In a lecture before the launch of the famous the crazy ones Apple ad, CEO Steve Jobs gave a masterclass in building the Apple brand. Jobs suggested that, just as Nike honored athletes and athletics, Apple honored the crazy ones, the misfits and the rebels.

Tech entrepreneurs face this same identity question around about go-to-market and brand every day. Are you aiming to be an Apple or something else? Unfortunately, there is no single, simple choice. Despite the avalanche of mostly insightful focus on category creation, it’s not always the right strategy for a company.

There are effectively three key strategies tech companies should think about choosing in building a company’s brand:

• Better, faster, cheaper (BFC): Compare your product or service offering to an incumbent vendor. For example, flash storage versus disk.

• Category: A new class of product or service like the cloud.

• Esteem: A brand that honors a class of customer or the psychographic profile of the buyer.

Most companies will have a blend of all three in their brand and go-to-market strategies, but you need to choose what you represent in the long-term.

Let’s look at these one at a time.