I’m on the phone with a client who has invented a new approach to sample preparation for chemical testing. He is telling me about a recent conversation with an interested investor, who had asked him why he wasn’t positioning his technology to also serve a category of testing known as immunoassays.

As he’s talking to me, he realizes that the reason he had previously dismissed immunoassays is because he had been so focused on integrating into a chemical analysis system known as DART.

“We have been underselling ourselves,” he said. “In my head I set us up that immunoassays were our competitor, and they’re not. They are a competitor to DART. But we're not salespeople for DART, we're salespeople for our product."

I could almost hear a new mindset click into place as he realized he had subconsciously inherited somebody else’s competitive worldview. When you’re upstream from a partner, that partner’s competitors can be your clients.

Creating a startup is an ongoing act of definition. Who you are, what you do, where you fit, what problem you solve, and who it's for. You’re a cartographer mapping new lands, giving it meaning and describing its contours.

Your company is already standing on a map. Is it yours?

Defining your map strategically and purposefully is frame control. It is the central act of founder communications.

Private equity manager Oren Klaff wrote about "frame control" as a way to dominate a pitch meeting. I’m talking about something that happens earlier and lasts longer: deciding what territory you're standing on before anyone walks into the room.

This is the first in a series of newsletters on the topic.

Frame control makes strategic tradeoffs visible. Every act of definition also defines what you’re not. Are your exclusions intentional or accidental?

An example of self-inflicted constrictive frames (“pigeonholing”) was Kentucky Fried Chicken, a company that realized that “Fried” was becoming an unpopular frame in increasingly health-conscious times. So it became KFC.

In the deep tech world, I’ve seen no shortage of “climate tech” startups redefine themselves as energy efficiency companies as the fear of climate change lost motivational impact. Even some venture funds have quietly restyled themselves as "deep tech" or "efficiency tech" investors while backing the same companies they always did.

Here’s why that matters: If the money has renamed its category and you haven't, there’s a good chance you’ll get screened out before you even get a meeting. And nobody is going to tell you your frame was the problem.

Constrictive frames can also be powerful and successful: In my article “Niches Have Riches,” I already described the power of shrinking your frame, although I didn’t call it that at the time.

In my article “Your Website’s Narrative Triangle,” I spoke about the 3 key stories that anchor your website: the customer value proposition, the social proof, and the About section. In terms of frames, your value proposition is Claim, social proof is Borrow, and About is Justify. Your website is a monologue, however, and positioning is an ongoing contest in a dynamic marketplace. It requires more moves.

In this upcoming series of newsletters, I’m going to focus on the nuance and art of frame control. Each of the moves I list below buys you something and charges you something, so I’ll devote one newsletter to each to help you understand and apply it carefully:

• Claim: Describing what you do and for whom you are doing it.

• Claim (Investor Version): Positioning your company to investors.

• Borrow: Building trust in yourself by transferring it from partners, customers, even categories.

• Attack: Realizing that the mind understands opposition faster than superiority.

• Defend: Responding when a competitor, incumbent, or partner shifts the category around you.

• Justify: Building the philosophical motor of your company.

• Rename: Shifting your frame to move forward.

For now, take a look at the companies you consider your biggest competitors and look at how they define the market they’re in. Do they speak in broader, narrower, or simply different terms than you do?

You are going to be defined. The only question is by whom. Let’s make sure you’re doing it to yourself, consciously and strategically.