How to Dominate Industries that are Rapidly Changing with Kevin Lancaster: An EOFire Classic from 2022

Reinventing in the Middle of the Storm: How Simplicity Wins When Markets Get Loud

Rapid growth breeds a particular brand of disorder: new competitors, fragmented niches and a cacophony of competing messages. For entrepreneurs who see opportunity in upheaval, the work is deceptively simple: reduce friction, create a clear front door, and make outcomes obvious. Kevin Lancaster’s career arc—from building lighthouse government contracting sites to launching a cybersecurity product and finally designing a platform to centralize the sprawling IT channel—brings a recurring thesis into focus: when industries rush, winners are the ones who make complexity feel like choice.

Finding the front door in a sprawling market

Early in his career Lancaster looked at government contracting and saw a maze. The solution he pursued was literal and symbolic: buy the front-door real estate. Domains like governmentcontract.com and gsaschedule.com were small infrastructure moves that created predictable entry points for new vendors and buyers alike. That kind of work—building a lighthouse within a fog of options—reframes competition as service: instead of outshouting rivals, provide a navigation system that saves people time and reduces cognitive load.

Hard problems, focused interventions

When Lancaster turned toward cybersecurity he focused on a single lever that could change behavior: credentials. By surfacing clear-text passwords and demonstrating that a user’s credentials were already circulating in illicit places, his team moved the needle on an otherwise nebulous problem. This focus turned a fragmented, intimidating industry into an actionable pathway for companies and individuals to protect themselves. The result was not just product-market fit but a measurable change in customer action.

From breach response to platform scale: stories that illustrate method

Concrete moments illuminate the method. Lancaster’s company was hired in response to a major breach where personal data from millions of government employees was exposed. The firm’s approach—making the invisible visible—created urgency and clarity. And the product scaled: what started as a targeted tool became a partner-enabled platform approaching thousands of channel relationships. Those partnerships mattered because they transformed individual customer alerts into industry-wide behavior shifts.

Two-sided markets require two-sided empathy

Scaling in middleman-driven industries, like the IT channel, means catering to both product creators and the intermediaries who sell on their behalf. Lancaster’s solution was to democratize the channel: build a platform where startups and incumbents find the same rules, where message discipline matters more than marketing budgets, and where service providers can discover technologies without drowning in noise. That two-way design seeks to reduce buyer friction and lower the barrier for emerging vendors.

Design patterns for cutting friction

Several repeatable tactics emerge from these experiences. First, create a recognizable entry point—whether a domain, a marketplace home, or a single landing product—that orients users quickly. Second, compress decision time by showcasing outcomes: will this solution make money, reduce risk, or save time? Third, use anonymity and feedback loops to let buyers evaluate honestly, then allow voluntary engagement to follow. Finally, democratize presentation time: short, focused pitches level the field and force clarity.

• Use simple, outcome-driven messaging instead of product features.
• Give buyers safe, private ways to evaluate vendors before contact.
• Design marketplaces that reduce discovery cost and signal trustworthiness.

Platform thinking for noisy categories

Lancaster’s channelprogram.com pursues audacity for a reason: a $2.2 trillion IT channel cannot be nudged by small tweaks alone. Platforms that centralize information, normalize vendor messaging and enable anonymous feedback serve two functions—curation and amplification. They reduce the thicket of choices into curated pathways, and they amplify the vendors who can actually deliver measurable outcomes. When done well, platform thinking turns fragmentation into predictable flows.

The cultural edge: anti-fragility and the discipline to reinvent

There’s a human story behind the product playbook. Markets that change quickly favor people who can reinvent themselves: those willing to leave a comfortable perch, focus on a meaningful problem, and accept iterative failure as learning. That attitude—courage to start again, paired with a stubborn commitment to simplify—creates both resilience and leverage. Reinvention isn’t a reboot; it’s a discipline of pruning noise to reveal an essential idea.

A final note on audacity and clarity

Bold language—phrases like “democratize the channel” or “eliminate friction”—has a purpose beyond marketing. They act as organizing principles, rallying stakeholders around measurable outcomes rather than competing aesthetics. The true work comes after the rallying cry: designing tools and processes that make choice easier, messaging sharper, and behavior change inevitable. The entrepreneurs who master this balance—between big ambition and relentless simplicity—are the ones who turn chaos into the architecture of new markets.

Reflective thought: Change exposes both the gaps in our systems and the shape of practical solutions; the most durable businesses are born when someone decides to replace noise with a doorway and then keeps it open for others to walk through.