Joshua Porter, Brand Design, WarmGun 2013
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This document discusses branding strategies for startups at different stages. It recommends that pre-MVP, startups should focus on building 1:1 relationships with customers through manual outreach in order to learn their needs and build their brand experience. It also advises establishing a "Minimum Viable Brand" by owning a memorable shape in customers' minds. Post-MVP, the document suggests strengthening the brand through educational content marketing to find new passionate customers and learn how to better target and sell to them.
Joshua Porter, Brand Design, WarmGun 2013
- 1. Branding for Startups Warm Gun, November 21, 2013
- 5. “The Pepsi DNA finds its origin in the dynamic of perimeter oscillations.”
- 9. BREATHTAKING is a strategy based on the evolution of 5000+ years of shared ideas in design philosophy creating an authentic Constitution of Design.
- 18. Logo-centric branding: the right logo not only sways the mind of a customer but is powerful enough to bend the fabric of the universe!
- 19. Branding != Logo
- 21. A brand promise does not survive first use.
- 22. So if branding is experiential, what does that mean for startups?
- 23. MVP? Building brand here… …is different from building brand here
- 24. MVP? Pre MVP Goal: Repeatable value Activities: Research Conceptual Design Prototyping Branding: 1:1 relationships
- 25. “The most common unscalable thing founders have to do at the start is to recruit users manually. Nearly all startups have to. You can't wait for users to come to you. You have to go out and get them.” Paul Graham
- 26. Startup activities Minuses Plusses Talking to each prospect. Takes time. People love attention! Responding to every email. Doesn’t scale. Getting out of the office. Feels repetitive. People see you and start rooting for you. Iterating 469 times. Throwing out that amazing idea you had. Starting over and over. Isn’t directly building product. Isn’t impressive to outsiders. You learn what the real problems are. You learn what people will pay for. You are building your brand.
- 28. Takeaways: 1. Build your brand in 1:1 relationships as you work toward your MVP. 2. The painful, manual steps of researching and hand-holding your first customers is how you’ll also learn how to scale your business going forward. 3. Everyone you come into contact with is being branded. You are your brand.
- 31. Positioning: Own a word in the prospect’s mind Brand Identity: Own a shape in the prospect’s mind
- 39. “I can’t stand the circle logo. I’m going back to fantastical.”
- 40. iOS 7 V2
- 41. iOS 7 V2
- 43. Evernote
- 44. Mailbox
- 45. Mextures
- 46. Takeaways: 1. Minimum Viable Brand is about owning a unique shape in the minds of customers that becomes memorable and elicits memories of real experiences. 2. Find a shape and be consistent with it. 3. When you reach MVP or are ready to invest in marketing, then invest in a professional logo using the same shape!
- 47. MVP? Pre MVP Goal: Repeatable value Post MVP Growth Activities: Research Conceptual Design Prototyping Marketing Sales Scaling technology Branding: 1:1 relationships 1:many relationships
- 49. "Learning adds resolution to what you offer. And the change happens not within the product, but between the user's ears. The more you help your users learn and improve, the greater the chance that they'll become passionate." Kathy Sierra
- 50. Marcus Sheridan
- 53. Takeaways: 1. After MVP, strengthen your brand with content and education. 2. You’ll find your next set of passionate customers this way. 3. Learn the patterns in how they read your educational content to learn who to target and sell to.
- 54. Takeaways: 1. Branding is not what you say to people, it’s what they actually experience and expect of you. 2. Pre-MVP, spend 99% of your time on making people successful. One by one. By hand if necessary. 3. Spend the other 1% of your time on an MVB, which means to own a shape in your customer’s minds. 4. Post-MVP, strengthen your brand and bring in leads with education. Level up your customers by increasing their resolution in the field they want to learn in.
- 55. Thank you. Questions/follow up? Find me: @bokardo