As a start-up you're probably busy figuring out your product market fit or building the next prototype. Your brand often gets left behind, because other topics seem more pressing. However, having a clear idea on what your brand is, what it stands for and how it behaves, can make a lot of difficult decisions easier. Making the abstract idea of “your brand” into something concrete, allows your team to develop a common language to describe what your company is all about — and all subsequent squishy decisions about visuals, voice, and identity become way easier. On top of that it will allow you to develop communication materials in a much faster way, allowing you to test ideas quicker and cheaper than a lot of other ways of prototyping.

In this 90 min workshop you will get the the tools and exercises to create a concrete and agile brand strategy document. You can do these exercises with your own team, without any special expertise. At the end, you’ll have a set of diagrams — a simple brand cheat-sheet — that you can use to make decisions.

First we'll look at your company's motivation:

• 20-Year Roadmap: helps you think long-term.

• What, How, Why: reminds you why your company exists.

We'll then add a little bit more detail:

• Top 3 Values: makes your why more specific.

• Top 3 Audiences: helps you prioritize the target for your brand.

As a third step we'll position your brand relative through others:

• Personality Sliders: defines the attitude and style of your brand.

• Competitive Landscape: compares your brand to other companies.

Finally we'll use these elements to create a few communication examples and teach you how to test your branding and messaging in an easiest way possible.