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Five mistakes that kill category entry point research

What goes wrong in CEP projects and how to avoid it

List of five category entry point research mistakes: an internal CEP list, attributes for situations, only own buyers, stopping at discovery, a one-off map
Most of these come down to asking your own team or your own customers instead of the whole category.
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Five common mistakes in category entry point research, the work of finding the buying situations that bring a category to mind. Lists written in a workshop, attributes passed off as situations and samples drawn only from existing customers all hide the situations a brand is losing. Stopping after discovery leaves no sizing to act on, and a map goes stale as the category changes. Koji can run occasion-based interviews with category buyers to fix the first three.

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  1. Writing the CEP list internally: You will hand your own positioning back to yourself. Always elicit situations from buyers.
  2. Confusing attributes with situations: Trusted, premium and innovative are not entry points. If it can't complete the sentence "when I...", it isn't a CEP.
  3. Measuring only your own buyers: Your customers are the people whose situations you already serve. Interview category buyers, not your CRM.
  4. Stopping at discovery: A list with no sizing produces a debate, not a decision. The quantified second phase makes it usable.
  5. Treating it as a one-off: Situations change when the category does. A CEP map from 2022 does not describe how people buy in 2026.

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