Is Your Brand Bounded Or Unbounded?

Understanding the difference between “bounded” brands and “unbounded” brands is how toddler companies become unicorns.

Most companies provide their Users with the best of what they do. These companies slog away at becoming better, faster, cheaper, stronger, more powerful, more engaging, easier to use, better fitting, frictionless. These companies compete with other enterprises within their vertical: whether it’s the over 100 other brands of blue jeans, 300+ brands of automobiles, or the hundreds of drinks you chose from when you woke up this morning — from coffee and tea to milk, water, Red Bull, Coke, smoothies, The Butcher’s Daughter or all other.

Top performers are trapped inside a bell curve of baseline advantages. They sit on the sidelines as unbounded brands shoot the moon. Or Mars. Photo: Unsplash @hugojehanne

If you were to graph how well these companies perform, you would discover that all the top performers bounce around near the top of a bell curve of baseline advantages: better, faster, cheaper, stronger, more powerful, better tasting, better fit, easier to use, feels better, etc. But despite endless points of differentiation — all jeans look, feel and fit pretty much the same. Automobiles transport us from Point A to Point B. And whether you’re drinking water, coffee, soft drink, bubble tea, or Red Bull, just about any choice you made this morning quenched your thirst or launched your day.

Once a competitor tries to outflank with a new advantage, the others counter in an endless motion…