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.

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

20. Branding is experiential

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.

29. Minimum
Viable 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

48. Strengthen
your brand
with content

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