Why 'We're the X for Y' Fails

The lazy default is borrowing someone else's position: we're Uber for dogs, Slack for doctors. It feels clever because it transfers instant understanding. It also transfers everything else: the anchor company's feature expectations, pricing norms, and competitors.

Worse, it positions you as a derivative. If you're the X for Y, then X is the real thing and you're the copy, and the moment X notices your niche, your story evaporates.

Dunford's broader point is that default positioning of any kind, whether borrowed or inherited from your first product idea, quietly caps you. The market that made sense at the prototype stage is often the wrong frame for what the product became. Positioning should be revisited like any other strategic decision, not treated as a birthmark.