LLMs enable whole new categories of software.

How should you start a new category?

One option is the "sustaining" playbook that's typically used.

You create a thing whose primary use case is an existing category, just a bit better.

"Discord, but with a more professional UI"

Then, the magical category-bending stuff is the secondary use case: a thing that users only appreciate once they're in the app, but then grows to become indispensable.

But that's a tough gradient. Why would users use a thing that is only marginally better than the thing they already use?

Especially if the app requires a significant amount of investment to load up data (not just a lot of effort, but downside risk from an app that is a bad steward of that data).

Huge switch costs! Huge activation friction!

Another approach is to lean into being a totally new kind of thing that defies categorization.

WebSim is a great example of this.

What the heck even is this thing? How would you describe it by saying "Like X but for Y?"

But that's what gives it a magical possibility space..

A weird, strangely engaging toy that turns out to have an uncapped possibility.