𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗜𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗮𝗴𝗲: 𝗚𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗕𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗗𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗲𝘁𝗲 𝗕𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿. 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗥𝗲𝗱𝗲𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀.

One of the most dangerous questions in business is:
“Who are our competitors?”

Because the moment you answer it, you have probably also defined the cage in which your brand will compete.

Great brands often win not because they become №1 in an existing category, but because they change the definition of the category itself.

Consider office spaces.
For years, players such as Regus largely represented the Business Centre: professional offices, meeting rooms, reception facilities and flexible leases.

Then came WeWork.
It didn’t simply offer a better business centre. It changed the conversation from renting an office to joining a community.

Suddenly, exposed ceilings, coffee counters, events and communal spaces weren’t design choices. They were signals of a new culture.

The category became coworking.
But every disruption has an expiry date.

Today, coworking itself is steadily getting commoditised. Put together good interiors, Wi-Fi, coffee, meeting rooms, flexible plans and a fancy address, and dozens of players begin looking suspiciously similar.

Today co-working is well-accepted in metro cities and is getting traction in even Tier 2 cities across India.

When everyone offers “ready-to-use workspace” or “community”, even that becomes a commodity.

So perhaps it is time to redefine the category again.

Get Kashyap Pandya’s stories in your inbox

Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.

Remember me for faster sign in

That is the thinking behind Provyz Co-working, one of Syncoro Ventures Private Limited’s portfolio companies.

Provyz is being positioned not merely as a coworking space, but as a Business Infrastructure Platform.

The desk is only the starting point.
Around that desk can sit an ecosystem of collaborative partners providing access to business advisory, finance, technology, branding, talent, legal and compliance support, startup networks, investors and growth opportunities.

In other words, don’t just give businesses a place to work. Give them an ecosystem to grow.

That changes the competitive lens completely.

A coworking company asks:
How do we fill more desks?

A Business Infrastructure Platform asks:
How do we help the businesses occupying those desks become bigger?

One monetises square feet.
The other has the potential to monetise business growth.
And that distinction matters.

Because categories are useful when markets are young. Eventually, they become cages. They tell customers how to compare you, competitors what to copy and your own team how far it is allowed to think.

Perhaps the biggest branding question, therefore, isn’t:
“How do we become the best brand in our category?”

It is:
“Why are we still accepting the category someone else created?”

Sometimes the smartest way to beat the competition is not to win their game.

It is to rename the game, redraw the field and make everyone else look like they are playing yesterday’s match.