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A founder-level, no-spin look at how Category Pirates actually make decisions.

Using data most companies would ignore, delete, or never think to collect.

This isn’t a success story.

It’s a below-deck audit.

If you really believe in Category Design, you should be willing to run it on yourself.

So we did.

We surveyed our subscribers. We cross-referenced it with Substack data. We pulled Stripe data. And then we went hunting for weird signals.

What we found changed how we think about:

Outcomes

Superconsumers

Content

Pricing

And the future of Category Pirates itself

Not just what the data said—but how to think like a Category Scientist when the answers aren’t obvious.

Here are a few key points:

[00:00] - Category Pirates uses "category science" to analyze data about their product, company, and category to spot future growth opportunities and shape their future direction.

[08:31] - Their survey revealed that 33% of subscribers are "all in" on category design, while 67% are "curious" and stay subscribed for an average of 5.2 months.

[11:30] - The top 10 mini-books drive 59% of paid subscribers, indicating a need to focus on high-performing content.

[18:27] - They identified five factors common to their top-performing mini-books: hyper-targeted audience, clear outcomes, robust frameworks/strategies, practical application, and effective marketing.

[22:15] - Category Pirates is adjusting their content strategy to align with the five-factor framework and organize content by categories (executives, marketers, writers, entrepreneurs, etc.) to ensure subscribers get legendary outcomes.

This is not a polished case study.

It’s what happens when you:

Ask “why?” seven times

Refuse to get defensive

And let your Supers tell you the truth

If you’ve ever wondered:

Why some content compounds and some disappears

Why some customers evangelize and others churn

Or how to design strategy with your Superconsumers instead of guessing

This audiobook is your field guide.

Because the future doesn’t belong to companies with the most data.

It belongs to the ones brave enough to listen to the weird stuff.

Arrrrrrr,

Category Pirates

Eddie Yoon

Christopher Lochhead