “brands that want to connect with their customers and deliver these differentiated experiences… brands that want to collect first party data, that want to have all of their first party data in one place.”

Building with Early Adopters

Instead of trying to convince the entire market at once, Chord focused on forward-thinking brands. Bryan advises: “Find some brands that are willing to build with you… we did that and having some credible logos, having some feedback, having some real life customers on the platform made it an awful lot easier for us to bring it to market.”

The Future Vision

Successful category creation requires a compelling vision of the future. Bryan sees commerce becoming “increasingly everywhere” and “increasingly experiential.” This vision shapes how Chord positions its platform and educates the market.

Key Category Creation Lessons

1. Start with a Fundamental Insight Don’t just identify feature gaps – look for fundamental shifts in how your industry operates.
2. Challenge Industry Orthodoxy Be willing to question established practices and beliefs that no longer serve current market needs.
3. Focus Your Category Definition Be prepared to narrow your category focus as you learn what resonates most with customers.
4. Build with Believers Find early customers who share your vision and can help validate your category.

For B2B founders creating new categories, Chord’s experience suggests that success comes not from immediately trying to convince everyone, but from clearly articulating a fundamental shift in the market and building momentum with forward-thinking customers who recognize that shift.

As Bryan puts it: “I just don’t think you can build a great and durable brand without doing that.” The key to category creation isn’t just having a different solution – it’s helping the market understand why the old way of doing things no longer works.