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The Evolution of Perception Markets: Schelling Point Companies, Reality Ratios, & Narrative Receptacles

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The best startups in emerging categories often act as Narrative Schelling Points. We can call these, Schelling Point Companies.1 Schelling Point Companies do not merely sell a product or a service, but uniquely also sell an idealogy. They often are built from the beginning with less clear mid-term product views but a clear goal to serve as a focal point, or a Schelling point, of their respective categories and idea space. Their go-to-market (GTM) strategy and product are less solidified, and more importantly are vessels to dominate the narrative and use that as a mechanism for short to mid-term accumulation of capital, talent, and brand value. This all then hopefully feeds into a loop of faster and larger scale customer willingness-to-try and a better navigation of the idea maze as the category develops. Schelling Point companies inherently aim to create dominance and trust via brand in conjunction with a product, but not purely via product. While many could say these types of companie

The best startups in emerging categories often act as Narrative Schelling Points. We can call these, Schelling Point Companies.1 Schelling Point Companies do not merely sell a product or a service, but uniquely also sell an idealogy. They often are built from the beginning with less clear mid-term product views but a clear goal to serve as a focal point, or a Schelling point, of their respective categories and idea space. Their go-to-market (GTM) strategy and product are less solidified, and more importantly are vessels to dominate the narrative and use that as a mechanism for short to…

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