Start-up Branding (Strategy & Story)

Start-up Branding
Are you ready?

Jigyasa Laroiya @ KSOM, Marketing Conclave

www.30thfeb.com/blog | Email:jigyasa@30thfeb.com

1

Defining Start-up & Branding
• Start-up:
A startup company or startup is a company, a partnership
or temporary organization designed to search for a
repeatable and scalable business model.

• Branding:
A process in which a mark, usually a symbol or ornamental
pattern, is burned into the skin of a living person or animal.



2

Start-up Branding
Branding is not just about telling a great story or having a
memorable logo and slogan—its primary goal is to convey the
company’s heart and soul to an audience. What does the
company stand for? What is the personality? What is your
message, and why should I buy into it?
By creating a message and having your actions be congruent
to it, you create a powerful brand that will give customers a
reason to continue buying from you.

As a startup, your brand will be the most valuable asset you
have at your disposable. Leverage it wisely.


3

What does your Start-up Brand look like??
Got any ideas…. Let us share – right now!


4

Track, Evaluate, and Adjust
Revamp your website
Develop Content Mktg.
Strategy

Figure out the USP
Create Visual Identity
Define Brand Voice

Compose a Mission & Vision
Establish your Values

Define TG

Mentoring helps
in all the phases!!

Do your Research


5

Things NOT to do!
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Being Fanciful
Aspiring for now
Going with just an Idea
Seeking Results readily
Apply Jobs
Keeping Plans to yourself
Premium or Low Pricing


6

Activity – Let us talk about your Brand now!
• Think of the 5 things you
will do create a
brand….make a brief plan
and share
• Consultants – Listen to the
brand idea and share your
concerns
• Summarize the learning!


TOP 5 Things to START!
• Decide what you are
going to do
• Finalize a name
• Create a Look
• Create a Message
• Bundle it all


7

3 ASS RULE By Jeff Clavier

Managing Partner, Softech VC

Ever wondered what’s going on in an
investor’s mind during a start up pitch?


8

3

Team

What never
works?

Product

Traction

Is it working?

Cost of
Funding

Smartass Team
Kickass Product
Bigass Market

Funds
Contacted

Market
Opportunity

Funding

Other
Investors

Valuation
Founder
Dilution

A
S
S
E
S
R
U
L
E
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What’s Cooking? Ah! A Start-up Brand
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RECIPE
Know your Brand
Know your Customers
Flexibility and Futuristic
Create a Design Story
Be Humorous

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INGREDIENTS
Name
Personality
Slogan / Jingle
Visual Style
Verbal Style

Gaining the Cost Advantage


10

Smart Branding : Gain Cost Advantage
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Think Less about Branding & more about SALE
Pick a Smart Design
Keep it Simple
Permission Marketing
Affiliate Marketing
Time Management



11

Social Branding for Start-up: Free Tools
• Google Alerts, Trends and
Insights
• Website/Blog
• SEO
• Local Business Listing
• Use PPC , Social Media
Ads: LinkedIn , Facebook
Ads, Google ad words
• Web tools like Topsy,
Socialmention can be used
to track about your brands
sentiments digitally


12

Invest more here….
In an ideal situation, a brand shall
invest more in –
• Developing Services
• Analyzing the needs and
creating an Offer
• Managing Portfolio and
expanding it
• Target Great testimonials,
create Brand Advocates
• Innovation and Timely Delivery
• Smart Brand Goals
• Avoid Overselling or Burnout


13

5 Common Mistakes in
Branding a Start-up!
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•
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Confused Orientation
Not following KIPS
Picking Buzzwords (Starting with
Godaddy)
Too much of Branding and lesser
reach
Messaging by committee
Not Evolving
“Our mission is to help innovative leaders in the CPG industry increase the velocity of their
business and drive engagement with their social communities to inspire meaningful
change.”
Or
“to discover, develop and deliver innovative medicines that help patients prevail
over serious diseases.”


14

START-UP STORIES
Let us now discuss some success stories to understand
the practicality of Start-up branding strategy.



15

Story: Desperate Branding
• I will design my own logo.
• Business cards – ah! Just
about half an hour
• Meeting & Re-doing it all
• Saving money
• Not Learning from Mistakes
• Diluting the Brand Image
• Satisfied with just money –
making and no value
additions


16

Story: Haste makes a Waste Branding
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Too many ideas
Quick to launch
Identity & Development
Not laying out right
foundations
• Following ideas and not
consumers
• Concentrating too much on
Branding & only Branding
• Underestimating the power
of words


17

Relevance, Truth & Reach Out of
AAP (Aam Aadmi Party)


18

A Political Start-up
Ideas are not enough, Execution matters
Spend some time introspecting, are you spending your time talking about the cool ideas to
implement on your product or the tricks that could get you more business, than doing it.

It is ok if Co-founders/Partners separate ways
So, in your startup – if a time comes where your partners differ at such a basic and fundamental way
of doing things – just go your way.

Empowered Customers, Speak for the brand
Are your customers raving about your customer service near their business circles ? Think about how
you can create a single satisfied customer, so he becomes your permanent product ambassador.

Be Audacious
Don’t hide behind your nice landing pages and a bullet list of features. Can you clearly mention why
you are better than your competitors in the market and stand by it? Think again.

Get into a Market Ripe for Disruption
Is your startup addressing a need to your potential customers? Find a real problem and solve it. If
you have to make your customers aware of the problem before selling your solution, you would
shut the shop real fast.

Product Counts most, it gets your Crowd funding
So, before going the crowd funding mode, be absolutely sure that the end product is useful, and
people would feel like paying and waiting for your it


19

AAP Media Strategy, the beginning..
• Market Testing: Anna Hazare Campaign
• Touching the chords with youth – the first time voters
• Reaching out the Seniors through the traditional form
The Anna movement in 2011 may have used social media
heavily to drive citizen response to its cause, but a political
party needs votes, not followers!



20

Demographic and an Income-group strategy.
• Adopted the traditional forms
for voter outreach
• Party’s poll plank talked of
regularizing jhuggis, and giving
free water and heavily
subsidized electricity
• They made good use of out-ofhome media
• There were volunteers who sat
with local residents and
prepared constituency-level
manifestos



21

All the makings of a start-up, an
entrepreneurial venture…
On the inside, the AAP is filled
with the idealistic dreams, the
quintessential gleam in the eye,
the fervent hope and desire for
change, the fearlessness, and the
utmost self-belief, amidst the
down-to-earth reality of
operating low-on-cash. Most
importantly, AAP appears to have
a fiercely committed set of diehard supporters and spirited
volunteers bound by a shared
sense of sacrifice that money
can’t buy.


22

Story: the Chai ki Thadi
The name has been taken from Mumbai’s local language,
where Tapri is equal to a chai ki thadi.
Ankit Bohra and Sourabh Bapna, started their journey
in a filmy way. They find celebs and entrepreneur as heavy words.
The group Zero, “Zero we got and from zero we started”
“I reflected on myself, what I would want, what would I like to
eat as a consumer and how much would I be willing to pay for it.”
Their target is aam aadmi, the mango people.
Tapri Pratham, was their first playground aimed at students and Tapri
Central their second experimental ground, aimed at jaipur in general.
Age is a state of mind, we should rather put it as, how preoccupied
are we.


23

Story: Few interesting Start-ups!
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Tapri
Seat 14A
Graphicurry Art Store
Theek Kar Do
Hammer & Mop Services
CleanFanatic
Bikana Films



24



25

Activity Time
• You are the Brand Strategists of a start-up and
you need to build on a Branding Strategy.
• Each Group will represent a separate start-up
• Audience will be free to ask questions to the
branding team of these start-ups
• Start-up Details and conditions are provided to
each team lead.

Tip: Start-ups are mostly Cash Strapped and dwell
on innovation.


26

Few Start-up Ideas for Students..
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Flyer Marketing
Shoe Wash Company
Baby sitting Services
Resume Writing Services
Tutoring Services
Gifting Services
Career Guidance
City Walks
Tech Teaching Services



27

Planning a Start-up! Read Books…
1. Start with Why by Simon Sinek
2. E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber
3. Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port
4. $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau
5. The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
6. The Startup Owner’s Manual by Steve Blank and Bob Dorf
7. Secrets of Closing the Sale by Zig Ziglar
8. How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in
Selling by Frank Bettger
9. Little Red Book of Selling by Jeffrey Gitomer
Source: www.mohitpawar.com


28

NOW
All THE BEST
Connect to me at: jigyasa@30thfeb.com
Join me at: www.facebook.com/30thfeb / www.twitter.com/jlaroiya



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Start-up Branding (Strategy & Story)

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