“Good enough” branding sinks startups.
In the early days of a startup, founders are juggling product-market fit, fundraising, supply chains and new hires. And they mostly downplay branding as an unnecessary expense and a ‘nice to have’ once the business is more established and stable.
Until then, let’s slap together a logo, pick a few nice colours and write a line of copy that sounds vaguely inspiring. That will suffice, right? Wrong!
Your brand is your business.
Your brand shapes how customers perceive your value, how much they’re willing to pay, how often they come back, and how loudly they recommend your name to others.
“Good enough” branding is like duct-taping a cracked engine and praying your car makes it across the country. Because if your brand doesn’t stand for something and doesn’t cut through, generative AI will eat your lunch.
That’s because branding remains a human-centric endeavour. It’s emotional. It’s irrational. It’s what makes a customer pick you over someone else. And if you don’t invest in that early, you’re playing a losing game.
Beat “good enough” by locking in these five brand levers.
1. Purpose: Why does your brand exist beyond making money? Name the change you exist to make in the world.
2. POV: Pick a lane, own it, and become known for something.
3. Voice: Build a verbal identity that sound like the same person with the same tone across tagline, copy, and subject lines.
4. Visuals: Craft a cohesive and recognisable visual identity that’s an intentional system of type, colour, and imagery. And stay consistent.
5. Evolve: Treat branding as an ongoing growth lever, not a one-and-done task. Revisit and refine your brand as you scale.
Branding is the fuel.
If you think branding is just set dressing, you’ll build a business that looks good on the surface but never scales efficiently.
Branding is not the garnish, it’s the fuel. And if you don’t invest in it now, you’ll pay for it later, with higher costs, lower loyalty and a business that constantly has to scream just to get heard.
Skip the “good enough” tax. Build a brand that compounds.
