When you’re scaling up a business, you need three things: money, customers, and talent. All of these things are influenced by good branding, so to give your startup the best chance of growing, it’s a good idea to have your branding down. Sadly, not all tech startups seem to understand what branding is and how it helps.
When I see tech companies at conferences, it’s clear which ones have invested in brand. They’re the ones that are attracting attention, that have a decisive and cohesive way of communicating what they do, how they do it, and how this can be beneficial to others.
From big brands like Google and Airbnb (who have created some of the best rebrands to date) to smaller businesses, a good name and well-designed character will always trump a confused presentation of something that’s probably good, but nobody can fathom it, let alone want to throw money at it.
What branding is not
Here are some things that branding is not. Branding is not the campaign for your product or services. It’s also not your team and what they like to do at work, it’s not a sales pitch or team dynamics – it’s something far deeper and more important and it needs to be in place early on in any business so that you can communicate clearly with your investors (money), attract people who want what you do (customers) and make sure you can hire the best people to get onboard (talent).
When people look at branding, it's often treated as a separate function from other parts of the business, away from tech development or business strategy. This is a good way to weaken your growth strategy. Brand is not something that goes in the L (loss) column of your P&L (profit and loss) sheet, it’s the P part, it’s investment, and it holds most of your profitable strategies together.
A visible mouthpiece
At their best, brands are recognisable, memorable, appealing, desirable, famous and attractive. You can’t do ‘a bit of branding’, that comes to a sum of nothing. Half-baked ideas are just that, and your possible customers, investors, and talent will spot them a mile away.
Remember that your brand is the visible mouthpiece of your business; in its purity, it is the visualisation of your business plan, spreadsheet or pitch. A brand is the first touchpoint for today’s increasingly time-poor consumers (and indeed investors), telling them why they need to care and pay attention. If your business can’t communicate that quickly, you might as well not bother.
Why companies avoid it
I can see why settling on a brand might be worrying for scale-ups. You’re in the midst of probably the busiest and most stressful part of your life, trying to keep your ship afloat and headed in the right direction, maybe on a shoestring budget. It might be daunting to then choose your brand – akin to trying to name your child, it feels permanent, it’s important, and maybe something you want to avoid.
This is why hiring a branding expert is a wise investment. Branding is all of those things, but maybe not as permanent as you think. Businesses rebrand all the time – for better or worse. But you do need to start somewhere to have a point around which you can coordinate other parts of your business. For example, for our client NiCE, which specialises in AI-Powered customer experience, we created a brand that both reflects their technology and the humanity of the experience it enables.
Keeping ahead of the curve
Successful scale-ups also know when to pivot, like Canva, which grabbed hold of the opportunity provided by the pandemic and rolled into AI opportunities to totally evolve its offer from a little-known creative tool to the premier destination for creative DIY.
Meanwhile, fintech startups like Revolut and Klarna both exemplify scaling and staying ahead of the curve, with their brands closely following changes to their business offerings. As Revolut evolved from a disruptor to a trusted financial companion, its identity changed to reflect this, with the brand bringing in a wider colour palette and more elegant styling to signal maturity. Similarly, Klarna’s ‘curiously bold’ branding has reflected its evolution from a fintech to a lifestyle brand, while retaining its irreverent personality.
As I always tell clients, business leads brand leads business. In other words, both nudge a company forward, both are necessary, and the two are inextricably connected. So, ignore your brand at your peril and don’t be tempted to see it as a ‘nice to have’ extra; it’s fundamental to the success of your business and should be at the heart of everything you do.
