Three Styles: Head-On, Big Fish, New Game

With components in hand, you choose one of three ways to play. Head-on: enter an existing category and claim you're the better choice on the criteria buyers already use. It works when you can genuinely win those criteria, and it usually takes serious resources, because the leader defined the rules you're now playing by.

Big fish, small pond: enter an existing category but dominate a sub-segment the leader underserves, accounting software but for construction firms. You accept a smaller pond in exchange for being the obvious choice inside it. This is Dunford's default recommendation for startups: the category's tailwind without fighting the giant head-on.

Create a new game: declare a category that didn't exist. The prize is defining the rules yourself; the price is teaching the market a problem and a solution simultaneously, which is slow and expensive. It only makes sense when no existing frame fits and you have the resources to educate a market.