When Is It Time For A Professional Brand?
This article was originally published on starting up.
You might be familiar with the saying that you can’t not communicate. The same holds true for brands. The moment an idea evolves into a product or business, you don’t just have a brand—you are a brand. Why? Well, every brand’s primary role is to stand out. While you can easily create something that’s already out there, it’s your brand that will ultimately set you apart in the marketplace.
In the beginning phases of a startup, things like the name, logo, story, and even UI often come together on the fly—definitely not what we’d consider proper branding yet. And guess what? That’s perfectly fine! But here are two key tips to keep in mind: First, avoid going overboard with your DIY branding—stick to names and designs that align with your value proposition. Second, try not to get too attached to your DIY brand. If all goes well on your business journey, you’ll eventually want to bring in the pros. But in those early days, it’s smarter to invest your time and resources in other areas.
When’s the right time for ‹proper› branding?
Over the past seven years, we’ve worked with countless startups, from the emerging to the established, and one question keeps coming up in our chats with founders: When is the right time to invest in proper branding or bringing in an agency? Given how frequently we hear this, we took some time to reflect and came up with a straightforward answer: the Product-Story-Slot.
The Product-Story Slot is a window of time that opens at a specific point—and closes just as predictably. It hinges on two key dimensions:
- ‹Viability› of product (market readiness)
- ‹Ownership› of story (narrative control)
By overlaying these dimensions, you can determine the optimal time for branding. The bottom line is this: proper branding makes no sense until that slot opens up!
Before diving deeper into the product-story-slot, let’s clarify what we consider ‹proper› branding. Think of a professional brand as a well-fitted suit—perfectly tailored to your product, company, and the people behind it. Proper branding goes beyond just standing out; it’s highly associative by using clever designs and meaningful assets that tell a compelling story.
Building a brand isn’t a quick or cheap endeavor. To make sure your brand resonates well, it’s important that your product’s core offering is solid. This stability is key to establishing a strong and distinctive brand identity. And that leads us to the first aspect of the Product-Story Slot.
‹Viability› of Product (market readiness)
Experienced founders already know this, but here’s the scoop on agile product development. It kicks off with an idea, which quickly evolves into a prototype—basically a hypothesis you’ll test in the market. Through user interviews, research, and feedback, you’ll keep refining your idea until you hit proof of concept: that sweet confirmation that people are not only interested in your product but might actually pay for it too.
Once your Minimum Viable Product (MVP) meets expectations, you’re inching closer to that elusive holy grail of Product-Market Fit. At this stage, your paying users often turn into enthusiastic ambassadors, naturally spreading the gospel about your brand.
Until you have an MVP, the aforementioned basic elements—like the name, logo, messages, and UI/UX design—should just fulfill their basic functions. At this point, there’s often a good deal of trial and error going on with the product. In this flux of iterations and adjustments, establishing a solid brand could even be counterproductive, as it would constrain the brand to assumptions that may not hold true.
With the launch of the MVP, the time has finally come: the window for quality branding is wide open. You’ve identified the key benefits of the product that can translate into the brand’s core promises. Proper branding supports scale-up and rollout efforts—and can even help achieve final product-market fit. Reaching this milestone also means, however, that the window for the most effective is closing again. Why? Let’s find out together!
Ownership of Story (narrative control)
While the first part of our model was concerned solely with your product, this second part focuses on your brand story—and the question of who truly ‹owns› is as it evolves. Initially, it’s all about the founders, who create the story to draw in early employees, customers, and investors.
But as the company starts expanding, that ownership transitions to the team. They’ll be the ones conducting user interviews, posting on social media, and onboarding new members and partners, all while keeping the narrative alive and adapting it to fit market demands.
When scaling begins, a shift occurs—the ownership of the brand story moves away from the company and into the hands of its users and audience. They start to mold the narrative through reviews, referrals, ratings, and good old word of mouth. While the company still has some say in this process, truly controlling the story can become pricey and time-consuming. Essentially, the chance for cost-effective branding begins to diminish as the public’s perception of the brand takes the spotlight.
This dynamic isn’t unique to startups. Established companies like Canada Goose and Volkswagen have spent fortunes reclaiming control of their narratives (combating associations with animal cruelty or dishonesty respectively).
The Product-Story-Slot
The magic happens when we overlay these two time dimensions. We can easily spot the guiding principles of the Product-Story-Slot at a glance here.
Once the MVP launches and the focus shifts from iteration to rollout and scaling, the window for effective branding swings open. At this stage, the team (usually still small) owns the story, making it the perfect time for buy-in and rallying around the ‹new› brand along with its story. Once hyper growth starts, the story ownership ventures into the wild, marking the moment when the Product-Story Slot closes.
Of course, effective brand work can still happen beyond this point. If someone notices that their brand story isn’t hitting the mark, they’ll need to make some adjustments. That said, branding tends to be most effective when it aligns with the product-story-slot.
So how long is this slot exactly? Depending on your idea, the market, and the founding conditions, pretty much any timeframe can work. If your planned product is already validated in another country or market segment, you could see things progress quickly. However, if you’re venturing into something completely new, expect the timeline to stretch quite a bit. But here’s the silver lining: a longer timeline allows for a proportionately larger Product-Story Slot!
Fake it till you make it
To wrap up: a finalized brand (story + visual identity) only makes sense after the MVP launch. Only when the product’s solution is clear can you align your brand promise with the right associations.
In the meantime, founders might want to think about bootstrapping their branding efforts. The product and its features should take center stage; the name, story, and design should showcase the product’s core functionality and promise. There are countless templates for UI and UX that you can build on. Less known, however, is that you can also bootstrap your initial brand story. Websites like ManifestoWriting.com and frameworks like the Hero’s Journey can guide you in crafting an engaging narrative that reflects your passion and product promise.
On a final note, let’s clear up any potential confusion. When we advise that young founding teams shouldn’t rush into perfecting their branding, it’s not to dishearten them or push them aside. Rather, it’s about this: something exceptional can only be achieved if what we’re branding is genuinely substantial enough. We use the Product-Story-Slot as a guide to help identify the right time to collaborate and create something extraordinary together.
