Say you’re a 200-person startup going head-to-head with companies that have 40,000+ employees, unlimited budgets, and decades of brand recognition. There’s no way you can compete in the market, right? Wrong.
According to Adam Greco, Product Evangelist at Hightouch, you just need a different playbook to compete.
We recently welcomed Adam to our Best Story Wins podcast for a chat about how to navigate a new space when you’re the little guy on the block. Hightouch has barely over 200 employees, yet they’re competing with behemoths like Adobe and Salesforce in the customer data platform space. Even more impressive? They didn’t just enter an existing category; they created an entirely new one called “composable CDP.”
If you’ve ever felt outgunned by bigger competitors or wondered how to break through with limited resources, Adam’s advice is exactly what you’ll want to hear. After 25+ years helping organizations make the most of their data, he’s seen what works and what doesn’t when it comes to punching above your weight. Not only are his suggestions spot-on but they’re a great reminder that making an impact in the market (or creating a new category) doesn’t require a multi-million dollar investment—just a shift in mindset.
3 Ways to Compete With Giants When You’re the Underdog
From bold campaigns to relentless education, here are the strategies that help startups break through.
1) Be bold enough to piss people off.
“You gotta play bigger than you are. You gotta be bold,” Adam says. “It’s okay to put things out there that might be a little controversial, as long as you can back it up.”
When Hightouch was getting started, they launched a campaign that was pretty gutsy. The tagline? “Friends Don’t Let Friends Buy A CDP.” This seemed counterintuitive because Hightouch is a CDP vendor.
But they weren’t saying don’t buy customer data platforms at all. They were drawing a line in the sand between old-fashioned CDPs (where you send data to a packaged solution) and their new composable approach (where you work off a warehouse and choose which features you need).
Did it piss off some of the incumbents like Adobe and Salesforce? Probably. But it got Hightouch’s name out there and made people pay attention. When you’re small, playing it safe means staying invisible. Sometimes you need to be willing to make waves.
Tip: Look for ways to challenge conventional thinking in your space. What “truths” does everyone accept that might actually be outdated? What bold stance can you take that’s defensible and different? Just make sure you can back it up with real substance. Controversy for controversy’s sake won’t help you long-term.
2) Give relentlessly before you ask for anything.
The real cheat code for breaking through? Educational content. Lots of it.
“Give in order to get,” Adam says. That is the best way to cultivate a strong relationship with your audience. For Hightouch, education is everything. Adam published 23 blog posts in his first six months there, and that just scratches the surface.
“You have to educate them on what’s happening in the market,” Adam says. “We put so much educational content out there. Companies who’ve never heard of Hightouch will read one of my blog posts, then they’ll start seeing the name over and over again, and then they’ll inquire.”
This educational approach does two things.
- First, it positions you as a trusted expert who understands the space deeply.
- Second, it creates a compounding effect. Each piece of content builds on the last, and suddenly you’re everywhere people are looking for information.
But this content can’t be thinly veiled sales pitches. It has to be genuinely useful, even if people never buy from you. That’s what builds the trust you need to compete with established players.
Tip: Commit to a consistent content cadence that educates your audience on the bigger shifts happening in your industry. Write about the problems you’re solving, not just your product. Share what you’re seeing in conversations with customers. Over time, this positions you as the go-to voice in your space, which is exactly what you need when creating a category.
3) Only create categories that are truly different.
Adam acknowledges that category creation is really tough, but it’s not impossible. Here’s where a lot of startups get it wrong: They try to create a category just for the sake of differentiation. But that’s backwards.
“Category creation requires the new category to be truly different,” Adam says. And he means fundamentally different, not just incrementally better.
For Hightouch, the distinction was clear. Traditional CDPs require you to send your data to their system and store it there. Composable CDPs let you work with the data you’ve already stored in cloud warehouses like Snowflake or Databricks. That’s not a minor tweak. It’s a fundamental architectural difference that translates into real benefits: implementations that take days or weeks instead of years, lower costs, and no need to duplicate your data.
But even if you do have a truly unique category, once your brand stakes claim, legacy vendors will try to co-opt it. They’ll claim they’ve always offered what you’re pioneering (even if they’ve spent the first two years dismissing it as stupid).
That’s why you need to be crystal clear about what makes your approach different, and keep hammering that distinction home. In short, don’t let incumbents muddy the waters.
Tip: Before you go all-in on category creation, ask yourself: Is this truly different, or is it just a new way of describing the same thing? If it’s truly different, document that distinction clearly and make it central to everything you communicate. And be prepared to defend that distinction as incumbents try to blur the lines.
Your Next Steps to Stand Out From the Crowd
Category creation isn’t easy, and it’s not fast. But if you’re willing to be bold, educate relentlessly, and back up your claims with substance, you can carve out space—even against massive competitors.
Here’s how to keep the momentum going:
- Build your content strategy. Educational content is your competitive advantage. Use our B2B marketing strategy toolkit to document your approach and create content that establishes your expertise.
- Push creative boundaries. B2B doesn’t have to be boring. Check out our tips to brainstorm bold content that stands out and pushes the envelope.
- Learn from other category creators. See how brands like Zendesk master B2B marketing and Freestyle stands out in crowded markets to get inspiration for your own approach.
Want to hear more from Adam? He shares fascinating insights about using tools like Gong to mine customer conversations for content ideas, why he’s soured on SEO after decades in the space, and how PetSmart is using AI to personalize marketing for complex customer-pet-product relationships. Listen to his full episode on the Best Story Wins podcast, and subscribe for more expert tips from marketing leaders who are winning hearts, minds, and market share.
