How Much of Your Business Startup Allowance Should Go to Branding

When you’ve had a great idea and fully committed yourself to making it a reality, it’s easy to focus solely on development. It’s easy to focus all of your funds on development, too. After all, when you’re immersed in a project, you can feel like everyone else will see it the way that you do. You’re excited about what it can do, how it can help, and why it’s going to make lives better, but you forget that to make your vision a success, you have to communicate this to everyone else. These aspects–what, how, and why it works–are self-evident when you’re working close to the project. They aren’t self-evident if you’re anyone else: that’s what branding is about. It’s highly likely that you’ll decide to invest all your business startup allowance as well as all of yourself in creating a product rather than branding it. This is a mistake. You can build a brand by capturing some of that passion and putting it in the right place.

Branding is Not a Luxury Purchase

Many companies working on a tight business startup allowance see branding as an extra cost. They put it off for later, thinking that once they’ve gotten off the ground, they’ll be able to afford better branding and marketing services. Unfortunately, they’re putting the cart before the horse. The greatest product will fail without buzz and understanding. It’s up to you to generate those at the beginning because they create growth. Successful branding is all about getting people’s attention and keeping them interested. Nobody needs this attention as much as a startup. In a competitive business market, you can’t just expect to build it and have people tell your story. You have to tell your own story.

Working with a Branding Consultant

Developing a killer product or service means that you might not have time to learn everything about branding. Hiring a branding consultant, like A Hundred Monkeys, allows you to focus on what you care about while we figure out how to tell your story. We’ll help you figure out how to best leverage your business startup allowance to simultaneously build a brand, build a product, and answer ‘what’, ‘how’, and ‘why’ in the most intriguing way possible.

So How Much Should a Startup Spend on Branding?

How much of your business startup allowance you need to invest in branding may depend on what stage you’re in. In the beginning, while you’re still learning to articulate your vision, it’s not unreasonable to spend $1,000 or less a month on branding and marketing, but as you build over time, you’re going to be spending much more than that, as much as $25,000 a month. That said, remember that branding is an investment: the sooner you begin, the sooner you’ll see growth, and the sooner you’ll be able to increase your branding budget.

A second option is investing in a large brand startup cost by building an entire brand at once. You can then spend much less over time to maintain your brand vision.

If you’re a new company working on a tight business startup allowance, make sure you don’t forget about branding. If you need advice or want to know more about hiring a branding consultant, contact A Hundred Monkeys today to find out how we can help you tell your story.