When do you start the process of branding your startup?
I was wondering when do entrepreneurs start the process of branding their startups? including figuring their brand personality, brand category and messaging/positioning?
8 Answers
Ideally very early on, before your product takes too much shape. Why? Because your company's identity should be infused into your product, pricing, delivery, your positioning, your messages, marketing efforts, operations, support etc etc. The more "real" your brand identity is - the more you believe it and can implement it down into the little details - the more successful it'll be. Upshot: once you know what business you are in, what your product might be and what the biz model is, do this, and do it really well.
For some interesting brand positioning/identity work, look at Levy Innovation (http://www.levyinnovation.com/ )- Mark Levy is a genius in this regard, and I've had the good fortune to work with him. He's worked a fair bit with other successful people such as Steve Cohen (http://www.chambermagic.com/ ), David Meerman Scott (http://www.davidmeermanscott.com/ ).
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Thank you, Manuel. – Arman Arami 14 years ago
Good answer from Manuel. As soon as you have a name for your company, you're branding. As soon as you start telling others about what you're doing, you're branding. Define it early but also keep managing it, adjusting it as you learn more, protecting it.
Best of luck!
I have to respectfully disagree with the other answers -- I say just be yourselves and the branding figures itself out.
Check out Balsamiq's "about us" page. There's no logo, no company colors, no credo, no pre-determined image or purpose, just real people trying to do something good in the world.
Lay out what's important to you as a group, and tell people briefly. The art you like, that's fine. The way you feel you should treat customers, fine.
"Branding" is for Coke and Nike.
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Sorry, Jason - I've got to disagree with you here. My comments are below. – Josh Sam Bob 14 years ago
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Jason, the balsamiq example is actually great (as is their product). I guess I'd say that even their approach is a form of branding - it requires thought, careful writing, and represents a position of its own. In this case, the position may be very closely aligned with Peldi and Val's personalities.... – Manuel M 14 years ago
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We are talking start up here, right? Most of the comments here seem to be aimed at established corps. If it is tech start-up, I am with Jason on this one. Being "Real" and quickly building a product and getting it into anxious customer hands is the quickest way to build "brand equity". And can be done with out textbook marketing or PR strategy. – Cameron Mc Grane 14 years ago
Jason, I have to totally disagree with you (a first :-)).
Peldi probably never thought about it that way, but he's built an amazing brand. To you Balsamiq is "real people trying to do something good in the world" to me it's a "prototyping company run by the one of the nicest marketing genius."
I have no doubt that Balsamiq, 37signals, FogCreek and yes even SmartBear are brands. Here's what comes to my mind:
37signals -- Ruby on Rails based SaaS products that are by design simple
FogCreek -- .Net based ticket system created by a company that believes in providing the best tools possible for the developers
SmartBear -- some software product, the main thing I know is that the founder writes well thought out articles about startups
Obviously my brand view is slanted towards the geeky side of things (most people don't care what the development platform is. But I have some kind of image of these companies -- their brand.
What's interesting about all of the above examples is that these companies became prominent and got incredible brand recognition, because they provided very useful insight to their business approach. It's both hard and time consuming to replicate.
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Of course they all ARE brands. My point is that they didn't set out with a "mission statement" and have sessions debating which corporate colors matched their vision. They had goals, but they were personal ones. 37signals constantly A/B tests and changes all the stuff you think of as "branding" -- except their personality. Your assessment of FogCreek is actually not correct according to Joel's latest blog post. The goal was to make a place developers would want to work. They eventually got to FogBugz. Surely Joel's views on his blog are more influential there than any company mission. – Jason 14 years ago
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Actually fogbugz wasn't even .NET :) So that's quite interesting their perceived brand (at least by you) is totally wrong. I kind of agree with Jason. You got have a personal statement and you should stick with it. Most of these companies got a brand because their vision has not managed by 10 people instead it was the vision of one guy (Joel, Jason and that RoR guy :) ) – The Dictator 14 years ago
Like Manuel points out, branding is as much about your team's internal identity (purpose, values, goals, atmosphere, personality) as it is your public face. The longer you wait to consciously 'brand' your product or company the harder it will be and the less genuine the result.
Though I'm trying to be alert to when my branding and positioning needs to be refined - perhaps there is a customer category that I have misidentified, or a better way of framing my product. Maintaining this flexibility and the ability to change quickly if needed is challenging work!
Branding is EVERYTHING that a company does: from its logo and deliberate marketing choices (colors, campaigns, website) to its choice of partners and activities in which it participates. Just because you're not doing a branding "campaign" doesn't mean you aren't branding your company.
As Chris said above, once you've told one person about X, you are branding X through your thoughts, words, and actions. If you're wearing the company's logo, and you buy a kid an ice cream cone, then it's as if the company is buying that kid the cone by extension.
Jason,
I have to jump back in and strongly disagree with you. Success from a marketing standpoint is clearly positioning your company/ your product or service / your brand so it's different than your competitors and clearly conveys and communicates something that your target audience cares about, something of value. That takes a lot of work and time to do it right. It won't just figure itself out.
I suggest you get yourself in several social networking groups and get the benefit of a "virtual" focus group.
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