How to Start Up Your Brand: Develop a Minimum Viable Brand

"Many startups get derailed because they don't get their brand right. They rush into the marketplace thinking that a creative name, cool logo, and pithy tagline are all they need to launch their product idea. But the business isn't grounded in a strategic foundation that provides the internal focus and clarity and external relevance and differentiation it needs to survive the myriad of challenges and threats facing new brands, much less to thrive as the business scales. Soon enough, the upstart finds it's not attracting customers or investors, so it retrenches, plots a pivot, and tries (and fails) again—insanely doing the same thing over again expecting a different result. To avoid this fate, you need to develop a Minimum Viable Brand (MVB). With a MVB, you expend the least amount of time, effort, and money necessary to develop enough of a launch brand concept to center your organization, convey your value, and to collect learning. As an alternative to a complete strategic brand platform or simply a shell of a brand, a MVB provides you the perfect balance of structure and flexibility."