Read a Preview of “The One Page Brand: a Strategy for Startups”
I’ve worked for two startups and consulted & advised many more, and across all that experience, I’ve noticed one consistent theme: startup branding is hard.
Every founder has to do it, but they don’t teach it in school. Online guides are too high-level to be helpful, and on top of that, the vocabulary of brand is esoteric and inconsistent, making it difficult to share ideas and best practices.
Compared to the more objective and data-driven aspects of building a startup, it’s no wonder branding seems like a dark art to many founders.
To make matters worse, Google “startup branding” and you’ll find checklists and 10-step plans that’ll tell you to “have a logo” and “be consistent.”
Thanks.
Founders don’t need the same old tips and tricks. They need tools for building a meaningful brand, starting today and building for tomorrow. That’s what this book is all about.
I’m a hybrid ad man/startup guy who’s sat on both sides of the table, first at an ad agency and then as a customer success director leading 8 employees with a multi-million dollar book of business.
I’ve built brands for everything from an event discovery app to an AI platform for medical records, and given talks at accelerators across the country as well as at SXSW. I’ve also spent time in operations, joining an API analytics startup as well as a player in the machine learning space.
Unlike most brand experts, I’ve actually bought and sold software.
In this book that takes the best from agency world and the startup trenches, we’ll move past WHAT to do about your brand and focus on HOW to actually do it.
We’ll explore quick hit methods for jump-starting your strategy creation process that you can start using today, and for those so inclined, dive deep into the concepts of the brand development process I’ve developed and have delivered countless times. And we’ll look at lots of real-world examples along the way.
In chapter 1, we’ll explore fundamental ideas about branding for startups. Does it matter, and if so, when does it become important?
In chapter 2, we’ll take a high-level look at the Brand Strategy Canvas, a tool I created to help founders actually do branding. Where did it come from, why does it look like that, and why are these the sections included over other possible sections.
Then we’ll dive deep into each one of those sections, starting in chapter 3 with the Market Opportunity. The first three boxes are foundational to the existence of your startup, and key insights about your audience, competition, and product lead to a strong strategy.
Chapter 4 is all about features and benefits. Sounds simple, but once you understand the continuum from feature to rational benefit to emotional benefit, you’ll be able to unlock key parts of your brand strategy that will lead to great website copy, killer campaigns, and in general, strong messaging.
Chapter 5 gets to the heart of your brand. The positioning statement is a tested tool for succinctly capturing your strategy. It’s the foundation and inspiration for all brand execution. Getting it right is tough, but the struggle is worth it.
With your positioning statement in place, chapter 6 explores your startup’s values and personality. These represent two sides of one coin, and in this chapter, you’ll gain an understanding of how values influence personality, and how your brand personality affects your audience.
Finally, chapter 7 delves into your startup’s key messages, which is where your strategy becomes actionable. While much of your strategy is internal to your team, your key messages will inform everything from website copy to press releases to what you say in customer support emails.
Whether you’re picking out the highlights from each chapter to spark momentum for your current strategy, or digging deep to strategy with your team, you’ll walk away armed with ideas and insights that will bring clarity and focus to your strategy and impact to your execution.
So that’s the overview of the book. Each section will include an overview of the principles, provide simple & powerful methods for getting started, and dig into examples to connect theory to practice.
