In Pursuit of the Next TLA

Conventional wisdom says smaller companies tackling big problems should define a new category, or TLA; which stands for “Three Letter Acronym” or “Two Letter Acronym”.

These TLAs are a handy shorthand for analysts like Gartner, Forrester Research, and others. And surprisingly, the tech industry manages to stay fairly well aligned around terms like “CRM”, “ERP”, “ABM”.

Buyers also appreciate the brevity and simplicity of the TLA, as it allows side-by-side comparisons across vendors in a similar space.

Personally, I enjoy the occasional quick Google or G2.com search for “CLM” to see what’s happening in the Contract Lifecycle Management space, for example.

But what happens when a startup comes along to disrupt a TLA? Or merges features and functionality from several existing TLAs into one new one?

This has been weighing on my mind lately as next release of iDialogue is actually a combination of SE (Sales Enablement), CX (Customer Experience), CPQ (Configure Price Quote), and ABM/ABS (Account Based Marketing/Sales). The “dialogue” aspect of the app is unique, but its core features are grounded in existing categories.

The app will be published to “some” category, but which one? Only time will tell.