Are you a brand person or an anti-brand person?
While I don’t think any of you are really anti-brand, I assume that some of you just don’t prioritize brand in the early days of company-building. Some days I am in this camp, BTW.
Now, to be clear, when I speak about the “brand” in this post, I am not talking about the logo, or colors, or even the name of the company. Today, I am talking about the words you use to describe what the company is about. You can call this your UVP (Unique Value Proposition) or your elevator speech or your message.
Many of you try to pack too much into your message in the hope that someone listening will get it. Cast a wide net, you think and somehow a fish will be caught. Wrong!
You can kill your new brand by trying to be all things to all people.
Resist the urge and focus on your small, niche target audience and build brand momentum that way.
One of the better definitions of “brand” I’ve heard is “it’s what people say about your product or your company when you’re not in the room.” That said, start-ups don’t have brands (at least not yet anyway). They have products. As a founder, don’t worry about your brand yet. Just worry about getting clarity about what makes your product superior to the alternatives. And, please talk about benefits to the customer, NOT product features. Then, communicate this story like crazy.