1Password's CMO reframes the role as being the 'Chief Markets Officer.' Their primary responsibility is to find or create a market where the company holds an insurmountable advantage, even if it requires steering the entire business toward a new category to become number one.

To avoid decline, managers of mature 'cash cow' products must operate on two tracks. They should rapidly test solution-based iterations to optimize the existing product, while simultaneously dedicating resources to high-level problem discovery to identify the company's next source of growth.

Password manager 1Password reached over $400M in annual recurring revenue while remaining profitable since inception. This durable growth was achieved by leveraging its strong consumer brand to expand into the B2B market, which now accounts for nearly 80% of its business from 180,000 customers.

1Password's GTM for its new category is a phased approach that minimizes risk. They first cross-sell into their 150,000 delighted B2B customers and upsell high-intent inbound leads. Only after validating the offering with this warm audience do they pursue expensive, net-new demand generation.

To grow an established product, introduce new formats (e.g., Instagram Stories, Google AI Mode) as separate but integrated experiences. This allows you to tap into new user behaviors without disrupting the expectations and mental models users have for the core product, avoiding confusion and accelerating adoption.

Palo Alto Networks insisted on calling its product a "next-gen firewall" despite sales team fears. This forced conversations about replacing incumbents, preventing them from being relegated to a secondary "helper" category and ensuring long-term market leadership.

1Password hired a former CSO not to pitch its product, but to embed within the CISO community and 'agitate' for the problems their new category solves. This foments frustration about unsolved pains, creating demand for a solution before one is even presented.

A smart growth strategy is to ignore fleeting micro-trends and instead focus on proven bestsellers. By creating variations and expanding on successful designs, brands can develop entirely new product categories based on existing customer love.

Companies like Amazon (from books to cloud) and Intuitive Surgical (from one specific surgery to many) became massive winners by creating new markets, not just conquering existing ones. Investors should prioritize businesses with the innovative capacity to expand their TAM, as initial market sizes are often misleadingly small.