Startups: If we only had a brand

When you’re out to change the world, things are happening fast. Between raising money, finding good people, building a product, and dodging bullets, there’s not a lot of time to think about branding. By the time you finish reading this, you will start making the time. Because how well you tell your story in a world full of people with 5-second attention spans could well decide the fate of your company.

So here you are building something the world has never seen before. But you don’t have the words. You’re using old language to talk about something new. You want to capture the power of what you’re doing, but you don’t really know where to start. So you make do. There’s an elevator pitch. The investor deck. A logo by someone’s cousin. Instead of creating a place of your own in the world and figuring out how to lodge your idea in peoples’ brains, you’re doing the branding equivalent of living on a friend’s couch.

It all makes sense from the bean counter’s perspective. But when was the last time the world was inspired by an accountant? So we’re putting you on notice. It’s time to take this project off the shelf and create your own rig. You don’t have to go to branding school.  But you do have to know what’s important. And here’s the first thing you need to know. As a startup, the ground is constantly shifting under your feet but you still have to put a stake in it. Just go for the high ground. How are you going to make the world a better place? Go there. What have you believed from the very beginning? Go there. What mountaintop do you want to own? Go there.

Next, stop thinking about it as a business problem because that will probably lead you to make a frontal attack. We live in a world where everyone is talking all the time. So you need to look at it a little differently. You’ll go a lot farther if you think that creating your brand is more about seeing the world through the eyes of a child. The minute you lose your curiosity, your sense of wonder and general puzzlement, you’re cooked. In fact, this is not really about you at all. You are probably more of an obstacle than you think. This is more about getting out of your own way.

For example, one of the problems startups have is that they overthink almost everything. So your story winds up a lot more complicated than it has to be–with words that mean more to you than to your audience. What happens when you talk too much? People tune out, or even worse, they make believe they’re listening. So you need to put the story in more personal terms. Make it more like a conversation. Get rid of the gristle. Tighten it up. Roll your own.

The biggest job your brand has to do is grab somebody and not let go. Are you looking for a clever pickup line? Or is it a little deeper than that? You pour your heart and soul into it. What is it about your brand that’s real and important enough to make people stop what they’re doing and all of a sudden look at the world differently? Maybe raise their eyebrows, or scratch their head, or say, “What the hell does that mean?” As soon as you can do that, you’ll be able to imagine the rest.