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Deepak Gupta markBooks

Books

Obviously Awesome

Editorial pick

How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It

By April Dunford · Ambient Press · 2019

The first book that treats positioning as an actual operating problem with a method, not a marketing aesthetic.

Playbook Under 200 pages(200p) Intermediate Published 2019
Amazon Goodreads Author site

Editorial take

Positioning is one of those topics that startups discover they got wrong about 18 months too late. Dunford's contribution is a step-by-step method — five components, a sequence of decisions, exercises — that takes positioning from "vibes" to a tractable workshop. The book is short, opinionated, and unusually honest about the political dimension (positioning fights are mostly internal). Pair it with a real workshop using her template and you will produce a sharper one-liner than any agency would deliver in a quarter.

Last hand-checked 2026-05-18.

Read if you …

  • are a founder or PMM whose pitch deck has been rewritten six times and still feels off
  • lead a product transitioning between market categories, or trying to escape one
  • have a strong product and persistently slow sales cycles

Skip if you …

  • you're a designer/copywriter looking for messaging frameworks — this is upstream
  • you sell to consumers — most examples are B2B SaaS

If you only read one chapter

The Components of Effective Positioning

The five-element model is the book's beating heart. If you only read 30 pages, read these.

Key ideas

  • Positioning is the act of deliberately defining how you are the best at something a defined market cares deeply about.
  • The frame of reference (the market you compete in) is the highest-leverage positioning choice.
  • Best-in-class within a frame beats best-in-the-world in general.
  • Positioning is owned by the company, not the customer or the press.

About the book

Dunford spent two decades positioning B2B products at Huawei, IBM, and a string of startups, and the method in this book is the one she actually uses with clients. It's structured as a workshop guide: alternative competitive references, unique attributes, value, target customer, and market category, in that order, with worksheets at every step.

The writing is utilitarian, not lyrical — and that's the point. It's a manual, not a manifesto.

Pairs with

If Obviously Awesome works for you, these likely will too.