Bio
April Dunford is the foremost practitioner-theorist of product positioning in B2B technology. Her central contribution is transforming positioning from a vague brand exercise into a structured, repeatable methodology with a specific workflow. She decomposes positioning into five components — Competitive Alternatives, Differentiated Features/Capabilities, Customer Value, Target Customer Segmentation, and Market Category — and insists they must be worked in that exact order.
Operating themes
- Operating thesis: Positioning is not a creative exercise but a structured, customer-centric analysis that follows a specific workflow order, starting with competitive alternatives and ending with market category selection.
- Ai Product Positioning
- Competitive Alternative Analysis
- Market Category Selection
- Positioning Development
Cards
- 40–60% of B2B buyers say "no decision" — your real competitor is the status quo — Status quo, not the competitor, is what kills B2B deals [Tier A]
- Sales pitches need a Setup before the Follow-Through; most pitches skip the Setup — Insight + alternatives + perfect world before any feature pitch [Tier A]
- Test positioning in a live sales pitch — marketing stories are unfalsified theory until then — Test positioning in a live sales pitch; static artifacts hide failures [Tier B]
- The sales team detects positioning failure months before the dashboard does — The sales team detects positioning failure months before the dashboard does [Tier B]
Sources captured
- 2026-04-25 — LinkedIn thread on positioning-failure detection (
raw/threads/april-dunford--sales-knows-positioning-failing--2026-04-25.md) - 2026-04-28 — Lenny's Podcast, "Positioning, setup follow-through, differentiation" (
raw/podcasts/april-dunford--positioning-setup-follow-through--2026-04-28.md) - 2026-04-28 — Lenny's Podcast, "Positioning framework" (
raw/podcasts/april-dunford--positioning-framework--2026-04-28.md) - 2026-04 —
a-quickstart-guide-to-positioning-april-dunford.md(operator essay archive) - 2026-04 —
a-product-positioning-exercise-april-dunford.md(operator essay archive) - 2026-04 —
how-we-used-april-dunfords-10-step-method-to-overhaul-positioning-at-userlist.md(operator essay archive)