Episode
How to Create a Category When You're Already the Market Leader (with Melton Littlepage, CMO at 1Password)
- Published
- Apr 20, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 2884
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- https://share.transistor.fm/s/f751213e
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Summary
#348 | Dave sits down with Melton Littlepage , CMO at 1Password, to talk about what category creation actually looks like inside a company that's already won. Melton breaks down why 1Password is betting on an entirely new category called Extended Access Management, how they chose it over competing in an existing one, and the tactics behind it: lightning strike events, analyst relations, and embedding a former CISO on the marketing team to agitate the problem from the inside. He also makes the case for sports sponsorship as a B2B play, and why the President's Cup was an easy yes. Timestamps (00:00) - - Melton's background: 20 years building SaaS before it was called SaaS (05:30) - - What changes after multiple CMO roles (09:10) - - You can't attribute your way to being hot (10:14) - - The CMO's real job: be the chief markets officer (12:28) - - 1Password today and the market shift that created a new category (19:48) - - The three acts of 1Password's business (20:41) - - Naming the category: Extended Access Management (XAM) (21:43) - - How the decision to create a new category got made (25:58) - - The tactics: category point of view, lightning strikes, analyst relations (30:03) - - How the marketing org is structured (34:35) - - 1Password's three go-to-market motions (38:00) - - Why 1Password is betting on sports marketing Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter Learn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/ *** Brought to you by: Webflow - A website platform built for the agentic web, helping modern marketing teams build fully custom sites—no developer needed—that perform in AI search. Learn more at webflow.com/for/exitfive. Markup AI - A content quality platform that scans your content…