If you can't get #1 on G2, create a new category. That's what we did.

We embarked on a journey to develop a product that abstracts the complex task of building notification infrastructure for developers. While there already existed some platforms that identified themselves as 'customer engagement platforms' with some support for marketing notifications, our product didn't precisely align with this category, despite some overlapping features.

So naturally, we took a bet and got ourselves enlisted on G2, an overhyped SAAS directory. But it was clear that ranking even in the top 10 wasn't meant for us. There were large contenders with reviews in 3-4 digits.

That's when we decided to get ourselves a new category created on G2, and name that 'Notification infrastructure' as that was the closest to what our product did. I'm going to provide a short intro of my product; you can certainly skip this part.

We built SuprSend, a SOC 2-compliant notification infrastructure tool that lets you send product notifications across every possible channel (SMS, slack, teams, email, inapp inbox, WhatsApp, push), build event triggers, set workflows, have a white-labeled notification experience as part of our multi-tenancy feature, and lot more, all via API route.

SuprSend also supports fallback mechanisms and smart routing, and hear me; this is a very cool feature if you want things for free. How?

Imagine where you connected 3 email providers and want to use their free versions, now, with SuprSend, you can set a volume across each that doesn't cross the free version limit. This means you can route your email notifications across these three providers while remaining within the free limit for each. This way, you can send much more notifications every month. Especially helpful for someone who is starting.

Website: https://www.suprsend.com/
G2: https://www.g2.com/products/suprsend
Github & Sdks: https://github.com/suprsend

Coming back to the G2 category creation process, I'm assuming there would be a lot of developers building tools that might not fit exactly in a certain category listed on G2. Don't make the mistake we did, that is, try to fit.

I empathize with the eagerness to reach users quickly; however, attempting to compete in an oversaturated category can be counterproductive. Due to their perceived stability and reliability, businesses often gravitate towards top products in heavily contested categories.

Let's see how you can get your own category:

Visit G2 Support and click on 'Contact Support.'
Sign in with your G2 credentials.
Submit a new case with the subject 'Change/ Add New Category for Your
Product.'
Complete the form, providing necessary details such as proof that your
product warrants a new category, proposed category name, eligibility criteria
for inclusion, 10 competitors fitting the new category, and more.
The case will be assigned a 'Medium' priority and will be addressed by the
support team within 2-3 days.

Following this, G2 will contact representatives from the identified 10 companies, verify the necessity of the new category, and conduct subsequent follow-ups.

It took us 4 months to get this new category, and we are #1 on this. Here's that category. https://www.g2.com/categories/notification-infrastructure

I've gotta say, it feels pretty darn good knowing we're the ones leading the way and laying the foundation for this fresh category where some great competitors would rise to give an equal tough competition and make this category even better. It's bound to keep on growing in the days to come, and that's something we're genuinely proud of.

Here's to hoping it turns into something legendary as time goes on.

PS; I don't know why AI image generator created that cover image when I typed 'G2 rankings'. Anyways used it, looked good.

I help SaaS tools with inbound GTM, incase you want to chat for ideas, you can connect here