The reason to create a new category is because the current categories don't solve the problem for a specific target audience. When diving into such uncharted te

The reason to create a new category is because the current categories don't solve the problem for a specific target audience. When diving into such uncharted territory, due diligence should be performed from the founder's end. This is where the lean startup idea is coming from. It is hinting that go out and tell your potential users that they have an unmet need, how their needs are unmet, and how your solution will meet those needs. If truly the need is met with your new solution, then you will hear that and this is where you ask for commitment. The potential user said that you are meeting an unmet need and they are on board, then ask them to sign up. This can go beyond just a signup on a soon to be coming page. You can actually ask the user to pay upfront or commit to pay upfront and if you meet requirements XYZ then they will pay. A lot of startups I talk to had not even started to code, until they had two willing to pay customers. Our site https://www.waccal.com https://www.waccal.com is a free site so we didn't ask for payment up front, but we did have a signup for beta page. From which we had over 100 signups and knew there was a need. To add on further, we wrote an article about idea versus execution and it dives into this towards the end. Here is the link: https://medium.com/waccaler/idea-is-only-a-small-piece-of-the-puzzle-for-startups-the-rest-is-execution-b498b9dd60c1 https://medium.com/waccaler/idea-is-only-a-small-piece-of-th... I do agree with afarrell's comment that there was already existing solutions in slack's market. Slack just did it better and met a lot of needs that were not met. Also, slack is a marketing machine, which can explain a lot of their traction as well.