You don’t need to be the biggest brand in the world

Biggest brand in the world: This is a great desire isn’t it? All entrepreneurs start with a great dream – to create the unicorns of the world. To be honest, a startup is probably simpler than that. The root of a startup is in customer problem. It might start with frustration, delight in an experience or finding a more efficient way to do things. Most of these ideas may not be the biggest brand in the world. But they have a humble start from having to solve a problem for a customer.

Both small businesses and startups start from the same seed of the problem. But startups have the penchant to grow explosively as opposed to small businesses. But this post is about branding and how we approach the visibility of our business to the customers. I’ll lead with a beautiful quote:

“Don’t get distracted. Never tell yourself that you need to be the biggest brand in the whole world. Start by working on what you need at the present moment and then what you need to do tomorrow. So, set yourself manageable targets.”

– Jas Bagniewski, Co-Founder of Eve Sleep

The biggest brand in the world

A startup branding strategy can involve having simple logos, using free software. As the startup grows, your branding requirements increase. However, it is important to note that when you start, the startup is still a very small child in its infancy. Although it feels great to think like a large brand, your value is in staying close to your roots and finding a great way to solve customer issues.

Startup branding can take an organic route which you can evolve over time. But, it is important to have some standard market-facing presence. This standardisation has a great way of connecting the user to your brand. This brand can be through your own charisma or following which can be boosted through personal branding photography. Alternatively, your brand can be about the values that you stand for. Depending on the type of your business venture, you can use this to create a strong brand presence.

Identifying the customer’s point of view

There are two conflicting view points in a startup

• One is a vision of where you want to be X years from now
• The other is about where you are now

A customer can only see where you are today. As an entrepreneur you have a magical vision that you know can paint a picture. Your branding in early stages is about ensuring that you stay in a middle ground between the two. The key point to remember is that you can be agile and change things. But please don’t waste enormous time on branding alone.

There are various other parts of the business that will demand more time from you. It is not the time to be perfect, but to keep cruising forward to ensure that you’re not compromising on time.

Start from where you are!

This is the last point I leave you with. Having run startups with no money, I tend to roll back to the idea of bootstrapping. To start with where I am, I always went back to free resources, to see which one can be good enough for my purpose now. Of course, there’s a limitation that I failed in creating the best first impression.

But I’d rather have the product speak for itself. I’m not saying that we don’t need good branding. We still have to find a way to connect the customer to us.