You built the category.
You named the problem.
You rallied the market.
You became the default choice.
You owned the aisle.
And then … something shifted.
The problem you solved became expected.
The urgency faded.
What once sparked belief now feels like table stakes.
Competitors started bundling what you built—for free.
You’re still winning deals.
But the category isn’t growing.
This is Existential Decline—the quiet drift into irrelevance that happens when the category you created stops creating demand.
Docusign was the undisputed king of eSignature until it became a commodity.
Learn how they built belief in something bigger and escaped the trap.
