Alex Neist gave a masterclass on this when he spoke on the 2X eCommerce Podcast about how he decided to build a polarizing brand. His company, which hit $40M in revenue, started like most do: online-only, facing the massive challenge of getting noticed. How do you stand out on a crowded feed when you don't have the luxury of retail presence? His answer was to get comfortable with the idea that some people were going to hate his brand. And that was a good thing.
His core insight is that in the fight for attention, especially on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, being bland is a death sentence. You have to be willing to take a risk. For Neist, that meant creating a brand that people either loved or hated, with no in-between. He knew who his target demographic was and focused entirely on them, even if it meant alienating everyone else. This approach to Brand Identity ensures that the people you do connect with feel a much stronger affinity for you. They feel seen, and they become true fans, not just transactional customers.
Most importantly, he argued that you can’t just rely on having a great product. A great product that no one knows about is just a hobby. He saw brand and marketing as the essential first step to getting a customer to even consider the product. The polarizing nature of his brand was the hook. It was designed to stop the scroll and make someone feel something, which is the only way to get a foothold in a competitive market.
A completely different, but equally powerful, approach came from Ken Ott on Shopify1Percent. Instead of polarizing through personality, he advocates for creating a new category for yourself through price. His advice is simple: become the most expensive option in your market. It’s a strategy designed to make it “impossible for people to compare us to competitors.”
There’s a clear psychology at play here. People associate higher prices with higher value. As Ott pointed out, there is zero strategic advantage to being the second-cheapest brand on the market. That’s a race to the bottom. But there is a massive advantage to being the most expensive. It repositions you entirely. You’re no longer just another option; you become the premium choice, an aspirational purchase. You stop competing on features and start competing on identity and perceived worth. This is a powerful form of Niche Market Targeting.
Both Neist and Ott, in their own ways, are making the same fundamental point. To stand out, you can't live in the comfortable middle. You have to make a bold, deliberate choice that makes you the only logical option for a specific type of person. Whether you achieve that with a provocative voice that people love or hate, or with a premium price that makes you incomparable, the goal is to stop being one of many and start being the one and only.
