Thispiecewas written by Matthew Guay,Capiches founding editor and former senior writer at Zapier.
When Jiro dreams of sushi, youd hardly imagine him slicing sashimi with an ordinary, dull knife.
Experts use expert tools.
Rigorously tested, finely tuned, carefully built to perform at the highest levels.
Theyre crafted, built for the most demanding audiences.
Then those best features trickle down, until yesterdays best is todays ordinary.
Along the way, the best, ideal versions of those tools become icons, symbols of victory.
You might not need the absolute best shoe, the fastest car, the sharpest knife for your work.
But wouldnt you like the perfection they represent to rub off on your work?
And so the best tools become status symbols.
Now its happened to software.
Software was the great equalizer.
Gmail works the same on a $200 Chromebook or $2000 MacBook.
Excel can track a $1,000 budget or a $100 million portfolio equally well.
But what if software could bebetter, crafted specifically for the professionals who need it most?
What would investors pay for a chat app specifically for finance?
How many researchers would rebuild their libraries in a better notes app?
The editor wars
The first best software was built by programmers, for programmers.
One team at MIT wanted a better text editor, and built Emacs.
Another at Berkley wanted the same thing, and built Vi.
Yet there was magic in both approaches.
When everyones work is done through software, everyone could use better tools to work at peak performance.
There have always been better tools, software that hit a higher bar.
Only those who truly need them would aspire to use them.
What cooking shows and documentaries did for knives and premium ingredients happened to software.
Hotmailgot the idea right first.
Public use is what made software convey mass-market status.
Positional software uses Hotmails trick, letting the world know you use something different, something better.
The halo can wear off.
A Hey email address, today, might say youre ahead.
Its a delicate balance, one exclusivity helps extend into a moat.
Exclusive
Free email is enticing.
Free email only few can get, even more.
Gmail added something to the equation that made it even more desirable: Invitations.
Only a thousand people could get in at first, and those could each invite a few friends.
But the real success was in the viral word-of-mouth as everyone wanted an invite to use Googles latest software.
Exclusivity speeds up the process of waiting for influential users to promote the product.
But it does add allure to software.
Invite-only starts the sharing process.
The real work-in-public, though, comes from collaborative software.
When IT teams mandated what software you could use, there was no reason to seek out better tools.
Better to invest in getting the most out of the software they authorized.
Then two major things changed.
Then,web appsfreed software from IT constraints, making new software only a new tab away.
You didnt have to use older desktop software.
You could use the new best-in-breed software in your internet tool.
These web apps werent just utilities youd use on your own.
Increasingly,modern softwarewas built to work together with a team.
Perhaps youd try Slack during a hackathon or with a group of people from your industry.
Google Docs didnt need everyone to switch.
Airtable did the same to databases, Figma to design tools, Notion to notes.
But first, the product needed to be enough better to get that first tranche of users to switch.
Opinionatedly different
Heres to the crazy ones, said the classic Apple ad.
They see things differently.
That is the defining feature of positional software.
They force you to work differently.
Typeform showed only one form question at a time.
Superhuman hid most buttons, opting toprioritize keyboard shortcuts and the command palette.
Figma abstracted away files, blurred the lines between mockups, demos, drafts, and finished work.
Hey took away archiving, said inbox zero isnt important, said 3 folders is enough.
Code editors, however, are worth fighting for.
Vim and Emacs opinionated differences are what make them polarizing.
The same goes for modern positional software.
They take a stand, say there is a better way of working.
That makes them polarizing, which makes them worth talking about, which helps them spread further.
It lets them charge a premium for a product built with care.
Its a virtuous cycle that helps positional software spread to everyone in its niche.
You cant get there by being a jack of all trades.
Opinionated features let software be a master of one.
Premium by design
Design, then, ties it those features together.
So, too, do positional software.
Vim and Emacs may fall into thedesign is how it workscategory, with devotees favoring their raw simplicity.
Slack was an early leader in the crafted software space.
Subscriptions if anything align developer and users interests, as the latter can choose to leave anytime.
Superhuman survives solely on how well it helps those who use email the most.
If it makes them better at email, theyll continue to pay, and talk about it.
Democratizing power features
IRC had been around for decades as an early team chat.
Slack added design and opinionated tweaks and turned it into a chat app worth paying more for.
Gmail was built around keyboard shortcuts since its inception.
Superhuman taught them to you with personalized onboarding and tooltips, making sure youd learn them.
Sublime Text put those features in acommand palettewhere they were easy to discover.
You could always email design files around, track document changes in Word, update an intranet by hand.
Positional software makes its name with unique features and better design.
But often its not entirely reinventing the wheel.
The detractors have a pointthe features often are there in older products if you dig.
Positional software makes everyone a power-user.
And opinionated software can never be as customizable as their developer-orientated, open-source, handcrafted counterparts.
Thatd take away the original insights and designs that make them great.
And thus, positional software typically lets you customize something.
Maybe just themes and add-ons, with an ecosystem of third-party developers turning the software into a platform.
Maybe with emoji and stickers, consumer-style flair that makes you feel at home.
And thats positional software.
The best tools signify the value a craftsperson places on time and efficiency.
Theyre emblematic of the role that craftsperson holds, signify their status and skill.
And theyre honed over time to be best for that role.
Todays positional software does the same.
Its best tools, designed for specific roles, carefully designed to make craftspeople better at their digital work.
Its software that positions you as an expert.
Theyre spread as digital artisans work in public, share their work, talk about their tools.
And that halo effect can, over time, make positional software the new leader in its field.
It still may not overtake the market leader in sales.
