Stop Confusing Buyers: A Positioning Guide for Context Graph Companies
- Eden
- Feb 10
- 6 min read
Context graphs are everywhere. Everyone is talking about them.
And yet, most buyers still don’t understand what they actually do.
Most founders think: “People just don’t get it yet. We need to explain the technology better.”
That’s not the problem.
Technology isn’t an issue.
It’s a positioning problem.
Here's the truth: Nobody wakes up wanting a context graph.
They wake up wanting to:
Close their books 5 days faster
Stop their AI from making expensive mistakes
Actually, survive their next audit
Make decisions without digging through 47 Slack channels
Your job isn’t to teach people about your technology. Your job is to connect what you’ve built to the problems your buyers are already desperate to solve.
If you’re building a context graph company and your headline says:
“AI-powered enterprise knowledge orchestration platform”
We need to talk. Let’s dig into why. But first, let’s answer the obvious question.
Why should anyone care about Context Graph anyway?
Here's the simplest way I can explain it.
Imagine you have two friends:
Friend A remembers you exist. They know your name. They'll say hi at parties.
Friend B remembers everything. Your birthday. That you hate coriander. That story about your terrible boss from three years ago. That time you got food poisoning in Barcelona, and now you will not eat street tacos. Your first heartbreak. And that you absolutely love vintage cars.
Your company's enterprise AI is Friend A.
It knows your CRM data. It knows your deal size. It knows your customer's name.
What it doesn't know:
That this customer filed three angry support tickets last quarter
That their VP threatened to churn in a Slack thread
That your CEO personally approved a similar discount exception last year
All the stuff that actually matters for making decisions? That's scattered across PagerDuty, Zendesk, Slack, email, and Susan's brain.
And Susan just gave her two weeks' notice.
Your AI is making decisions like Friend A, technically present, but clueless about what actually matters.
What context graphs actually do
Context graph turns your AI from Friend A into Friend B.
They capture:
The why behind every decision
The tribal knowledge
The unwritten rules
The logic that lives in people's heads
Not just data. Context.
And yet, most startups are still describing this breakthrough as "a database feature." That's the real problem.
And that’s where product marketing must step in.
But here's a hard truth every PMM needs to solve
Saying "we turn AI from Friend A into Friend B" sounds great in a pitch deck.
But when you actually try to sell this? You hit a wall.
Here's why:
You walk into a meeting with a CFO. You explain Friend A vs Friend B. They nod. They get it. Then they ask: "So... what does this actually do for me?"
You start talking about capturing context across systems, connecting tribal knowledge, making AI smarter...
Their eyes glaze over.
Because here’s what you missed: every persona has a different set of expectations from Friend B.
The CFO hears "Friend B" and thinks:
“Finally, I can answer auditors’ questions without spending 200 hours digging through old emails.”
They don't care about "unified context." They care about having clear answers for audits.
The COO hears "Friend B" and thinks:
"Great, my team can stop wasting half their day hunting for information that should be easy to find."
They don't care about "institutional memory." They care about their team moving faster than the competition.
The CIO hears "Friend B" and thinks:
"Perfect, we can finally stop having three different teams give three different answers about the same customer."
They don’t care about “AI-powered context graphs.” They care about the moment when a simple business question meets total silence.
The same technology. Three completely different nightmares.
And here's the trap most companies fall into: You think: "All three of these are valid use cases. Let's put them all on the homepage!"
So, your website says something like:
"Our AI-powered context platform provides unified operational intelligence across enterprise systems, enabling faster workflows and audit-ready decision trails for modern businesses."
Translation: "We solve... everything? We're not really sure what your specific problem is."
Your positioning is trying to speak to everyone, so it connects with no one.
Real-World Manifestations: Two positioning strategies decoded
Let's look at how two companies are actually positioning their context graphs.
Company 1: Maximor
What their website says: "Audit-Ready Agentic Automation for the Strategic CFO"
What makes them different: "5-Day Audit-Ready Close in 60 Days. Guaranteed."
Why this works:
✅ They know exactly who they're talking to – Not "finance teams." Strategic CFOs who are tired of scrambling during audits.
✅ Clear result + when you'll see it + they guarantee it – No vague promises. You know what you're buying.
✅ Every feature connects to a real problem – "Board-Ready Reporting" and "Audit-Ready Close" aren't features. They're the end of someone's nightmare.
✅ Real proof – "Rently went from 11-day close to 3 days, 90% fewer problems during audit." They name the company. They show the numbers. They prove it happened.
Steal this: [What you get] in [how long]. Guaranteed.
Maximor solves the "unexplained decisions" problem. They're not selling software to IT. They're selling peace of mind to the CFO who must answer auditors.
PMM Principle: Sell results, not systems.
Company-2: Tessera
What their website says: "Enterprise-intelligent AI for ERP transformation"
What makes them different: "Pre-trained on thousands of enterprise landscapes"
What's working:
✅ "Pre-trained" is smart – It means your company gets smarter because 99 other companies already used it. That's valuable, and they don't have to explain machine learning to say it.
✅ They're not generic – They're not "AI for enterprises." They know ERP migrations specifically.
What's not working:
❌ Too vague about who it's for "IT leaders" could mean CIO, VP of Digital, Director of Applications... which one?
❌ No specific numbers: How much faster? How much cheaper? Show me.
❌ What happens after? You helped me migrate to the new ERP. Great. Do I still need you after that?
❌ Are you a software or consulting company? The website makes it sound like both. That confuses buyers and makes your sales team's life harder.
❌ Where's the proof? Show me one customer and what they achieved.
The fix: Decide if you're selling the migration project or the platform that keeps running after. Then write everything around that one thing.
Tessera is trying to solve the "scattered information" problem, but they keep talking about transformation and services, which makes people think "expensive consultants" instead of "platform I can buy."
The Truth Nobody Wants to Hear
The companies that win won't have the best technology. They'll be the easiest to understand.
If you’re a founder, let a product marketing expert help you:
Clarify your ICP and who you’re really selling to
Pinpoint the pain and dial it up to create urgency
Craft a narrative that speaks to your buyers’ pain and aspirations
Create clear before/after stories that show the transformation
Build your proof engine with real wins, numbers, and credibility
If you're in product marketing:
Look at your homepage right now. If it says anything like "knowledge orchestration," change it today
Make a list and translate every technical term into your buyer’s language.
Write before/after stories for everything your product does.
Use real numbers from early customers, even if they’re messy.
Test your pitch on someone who’s never heard of you. If they can’t repeat it, simplify it.
Your product doesn’t win by being more technical. It wins by being Friend B. Your website doesn’t need fancier words. It needs clearer ones.
If your homepage needs fixing, let’s talk so your next buyer doesn’t leave confused.
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