Branding for Start-Ups, and Why It’s Essential for Success

Electric Brands is a Sydney-based branding studio founded by wife-and-husband duo Nics and Pete Brennan.

"We’ve been designing stuff for 25 years now, and we’ve run this branding studio for the best part of the last decade. We thrive when we partner with startup founders in tech, fashion, food and drink who are hungry to do things differently. We get out of bed in the morning to build the world’s most talked-about brands."

Electric Brands is all about providing startups in the consumer and tech industries with unique, meaningful, and category-disrupting branding with the help of people, like founders Nics and Pete, who have done it before.

Branding for Start-ups:

noissue - It feels like there’s never been an easier time to start a business, yet a significant number fail within the first year. Can you tell us a bit about what services your agency provides, to help increase founders chances of success?

Of course. It does seem like starting a business has never been more accessible, but the stats on failure rates are a harsh reminder that it’s not as simple as it looks. In terms of us, Electric Brands helps startup founders unlock the next stage of growth through branding. We do this two ways: First, as a husband and wife branding studio - we work with founders 1:1 to build world class brands in consumer and tech. We do this over a 6-week process where we develop a compelling brand purpose, vision, and mission, define the brand’s personality, help pinpoint the target audience, analyze competitors, and craft a strong brand positioning statement. That provides us with a solid foundation from which to build out the creative, meaning when you see things like our logos, font pairings and color palettes, they’re steeped in meaning and developed from a concept that’s been pieced together throughout the brand strategy process.

The second way we help founders unlock the next stage of growth through branding is with our high-ticket mastermind & community called Brand Club, where we teach everything we know about building brands and starting businesses. I’ve been in the founder chair myself - I co-founded non-alcoholic beer company Heaps Normal and helped take that to a $58M valuation in 3 years; prior to that I had a tech startup called Viewpop that let you capture 3D photos and videos; and prior to that I had a t-shirt startup called Vintage Industries that ranged in retailers like Urban Outfitters. I’ve had so many highs and lows throughout my own startup journey, and I’ve found that sharing what I’ve learnt helps me learn and improve myself too. My mission is to help as many founders as I can to avoid the mistakes I made and help them on their journey to building a million dollar brand.

noissue - How critical is branding to the establishment of a startup, and how much time and resources should be allocated to branding during the initial phases?

I truly believe that branding can be a startup’s secret weapon. I also believe that branding should be done in stages. There’s no point spending months and a small fortune developing a brand when you haven’t proven that there’s a want or need for your product or service yet. I think it’s important to think of branding from a MVP (minimum viable product) perspective - get the idea off the ground with the best version of a logo you can muster, achieve some sort of product-market fit, and then double down on brand in order to really scale. I made this mistake when I started my second startup - Viewpop - I spent so much time on the look and feel of the brand and the app, but the concept itself didn’t solve a problem. Whilst we got featured in Wired and Mashable, and made the Top 10 startups at Web Summit, we ultimately failed because the idea was just a ‘nice to have’.

Now, let’s assume you’ve nailed the business idea and there is in fact someone willing to give you money for your product or service, then branding becomes absolutely crucial. It’s not just about having a cool logo or a fancy website; it’s about creating a meaningful connection with your target audience and establishing trust. Branding is the foundation upon which your marketing strategies and customer relationships are built. A strong brand can differentiate you from competitors, making it easier to attract and retain customers. And the right type of customers too. In my experience, investing in a robust brand early on pays dividends in the long run. I always tell founders to think of branding as an investment, not an expense. Done right, branding should absolutely provide you with a positive financial return on the time and money you put into it. The unlock is connecting the right creative to the right business. When you work with a designer, agency or studio who really understands the category and the space, magic can happen.

noissue - What’s your approach to brand development? And can you share some key principles or 'rules' to follow?

I’ve been a designer for over 25 years now, and I started Electric Brands almost a decade ago. I feel like we’ve produced some great brands, some of which now have multi-million dollar valuations. Over this time, we’ve built and refined a 5-step brand building process called SPARK. This has got enough structure and enough flexibility in it to produce some pretty outstanding results, in my humble opinion. In the words of Simon Sinek, we always start with Why.

Once we’ve locked off the brand strategy, we’re in a great position to make informed decisions on things like typography choices, color palettes and logo designs. I always try to build brands from a point of difference to what’s already on the supermarket shelf or app home screen. There’s a concept I sometimes follow when building brands called ‘make enemies to gain fans’ - we can’t be everything to everyone. It’s important that we identify who we’re trying to talk to. Sure, some people won’t resonate with what we put out there, and that’s fine, because the people that do resonate are our true fans. These are the people that will move your brand forward - the real, genuine fans.

noissue - When people hear the term ‘branding’ they often think of logos, websites or marketing campaigns. How does packaging contribute to building a strong brand?

One of my favorite quotes about branding (that’s often credited to Jeff Bezos, like most good quotes are) is this: “Marketing is what you tell people, branding is what people say about you when you’re not in the room”. Branding is how a business makes you feel. And this comes through in the careful curation of integrating the brand work you do into logos, colors, symbols, wordmarks, lockups, typography, imagery, iconography, websites, packaging, photo, video, content, audio, service, product, user experience, interface design, ambience, feeling, reputation, hardware, software and so much more.

I grew up a student of print design in the late 1990’s, so I geek out on packaging. I’m particularly fond of exploring different paper stocks, finishes like embossing & flocking, and the wonder of letterpress done on old 1940’s Heidelberg print presses. I feel like in a world of ever-evolving digital and technological advancements, there’s always an opportunity for a brand to surprise and delight with print and packaging. With the classic Apple unboxing experience being the obvious bar that’s been set, I feel like startups should think creatively when it comes to print and packaging - this is sometimes a forgotten approach that can really cut through the noise and grab the attention of the future superfan who hasn’t yet been made aware of who you are.

noissue - You’ve recently launched Brand Club. Can you tell us a bit about the initiative and the reasons behind the new venture?

We’re a boutique branding studio and working with us 1:1 requires a reasonable investment. I found that we were coming across a lot of amazing founders with awesome ideas for a business but they essentially couldn’t afford to work with us. Not only that, but they didn’t know where to start. It felt like they were too early to engage a branding studio. I wrestled with the idea of a solution to this for months. The result is Brand Club. It’s a private, application-only, high-ticket mastermind for early stage founders. It’s designed for early-stage entrepreneurs who struggle with building an engaging brand around their business idea.

I’ve spent the last 12 months unpacking everything I’ve learnt about branding and business, and put it into video courses within Brand Club. Teaching is new for me, and putting myself in front of the camera really took me out of my comfort zone, but I know that means personal growth for me, and I feel like I need that at the moment. To help me get out of my comfort zone, when I talk to the camera I imagine that I’m talking to my kids. And the goal is that they’ll be able to watch the course content one day, and learn enough to be able to turn their idea into a million dollar brand.

We have collab calls within Brand Club every week, where we jump on a video call and help each other through different parts of the branding and business journey. We’re just about to wrap up the beta programme and open the first cohort to the public. It’s honestly become such a meaningful thing for me. We’ve had people meet on a collab call for the first time, and then connect offline, meet in person, and they’re now working on projects together. And we’re still in the beta programme. It’s so great. I’ve had so many highs and lows in my own journey. I really just want to help as many people as we can, in a real, fun and meaningful way, turn their idea into a million dollar brand. I think Brand Club is the solution to this.

Visit Electric Brands' website and Instagram to learn more.