When you're bootstrapping a startup, elbow-deep in product development costs, and racing against the clock to launch, the pressure to pour precious resources into branding can sound like unrealistic advice rather than practical guidance for founders on the front line.

So, how vital is branding at the outset?

What is required for a hygiene level of brand that will support – or at least not rub against - your business proposition vs. a fully defined and executed brand strategy at launch? And where should it rank amid the avalanche of other priorities screaming for your attention?

Before we explore this, let’s ensure we’re speaking the same language; the world of marketing, and especially branding, loves jargon.

Brand

Your brand, in its entirety, is the big picture. It is the overall impression that customers have of your company. It's what people think and feel when they hear your company’s name or work there. It's built by your actions and their expectations. It's the promise you're making to your audience. Think of it as the reputation of your company in the collective mindset; it’s what people say about you when you’re not in the room.

Brand Identity

This is the toolkit you use to communicate your brand. It includes your name, your tone of voice, and the core values that drive your company. Brand identity is about the tangible elements that create a consistent image of your brand, employed to ensure that your brand is recognisable across all channels. It’s about the consistent messages you send.

Brand Visual Identity

Just one part of the brand identity, this solely focuses on your brand’s visual elements including logos, colours, typography, and design style. This is what people see on your website and printed collateral. It’s the visual shorthand that tells people who you are at a glance.

Brand Perception

This is what customers actually think about your brand, which can sometimes be slightly (or very) different from what you intended. Their perception is influenced by the experiences they have with your brand, what you communicate, and how that’s received. Unlike brand identity (which you control), brand perception (what they feel or think) is controlled by the audience.

Brand Image

Closely related to brand perception, this is the current view of your brand among consumers. If brand perception is the big-picture, brand image is the snapshot of that perception – how your brand is seen – at any given time.

The Minimalist Approach

Can a brand be minimal at launch? Absolutely. The ultimate goal is coherence, not complexity. Early-stage startups succeed not from depth of branding but from clarity and consistency in their messaging. A clean and concise visual brand identity should be a priority. Yes, that visual identity should be a reflection of your larger brand identity, but as you launch and discover more about yourself, your business and your customers, that brand identity will evolve and form anyway.

Quite often your MVP will deliver insights that can guide your future brand development. It’s not uncommon to get market intel back that your core audience wasn’t who you expected it to be. In these cases, you can decide to tweak your brand positioning accordingly.

If you’re sitting on £5 million of VC funding then yes, you’ll want a more fully developed and tested brand identity for launch, beyond just visual identity, as the weight of the brand as a catalyst to growth will be much higher. But assuming you don’t have that money in your account, you can still get going on the basics to give you a solid foundation.

If you’re a start-up fintech brand, for example, it’s highly likely that earning consumer trust will be very high up in your jobs to be done in order to get traction in market. Having a wacky name and psychedelic colours is probably something to avoid unless you have determined that your brand identity and perception needs to be this. A minimalist approach should empower you to grow and develop out, not send you down a nasty rabbit hole or be detrimental to your growth at the very start.

Bridging the Gaps

Think of your brand as a tool to bridge a gap between your growth ambition, your business model and the product’s capabilities to deliver on it. Building and focusing resources on developing a strong brand at launch can support your business where your product is still in development, or not yet competitive, or the market is highly saturated and cluttered already.

By highlighting potential and vision rather than just current functionality you shift the conversation from what’s missing to what’s promised. Rest assured, this ‘brand gap filling’ is also very much present with larger organisations where the actual product or service remains fairly mediocre or actually below that of competitors. Brand is used to change the story and to find more emotive triggers to connect with consumers. 

Investment in Branding: Luxurious or Necessary?

Startups must operate with surgical precision on budgets, however, consider branding as part of your essential toolkit, not an optional extra. Investing in branding isn't just about dollars, it’s about dedicating thought and strategy to how your brand will be perceived from the outset.

In conclusion, while the cynics among us might scoff at early-stage branding as a non-critical spend, the realists understand its role as an infrastructure investment. A minimal, smartly executed brand strategy isn’t just filling the gaps; it’s making sure that when your product is ready to shine, your brand is ready to support and bolster it.