NEW SOFTWARE
BLUETAIL
CATEGORY CREATION – A user’s guide
There are three big challenges in creating a new software category in business aviation, according to the CEO and co-founder of Bluetail. Here’s how to navigate them. Words: Roberto Guerrieri
NEW SOFTWARE
CATEGORY CREATION – A user’s guide
There are three big challenges in creating a new software category in business aviation, according to the CEO and co-founder of Bluetail. Here’s how to navigate them. Words: Roberto Guerrieri
BLUETAIL
ROBERTO GUERRIERI, BLUETAIL
Roberto Guerrieri co-founded Bluetail with his partner Stuart Illian. Launched in May 2020, the aviation software business is on a mission to modernise the world of aircraft records by digitally transforming maintenance information management.
NO MATTER what industry we’re talking about, starting a business is far from easy. And when it comes to developing your own unique business category along with it? Well, that’s even harder. Creating a category means taking an active role in shaping the landscape of a vertical – whether it’s been around for ages or one that’s brand new.
I’m guessing you might wonder what creating a category means. In its simplest terms, category creation means building something so unique and disruptive that, in the end, it doesn’t fit into any obvious current box. It might fall under a specific vertical, but it’s starting a path down uncharted territory. It means beginning to carve out a space of your own.
In Peter Thiel’s book, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future (a book I love and highly recommend checking out if you’re in the midst of your startup journey), there’s a quote that I always remember and have tried to instill in my team: “Customers won’t care about any particular technology unless it solves a particular problem in a superior way. And if you can’t monopolise a unique solution for a small market, you’ll be stuck with vicious competition.”
In our industry, business aviation is no different. When we founded Bluetail some five years ago, part of our vision was to specifically build a maintenance information management (MIM) technology that did more than disrupt but totally change the way maintainers accessed and managed information.
In other words, I wanted to create something so big it needed its own category. (I’ll talk more later about how Anthony Kennada’s epic book Category Creation helped to solidify this for me.)
And, thanks to Thiel being so quotable, we began to live and breathe another one of the truths he published in his book: “Brilliant thinking is rare, but courage is in even shorter supply than genius.”
But you’re asking, what’s so important about creating a new category? Can’t you just fit in with what people are already familiar with and comfortable with?
No, that won’t work. In my earlier career, I worked for Apple. One thing I learned was that to make a big change, you had to break the mould in a big way. So, when Apple created the iPhone, it didn’t introduce a new phone; it created a whole new category of personal communications.
Unlike the personal communications business, aviation is known for its conservatism and aversion to change, making it a challenging environment for tech startups. Especially when the company was in its infancy, we had to navigate these waters carefully, balancing innovation with the industry’s comfortability with the status quo.
In our case, creating a new category meant introducing a new way of communicating the importance of what we’ve created – a cutting-edge solution that’s so relevant it needs a category of its own in the aviation tech stack mix.
The ForeFlight parallels
It’s worth looking back at Foreflight’s groundbreaking journey to understand the potential impact of our vision for maintenance information management.
ForeFlight was founded in 2007 and essentially created the first digital flight bag – as well as the entire ‘digital flight bag’ category. This revolutionised how pilots plan and execute flights, transforming pilot workflows and setting new standards in aviation safety and efficiency.
ForeFlight created an app that gave pilots access to all its flight planning and made it all accessible with an iPad. With a tap, pilots could access airport information, weather forecasts, air traffic control details, NAVAIDs, flight logs and more.
“... the fundamental question is this – is there an unmet need that you’ve observed in the market?”
That new category forever changed how pilots managed all the details of every flight.
They changed the game and created a whole new category in the process. Talk about disrupting an industry. Oh, and did I mention that this positively changed things in such a massive way that ForeFlight was acquired by Boeing in 2019?
Insights from category creation experts
According to Kennada, determining whether something is category-worthy in the first place can be somewhat challenging.
“I think the fundamental question is this – is there an unmet need that you’ve observed in the market that no one else is currently providing services for?” says Kennada. “Is there a group of people within your audience who validate the problem? What would it look like if you sparked a movement behind solving the problem?”
Sparking that movement has been on the front lines of everything we do since we began the company. After all, inspiring people to be as passionate about solving their maintenance record problems is one of the surest ways to get them excited, learning and understanding.
Starting a category doesn’t necessarily mean it’s taken hold. However, according to Kennada, there are a few ways to tell things are looking up.
“There’s nothing definitive, but the first thing I start to see is people starting to use your language,” adds Kennada. “For example, say you name the category Airline Record Management [ARM]. Do you start seeing ARM software references in forums or online networks? That’s usually a good signal to start doubling down.”
Bluetail’s products have been created to help make aircraft records safe, secure and searchable (AKA digital and in the cloud). And, as someone who has lived and breathed SaaS (Software as a Service) for quite some time now, I can attest that what we’re doing wouldn’t exactly seem groundbreaking to those in other tech industries.
But for business aviation, this was brand-new territory – wide open, green pasture – ripe for a whole new category.
Our goal is to change behaviour, affecting how maintenance teams of these multi-million dollar aircraft will continue to be maintained and keep their planes running (and in compliance with the FAA) in the future.
Managing maintenance records will benefit from a new category approach that streamlines data, according to Bluetail.
3 CHALLENGES IN CATEGORY CREATION
Creating a new category involves more than just launching a new product. It requires a fundamental shift in behaviour and thinking. Category creators are faced with tackling three significant challenges:
1. Market education: Educating the market about Maintenance Information Management’s potential has been a monumental task. Many industry players are set in their ways and convincing them to adopt a new system requires persistent effort and a clear demonstration of value.
2. Technological integration: Aviation technology is complex, with stringent regulatory requirements and high safety standards. Communicating that, as a new system, we integrate seamlessly into this ecosystem with zero disruption and no heavy lift has had to be at the very forefront of our messaging.
Beyond that, we’ve tried to make sure that we integrate with the heavy tech hitters in our space. That way, our partnerships are more than just conceptual. They’re technically integrations that can truly help make the lives of our customers exponentially easier when we’re thrown into the mix.
3. Gaining trust: Trust is a critical factor. We’ve had to work hard to build our reputation and credibility, not only as a startup, but as a company that’s creating a new category. This is something we’ve done by working with incredible companies, associations and causes whose partnerships have helped to highlight us as a mainstream business.
But the biggest win of all? The amazing reviews and word-of-mouth from our customers. It just so happens that we have the best customers in the business (seriously). We have a group of incredibly experienced, knowledgeable and kind people using Bluetail with whom we’ve created meaningful relationships. Those relationships have been huge when it comes to testimonials and speaking at events, etc.
Bluetail aims to redefine how aircraft records are recorded, stored and used in day-to-day flight operations by maintenance teams.
The path to a new category
Bluetail’s vision for maintenance information management is ambitious: to redefine how aircraft records are recorded, stored and utilised in the day-to-day flight operations for maintenance teams. Sounds simple enough? I have many years of grey hairs that testify to the fact that this is harder than it seems.
And while we’re still growing our product and evolving our offering, the broad strokes of our category definition are beginning to paint a definite picture. We are creating a new category that will house systems designed specifically to streamline maintenance information and data – all in ways that are more functionally sound than ever before.
Bluetail aims to redefine how aircraft records are recorded, stored and used in day-to-day flight operations by maintenance teams.
The path to a new category
Bluetail’s vision for maintenance information management is ambitious: to redefine how aircraft records are recorded, stored and utilised in the day-to-day flight operations for maintenance teams. Sounds simple enough? I have many years of grey hairs that testify to the fact that this is harder than it seems.
And while we’re still growing our product and evolving our offering, the broad strokes of our category definition are beginning to paint a definite picture. We are creating a new category that will house systems designed specifically to streamline maintenance information and data – all in ways that are more functionally sound than ever before.
