Branding for Startups: 9 ACTIONABLE Steps

Startup branding is shaping how people perceive your business. For example, people perceive Coca-Cola as ‘happiness’, Redbull as ‘adventure’ and Apple as ‘classy and reliabile’. These perceptions have been created by consistent branding efforts by these businesses. 

This perception helps your business stand out among the competitors and paves the way to build a strong emotional connection with your target audience, ultimately driving business growth.

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Branding is more than a logo. It’s the story, promise and feeling people have about your company. A logo is just a symbol, but a brand tells people what to expect. Strong brands build trust and make people care. 

Your brand should be clear, consistent and easy to share. Not about looking good – about doing work that matters. If people believe in what you do they will remember and talk about it.

Instead of just looking good, startups should define their value, share a message and build a culture that connects. A brand is what others say about you when you’re not in the room – not just a design on a business card.

A strong brand helps a startup look different from others in the same industry. It’s more than just a name or a logo—it shows what makes the company special. When a startup invests in branding, people remember it and see its unique value. 

In fact, branding helps the business grow without competing only on price.

For instance, Warby Parker differentiated itself by creating a brand that not only provides luxury, stylish eyewear at affordable glasses but also actively supports social causes. 

They launched a "Buy a Pair, Give a Pair" program, wherein for every pair of glasses sold, they distributed a pair to someone in need through their non-profit partners. 

This helped them establish a unique brand identity. This distinct brand identity made them instantly recognizable and memorable for their audience.

👉 Related guide on branding: How much does branding cost? 

Branding builds trust by telling a simple and honest story. Startups that use clear messages and show real values make customers feel safe. 

When customers trust a brand, they keep coming back and tell their friends, turning them into loyal supporters.

Take Dollar Shave Club (DSC) as an example. 

They have built a loyal community of fans for themselves. (217k followers on Instagram)

Their authentic and humorous brand voice created a sense of relatability among their audience, making the brand more engaging. 

Their company was no longer just about razors and shaving creams. When customers purchased DSC products, they felt as if they were part of a large, fun-loving community. 

They developed an emotional connection. 

This emotional connection translated into long-term loyalty, repeat business, and word-of-mouth referrals, leading to sustainable business growth for DSC.

Check out the screenshot below of a creative from their ‘Razorburn’ campaign, humorously delivering the message to replace the old razor with a new DSC Razor.

 

A strong brand helps startups attract skilled workers. It shows a clear vision and values that inspire people. A clear brand message makes employees feel proud and connected. This strong identity keeps talented workers happy and loyal, reducing turnover and building a strong team.

Nowadays, you can’t attract talent just by raising salary. It shows a clear vision and values that inspire people. A clear brand message makes employees feel proud and connected. 

This strong identity keeps talented workers happy and loyal, reducing turnover and building a strong team.

Airbnb, for example, built its brand story around the idea of belonging, which not only resonated with travellers worldwide but also attracted talent passionate about community-building. 

Every year they get countless job applications from candidates eager to join the company. 

Airbnb has a great rating of 4.2 out of 5 on Glassdoor and they were also chosen as the best place to work at.

Here’s how branding can help startups get investor’s attention:

Investors look for startups with a clear vision and strong potential. Good branding shows that a company knows who it is and where it’s going. 

A well-branded startup looks more professional and trustworthy, making it easier to gain investor confidence. When a brand stands out and connects with customers, investors see its value and growth potential.

If startups can get their customers to talk pleasantly about their company, there is no better form of marketing. This word-of-mouth marketing can give startups the initial push required to penetrate through the competition, without running expensive paid marketing campaigns. 

A unique, likeable brand identity combined with satisfactory product/service experiences make people more likely to talk about you and recommend you, fueling organic growth through word-of-mouth.

For example, Innocent Drinks (which sells smoothies and juice to outlets) has positioned itself as an ‘innocent’ health drink seller, offering only healthy and natural beverages—unlike other brands that mix unhealthy ingredients into their drinks.

However, they communicate this message in a playful, and non-preachy way. This makes their brand likeable and memorable, and people tend to talk about them enthusiastically in their circles.

Check out one of their social media post below, where they playfully communicate that their juice has ample fruit and vitamin content.
 


 

A well-crafted brand leads to consistent experiences for your target audience at every touch point such as websites, social media, offline stores, customer service, products etc. When your audience sees the same colours, typography, tone and voice at every touchpoint repeatedly, they start remembering you. You get etched in their memory, which is great for your business.

McDonald’s, for example, exemplifies this by maintaining a uniform experience across their global outlets. All their outlets have the same iconic golden arches, the same red and yellow colour palette, and similar in-store ordering and eating experience. This consistency reinforces the brand identity in customers’ heads, making your business memorable and more recognizable. 

Branding is a smart investment that pays off over time. As people recognize and trust a brand, its value grows—this is called brand equity. 

A strong brand comes from offering great products, staying consistent, and building emotional connections with customers. 

When people believe in a brand, they are willing to pay more for it. This helps the business grow and increases its overall worth.

A great example of brand equity is Apple. Apple built a strong brand by creating high-quality products, using sleek designs, and delivering a great customer experience. 

Over time, people began to trust Apple and saw it as a symbol of innovation and reliability. Because of this, Apple can charge higher prices for its products, and customers are willing to pay.

Here’s a comparison between the average selling price of iOS and other competitors:
 

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To craft a brand for your startup, the first step is to be clear about who your target audience is. Clearly defining your target audience allows you to tailor your brand to your audience's needs and wants. 

Be as specific as possible while defining your target audience. 

Outline their demographics (age, race, gender, location, occupation) and psychographics (interests, beliefs, purchasing habits, and media consumption), in detail. 

The more precisely you define your target audience, the better you will be able to understand their preferences, and hence the more compelling will be the brand you craft for them.

Example:

Bumble precisely defined their target audience: tech savvy singles, open to online dating who value safety, respect and meaningful connections and who believe in progressive, equitable dating practices. 

This clear targeting helped Bumble craft their product and messaging to appeal to this particular segment of people, breaking through the competition. In their dating app, they flipped the traditional dating dynamic by enforcing women to make the first move in case of a match. 

Also, they aligned their messaging to appeal to their niche target audience. Check out this creative of Bumble, where it's informing people that dating on their app is ‘equal’, encouraging women to make the first move.

Once you have determined your target audience, the next step is to know what your target audience wants that’s missing from the market. 

You need to understand their values, interests, likes, dislikes, opinions on the existing brands and the current challenges they face. 

For that, conduct online surveys, take in-person interviews, organize focus groups, and create content and engage with them on social media and other digital platforms.

Example:

Glossier, the beauty brand, did a great job in their market research. They ran a blog from the start, Into the Gloss, which not only served as a content platform but also a medium to gather customer insights. They also had an active social media channel. 

By listening to the blog reader's feedback and engaging with their community on social media, Glossier identified key preferences and pain points of their target audience. 

They identified that their target audience, digitally native Gen Z and millennial women seek community, authenticity and minimalism. So they built their brand around these values. They tailored everything, from product packaging to messaging, around these values.

Check out the screenshot below which displays some cosmetic tubes by Glossier. 

Notice the minimalist design in the packaging of the tubes that appeal to their target audience of millennial and Gen Z women.

Creating a brand means building a unique identity. A big part of that identity is your ‘why’—the reason your company exists and the difference it wants to make.

After doing market research, the next step is to craft a strong brand story. This story should clearly explain your company’s mission and why it matters. It should also connect with your audience in a real way. 

A great brand story makes your business feel human, helping customers, employees, and investors relate to it. It shows that your brand is more than just products or services. A clear mission also keeps your team focused on the same goal.

Example:

Tesla has a strong mission: “to accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy.” 

This mission sets Tesla apart from other car companies because it links the brand to the global push for clean energy. It speaks to people who care about the environment, making them feel connected to the brand. It also attracts great employees and helps bring in investors.

Below is a screenshot of Tesla’s official website, where they clearly display this mission (under ‘About Us’).

At Tenet, we have helped companies around the world build strong brand stories. We’ve worked with brands like IROS (a Mubadala Health company), Pazzaz, and the Asian School of Design. 

If you need a brand story that truly connects with people, reach out to us today!

Having a unique value proposition (UVP) is another key step in building a strong brand. Your UVP explains the special benefits your product or service offers and why customers should choose you over others.

A great UVP is clear, short, and focused on what makes your brand different. It shows how you solve a specific problem better than anyone else. This clear difference helps your brand stand out and makes it easier for people to remember you.

Example:

Slack’s unique value proposition was making workplace communication easier and more efficient. It solved the problem of messy emails by bringing messaging, file sharing, and third-party tools into one simple platform. This made Slack different from traditional email and chat tools, helping it grow fast.

Below is a screenshot of Slack’s landing page, where they highlight their biggest benefits, like easy information search and app integrations. 

These features make Slack a better communication tool than its competitors.

Your brand values show what your business stands for and how it operates. These values guide your team on how to work and help shape how people see your brand.

Your values should be based on your non-negotiable principles and how you want your brand to be known. It’s also important to make sure your team follows these values in their daily work.

Example:

Patagonia is a great example of a brand that sticks to its values. Their core values—environmentalism, quality, integrity, and justice—are seen in everything they do. From using sustainable materials to launching activism campaigns, Patagonia stays true to its mission.

One example is their “1% for the Planet” initiative, which supports environmental causes. 

This aligns perfectly with their commitment to protecting nature.

Under this campaign, since 1985, Patagonia has been donating 1% of its sales to the preservation and restoration of the natural environment. 

The values of Patagonia have created its differentiated identity in the market and have also built a loyal customer base that shares similar values.

To create the right voice, start by understanding your audience. Do they want warmth, excitement, humor, or trust? 

Shape your voice to match their expectations. Your voice should also reflect your brand values. For example, if your brand stands for serious causes like protecting the environment or fighting child labor, using humor could weaken your message.

Your voice should stay consistent across all platforms—emails, websites, social media, ads, and more. 

This helps people recognize and remember your brand.

Example:

Mailchimp has a fun and friendly brand voice. They use wit and approachability in their emails, website, and social media. This makes their brand stand out and helps them connect with their audience.

In their “Did you mean MailChimp?” campaign, they embraced the fact that people often misspell their names. Instead of correcting it, they turned the mistakes into creative and humorous marketing themes, making their brand even more memorable.
 

Here is the result generated from Mailchimp’s marketing campaign:

Your brand assets are the building blocks of your visual identity. These include your logo, colors, fonts, images, and tagline. Together, they show your brand’s personality, mission, and values.

To build a strong brand, use these assets consistently across everything—your website, packaging, and social media. This helps people recognize your brand and creates a seamless experience for them.

Example:

Apple has a powerful visual identity. Its iconic logo, simple colors, clean fonts, and minimal design make it instantly recognizable. Apple uses these assets across its products, stores, and ads, reinforcing its image of simplicity and elegance.

Note: We’ve been designing brand assets for 6 years, serving 300+ clients with a 98% satisfaction rate. If you want strong, memorable brand assets, contact us today!

A strong communication strategy helps spread your brand’s message and build awareness. This involves planning content, choosing the right platforms, creating a schedule, and crafting engaging content.

Each platform— LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, or your website—needs content tailored to its audience. At the same time, your brand’s message should stay consistent everywhere.

Example:

Nike is a great example of strategic brand communication. They engage with their audience all year round across TV, social media, emails, banners, and billboards. Every campaign reinforces their core message of motivation and empowerment.

One of their most famous campaigns, “Just Do It,” reflects this message. It inspires people to push their limits and chase their dreams.

Check out this creative from Nike’s “Just Do It” campaign.

It features a childhood photo of Serena Williams playing tennis, motivating people to dream big.

Action items

• Plan your content to align with your brand’s mission and values.
• Choose the right platforms (LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, website) and tailor content for each.
• Create a content calendar to roll out content strategically and consistently.
• Ensure brand consistency across all digital and offline communication.
• Craft engaging content using visuals, storytelling, and strong messaging.

Branding isn’t something you do once and forget. Your brand should grow and change based on market trends and customer feedback.

Keep reviewing your branding and marketing strategies. Track performance, listen to customers, and watch industry trends. You may need to update your visuals, refresh your messaging, or try new digital platforms as your audience and business evolve.

Example:

Google’s logo evolution shows how brands can adapt over time.

At first, Google’s logo had a bold, colourful, and playful look, reflecting the creativity of a startup. As the company grew and digital trends changed, Google updated its logo to a simpler, flat design with a custom sans-serif font. 

They kept their colorful and fun identity while making the logo look more modern and professional.

Check out the screenshot below to see how Google’s logo has evolved!

7 Key Elements for a Successful Startup Brand Identity

Here is what 7 thought leaders had to say:

Your unique value proposition or UVP is something you need to nail right away if you want your brand identity to mean anything. A logo, colors, and slogans are all surface-level, but the UVP tells people why they should choose you and why you exist in the first place. 

If that is weak, there is nothing that holds together. A strong UVP slices through the clutter and makes you stand out by describing your difference in simple terms and providing the customer with a reason to remember you.

This is why when I launched our site, we made sure to exert a lot of effort on our UVP before anything else. So many major hosting companies were slow to set up and were difficult to reach, so we made our promise very clear: instant setup in under five minutes, hardware powerful enough for titles like Rust and Palworld, and human support available when players needed it. We wrote that into our site, our ads, and even our onboarding emails. 

Having a clear and genuine brand promise is important.  People will no longer trust you if you say one thing and they feel another.  Advertising and design cannot make up for a lack of confidence.

I've seen businesses invest a lot of money in new logos, eye-catching colors, and catchy slogans but it didn't matter when the final product didn't live up to the hype.  If the experience is inconsistent with the polish, customers don't care.  I've carried that with me since the beginning of my profession.

What people actually remember is how your product or service makes their life easier. Did it save them time? Did it feel safe? Was it simple? Those are the things that stick, and that's what shapes real brand identity.

It's also about consistency. Every touchpoint should line up the way your product works, the way your support team talks, even the way you show up in small details. If one piece feels out of sync, people notice.

The most important element is choosing what you will never do, not what you will. Every startup nowadays says it's always there to listen to its customers and has so many "awesome" features that solve all your problems. But the brands people remember are defined by their explicit rejections.

For instance, Basecamp built its identity around not having salespeople and not chasing big enterprise clients. Even its site avoids "enterprise" language, and the pricing page reflects this. The strongest startup brands emerge when founders pick specific things their competitors do and publicly declare they'll never do them.

All in all, your brand isn't the pretty logo or the tone of voice. Instead, it's the list of normal industry practices you refuse to adopt.

As I see it, the most important element to get right in a startup's brand identity is its positioning. Before you even think about a logo or a color palette, you must have a crystal-clear answer to the question: "What space do we uniquely own in our customers' mind?" 

This involves defining your target audience, your key differentiator, and your brand promise. Everything else in your brand is built on this strategic foundation. Without a strong positioning statement, your marketing efforts will be scattered, and your identity will be a collection of nice-looking assets without a core purpose.

Brand Colors!

You'd be surprised how often we're brought on by a brand only to find that their guidelines don't include a single color with a direct Pantone match. If your brand will ever produce printed materials, whether paper, promotional items, or apparel, it's essential to choose colors that have a direct Pantone match. Otherwise, everything will be mismatched, leading to a mess of colors that are not your brand.

Katie Thomas, Operations Assistant, Argon Agency

When designing a product, the most important question to ask is, "What problem am I solving?" When designing a brand, the question becomes, "Who am I selling this product to?" 

The most important element in a startup's brand identity is making sure those two questions remain at the center of every decision during the creation process, and don't become lost in overly branded marketing strategies and channels.

A strong startup brand begins with a clear purpose, vision, and mission, followed by a deep understanding of the target audience. This foundation shapes visual identity, tone of voice, and brand personality. Consistency across channels is essential, especially in fast-moving markets where many startups overcomplicate their branding. Cluttered or inconsistent messaging often confuses customers and weakens impact.

If customers can't easily answer "What is this product, and who is it for?" they quickly lose interest. 

A startup's brand identity is the narrative you consistently communicate across the web. It explains who you are, what you do, and why you matter in your industry. In the AI era, algorithms like ChatGPT and Google, as well as people, are highly sensitive to clarity and consistency. 

If every touchpoint, such as your website, social channels, and press, tells the same clear and convincing story, you become understandable, credible, and memorable. This is what makes investors trust you, customers choose you, and AI recommends you.

To expand its reach and stand out from the competitors, IROS needed a strong, unique brand.

At Tenet, we took on this challenge. We started by auditing their existing setup to find the pain points. Then we did in-depth market research and stakeholder interviews to understand the brand’s core values and the audience’s needs.

Using this insight, we created brand values, a new logo, a tagline, a new colour palette, and a brand-aligned website. 

Check out the branding element we designed for IROS:

With this new brand identity, IROS transformed from merely another player in the market to a strategic brand that its audience identifies with.