So you’ve got the next best idea since sliced bread! I get it, you’re excited. I’m going to give you some tips around how you should actually establish a brand for a new lean startup so you can maximize success without trying to break the bank.
We’ve dealt with so many over the years we know they run on the smell of an oily rag so I’m trying to help you as to how you can get this let’s start up off the ground before you should come back in a year or two once you have some cash flow and actually formalize and develop some of these brand concepts. That’s what we’ve seen and what we do with some about clients.
So, here’s some tips around what you should do for your lean startup:
1 – Defining your strategy
Firstly, spend time defining your strategy. Understand what you’re trying to do, how you’re trying to do it, what marketplaces you’re operating in, who your audience are, what are the goals the missions and objectives of the organization, and make sure you’ve got they’re really honed in and your business plan home down to give you clarity about where the business and brand and the decisions you need to make related to it should go.
2 – Research
Do your research. Make sure you understand the competitive marketplace, make sure that you know who the competition are, how they are positioned in the marketplace, how they claim to be unique, what messages they’re putting out in the marketplace as well, therefore you can know how you can differentiate. Also understand and research your target market target audience, your consumer. Know what they want from this the sector and also how you’re going to differentiate deliver upon their needs with your product or service.
3 – What How Why
Define your What How Why, and there’s a video recently that we did around what that is and how you can define it. But those three simple words help distill down, define and give clarity – internally and therefore externally – to your brand and start up.
4 – Naming
Next up, if you’re thinking of a name make sure you’re not plucking it out of thin air! Again, we’ve just done a video about how to name your business but make sure it is based on a strategy-led approach. Go back to your documents, your business plan, the research that you’ve gathered and understand what name is going to be unique, going to be memorable, going to be catchy, sexy, whatever! to give you competitive advantage. The name is one element to the brand and it’s going to tell that brand story through the name.
5 – Design
The last two relate to design. Make sure you get some professional design done. You want a great-looking logo, it helps engage and make you more memorable and increase your awareness in the marketplace. Just get some simple professional design elements around the brand – so the logo, colour palette, typography and imagery – it doesn’t have to be a lot, it doesn’t have to be expensive – but just enough to empower you to get off the ground and be consistent with the brand.
6 – Website
That leads into the final element and that is get a great looking website – if that is your key consumer touch point, and in this market and in today’s world it often is, make sure that it sings. Make sure resonates. It’s the first place your customers are going to go when they hear your brand name, or hear of you, so make sure it is really helping your sales.
So those few points are what I define as the key elements to getting your lean startup off the ground. You can do much of them yourself. Start thinking about it and get some simple design done and then come back come back to somebody in a couple of years time to really get a proper brand, a consolidated brand, to help elevate you to the next stage, once you’ve got that cash flow.
It’s been Tim Dove from Re:brand.
