4 lessons from launching a digital startup from home
On 10 August 2020, Human Managed launched digitally for the world to see: website, LinkedIn profiles and company page, Twitter profile, Medium publisher… all whilst working from home.
This was the first time I’ve been involved in a launch of any kind. I loved the process and learned a great deal from it.
Below are my 4 main takeaways. Of course, every startup journey is different (eg. growth stage, budget, timeline etc), but I hope this provides some insight for anyone thinking of launching their own brand online or sharing their personal project.
1) Be crystal clear in your brand identity and story. Then let them guide your design.
Since its inception in late 2018, Human Managed has been driven by a purpose to build a collective intelligence that ultimately helps humans manage their decision making better. We also wanted to create an environment where everyone could learn, unlearn and relearn. There were concepts that existed from day 1, such as:
- Human values + machine intelligence
- Depths of analysis
- Cybersecurity, Risk, Digital use cases
- Fresh, Open, Present
However, what needed to happen before going into any design work was to find the core of our idea, pack into it a lot of meaning, identity and story then wrap it up nicely in a simple and compelling message. We brainstormed this remotely again and again until we were all very happy with our Vision to Values.
Vision: To create a world in which we make good decisions consistently.
Mission: To push boundaries and find answers through collective intelligence.
Values: FRESH | OPEN | PRESENT
📗 Reading: if you want to learn more about how to make ideas that make an impact and last, I would highly recommend “Made to Stick” by Chip and Dan Heath.
2) Hire a brand storyteller and strategist who can design, not a designer who can do branding.
The Human Managed team is made up of creative Builders, Operators, Auditors and Thinkers (BOATs). However none of us had much experience in graphic design. I felt it was critical to have someone to understand our brand story and drive every ‘design’ work holistically, including but not limited to the website, collaterals, social media infographics, etc. Su was this someone for us.
Su, as an external fresh hire, had no previous knowledge of Human Managed. Her fresh perspective helped us to get rid of bias and bring out the design elements that really encapsulate who we are. It was incredibly rewarding to see concepts that were previously just in our heads or spoken about internally turn into digital text, drawings or animations.
☝️ Note: I have not worked with agencies yet so I cannot comment on this topic. But having an in-house, dedicated colleague for all things brand / content related worked wonders for us, considering our team’s skills gap and branding objectives. We also went back and forth countless times until the minute before our launch; I am not sure the same level of communication would have been possible with an agency. Now we are confident that the same branding guiding principles will be applied so our brand story is told consistently across multiple mediums.
3) Don’t forget who participates in your digital ecosystem.
When it comes to launching your business digitally, it’s easy to focus a lot of effort into impressing your prospective customers and getting lots of leads quickly. However, having a digital presence is all about communicating with and serving your entire business ecosystem online: your customers, partners (suppliers / peers) and employees — both current and future. So your digital strategy should have goals for all of them.
- What do you want your prospective customers, partners and hires to think when they interact with your brand? How do you want to make them feel?
- Are your employees engaged? Are you involving them in the launch? Have you considered their individual brands as well as the company brand? Do they have digital footprints in places that would help them serve their communities better (e.g. LinkedIn, Medium, Github, Youtube, the list goes on)?
- Is your digital presence helping you understand your customers, partners and employees better so you can better serve them?
The Human Managed digital launch was more than having a website and company page up.
It marked the beginning of our journey to curate a network of enterprises, products and customers that creates value for ALL participants.
4) Inspiration is really everywhere.
It’s been so fun to observe what my mind was suddenly open to see. I saw inspirations in things like restaurant menus and retail window displays (photo below) and noticed details that I would usually not glance twice at. My mind was developing a new muscle or, rather, a part of it was waking up from a long hibernation.
💡 Thoughts: For those who don’t think they’re ‘creative’, I highly recommend having a side project that is unrelated to their day job. For example, like writing an essay about a new topic or making a YouTube video. And do this regularly, like you would treat exercise or other hobbies. You would be amazed at the places your mind would go if you just let them explore. I know a lot of people do this on the daily. I wish I did it sooner because of how healthy my mind feels from doing it!
I couldn’t be more proud of what the team has achieved in such a short amount of time. It was a very special experience to create a digital identity from a collection of raw thoughts, hours of conversations and sparks of Aha! moments.
For me, this creative process brought into life one of my favourite phrases written by David Perell:
“Creativity doesn’t happen inside our heads. Instead, creativity is born out of interactions between our minds and the environment we inhabit. As a result, creativity is a systemic phenomenon — not an individual one.”
