The takeaways:

• Ads don’t build brands anymore. Ecosystems do. Ads are just the entry point.

• Your Instagram (or whatever social exists) is where people decide if you’re worth buying from, before they ever click your ad.

• The bootstrap lesson: Build trust first, then put money behind it. The reverse kills budgets.

Fifteen years ago, here’s how it worked:

Great product + nice website + ads = sales.

That was real. You could run a campaign, move boxes, build a company on paid reach alone.

It’s dead now. And we’re still burning billions on it.

The shift is subtle but brutal: Ads didn’t get weaker. The customer journey got non-linear.

Your prospect doesn’t see your ad, click once, and buy. They see your ad, jump to Instagram, go back to your website, Google you, check reviews, watch Stories, hit your DMs, maybe Google you again, and then they decide if you’re worth $50.

Every single step shapes the decision. Not your ad. Not your website. Not your product alone.

It’s the ecosystem.

Where the Real Conversion Happens

Here’s what brands get wrong: They treat social media like a broadcast channel. Post content, move on, wonder why paid ads don’t work.

Social media isn’t branding. It’s a decision layer. It’s where trust is built. It’s where intent forms. It’s where people decide if you’re worth buying from.

People will always check your socials first, before they commit money, before they trust a stranger’s product. Your Instagram, your TikTok, your Twitter thread. They’re looking for:

• Real community (not corporate copy)

• Proof this actually works (not claims)

• Who else believes in this (FOMO, but genuine)

Your ad gets them curious. Your social gets them convinced.

The kamo Proof Point

When we bootstrapped kamo, we had no money for big ad campaigns. So we didn’t start with ads at all.

We built Instagram. Real content from cyclists who actually used the product. Honest posts about post-ride ritual, about community, about why it mattered. No polish. No “founder energy.” Just people, bikes, and a beer that fit.

We owned trust in that ecosystem first.

Then we booked ads.

And the ads actually worked, because when people landed on that Instagram profile, they saw a community that was real. Other cyclists vouching for it. The narrative already built. The decision layer already primed.

The math flipped: First trust, then money behind it.

Not: “Here’s $10K in ads, hope it converts.”

But: “Here’s a community we own completely. Now let’s amplify it to people who look like this.”

What This Means for You

If you’re a founder or marketer building a brand right now, reset the priority stack:

1. Build the decision layer first. That’s your social. That’s real, peer-to-peer content. That’s proof. That’s where people decide.

2. Only then book ads. Ads are the trigger, not the system. They bring people into the ecosystem you’ve already built.

3. Stop conflating polish with conversion. A beautiful website with no community behind it is decoration. A messy Instagram with real people vouching for you beats it every time.

The formula isn’t broken because ads don’t work. It’s broken because brands skip the trust part and wonder why paid reach doesn’t convert.

Build ecosystems. Ads will amplify them.

Want to talk through how this applies to your brand? I work 1:1 with founders who’ve nailed performance marketing but see brand as the missing piece. Let’s talk.

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Product tested in a vacuum ≠ product that wins in market. Run a blind test against the category leader before you scale spend.

• Product tested in a vacuum ≠ product that wins in market. Run a blind test against the category leader before you scale spend.

• “Vibes and internal opinions” is how founders ship second-rate products with world-class marketing. The market will punish you for it anyway.

• If your product loses blind, the problem isn’t positioning. It’s the product. Fix that first.

The Uncomfortable Truth

Decisions get made on vibes. You sip your product five times, decide it’s good, and move to marketing.

Then you burn cash on ads trying to convince people your average product is actually great. But the problem was never the messaging—it was the product.

Here’s the fix: Run a blind taste test with real customers. Your product vs. the category leader. No labels, no brand story, no halo effect. Just which one tastes better.

If you win blind, scale. Your product will do work marketing can’t fake.

If you lose, you know exactly what’s broken—and you can fix it before it costs you a year and a quarter of runway.

The market will tell you anyway. Paid ads get customers. Retention, word-of-mouth, repeat purchases—that’s the blind test in real time. The founders who win aren’t the ones with the cleverest narrative. They’re the ones whose product wins when the narrative disappears.

Brand is your only moat. But your moat starts with product that wins when nobody’s looking.

Building something and want to talk through brand strategy? I work 1:1 with founders and C-level teams on positioning, product-market fit narratives, and go-to-market that sticks. Book an advisor call or let’s connect if you’re scaling something worth talking about.

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The three things you’ll take away:

• Niches are discovered through rituals, not demographics.

• The invisible audience reshaping executive culture.

• Your niche is a launchpad. Know your growth layers.

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Why We Chose Cycling (And What Changed When We Looked Closer)

When we locked into cycling, the strategic reasons seemed obvious:

• Existing ritual. A beer after a ride. Ingrained. Unquestioned.

• Product fit. After hours of fueling with sugar to keep going, your mouth wants something with real taste. A functional non-alcoholic beer isn’t a compromise. It’s the upgrade.

• Non-price-sensitive audience. If you spend €5,000+ on a bike, you’re not haggling on €15 beer. You’re asking: is this good? Where else is it stocked?

• Growing accessibility. Cycling has lower barriers than tennis or golf. More people entering. Bigger audience.

These were solid reasons. Strategic. Defensible.

But then we noticed something that changed everything.

The Layer We Almost Missed

Cycling is reshaping who holds power.

For fifty years, executive fitness meant golf or tennis. Status sports. Networking sports. Board members played 18 holes. CEOs hit courts.

Cycling doesn’t work that way.

Cycling is demanding. Individual. It’s where high-level executives—C-suite, MDs, founders, investors, go to disconnect from the office and think. It’s become the sport of the ambitious, the people who measure everything.

Here’s what matters: this audience has decision-making power in their professional lives.

They experience kamo in private (their passion for cycling). Then they take it to their world (their companies, their teams, their investments). Hotel, retail owners, founders of scale-ups discovers us because they are in the ritual. Now they are talking to us about partnerships.

This is the hidden win.

Find Your Niche Through Behavior, Not Boxes

Most brands build personas around demographics: “Women 25-40 in urban areas.” “High-income earners.” “Fitness enthusiasts.”

Those are boxes. Easy to build. Useless for strategy.

Real niches are built around attitudes and behaviors, the things that actually predict who will care about your brand the most.

Think of it as painting a vivid picture of your “brand champion”: the person who will be first to love you, then spread the word.

Map these out:

• Interests — What do they spend time on? (Cycling, performance, mastery)

• Influences — Who shapes their decisions? (Friends, other cyclists, peers they respect)

• Goals — What are they trying to become? (Better athlete, less stressed, more in control)

• Needs & expectations — What do they actually need to make progress? (Time, quality gear, products that don’t slow them down)

• Motivations — What makes them feel alive? (Rewarding their effort, marking moments, celebrating progress)

• Pain points & frustrations — What breaks the ritual? (Traditional reward rituals, regular beer, high calories, that slow down their goals)

For kamo, this profile tells us who to reach: people who demand ritual and progression. People who don’t compromise.

The Growth Map: From Niche to Scaled Brand

Every investor will ask how you grow beyond your niche. You should have a clear answer.

Here’s ours:

• Layer 1 – Core Niche: Cycling

This is home. Road. Gravel.The ritual is clear. The audience is defined. The win is happening now.

• Layer 2 – Adjacent Sport: Running

Same behavioral profile. Serious runners, marathon, ultra, trail, engage in sustained effort + celebration ritual.

• Layer 3 – All Serious Athletes

Triathletes. CrossFit competitors. Swimmers. Anyone who measures performance and optimizes relentlessly.

Same person. Different sport.

• Layer 4 – Hybrid Athletes

The person who cycles and runs. Trains across disciplines. Multiple effort moments. Multiple recovery rituals. Even more aligned to kamo.

• Layer 5 – Health-Oriented People (Broader)

Not necessarily competitive, but active and intentional. People who care about health, recovery, quality.

Once we’re established as the beer for serious athletes, this layer thinks: If it’s good for athletes, how could it be bad for me?

Different intensity. Different ritual. Same core behavior: effort + recovery celebration.

If You’re Building a Brand

Stop optimizing copy.

Go watch your best customers.

Not why they say they buy. What they actually do.

The ritual. The moment. The feeling.

That’s where everything starts.

And if you’re wondering how to grow: you already know. The layers are inside your core niche. You just have to pay attention to find them.

Build something worth believing in.

I write about building brand-first companies in a world obsessed with performance. If this resonated, forward it to a founder who needs to hear it.

Building a brand and want to think it through?

The Arbitrage Is Real. The Trap Is Real Too.

Kunle’s core argument holds up: founder presence is a CAC arbitrage. The algorithm favors faces. Real faces outperform polished brand work by 2x on CTR. A founder telling the origin story will convert better than a production-value aesthetic ever will.

The part nobody says: that arbitrage has an expiration date, and it comes with a hidden tax that doesn’t show up in your unit economics dashboard.

The tax is this: once you make the founder the brand, you’ve made the brand fragile. You’ve moved the point of failure from the product to a person. Every business decision now carries personal consequence. Every criticism is personal. Every platform algorithm change threatens your identity, not just your reach. You can’t step away. You can’t have an off week.

And here’s the one nobody wants to admit: you become the ceiling on the brand’s scale.

If the brand is you, then investors will always ask, “What happens if you leave?” Acquirers will always price that risk. Partners will always negotiate harder because they’re betting on one person. You become a liability to your own company’s future.

So Why Are You Doing It? Because the math still works.

Here’s what we do instead:

We use founder-led content on social only for performance. Ads. Retargeting. Paid amplification where the audience is pre-selected and the context is clear.

The founder isn’t the brand. The founder is the acquisition channel.

The brand speaks through the product, the ambassador network, the real athletes using it, the partnerships that matter. I’m the tool. I’m not the story.

It’s a different model than “founder-led branding.” It’s founder-led acquisition with brand-first identity.

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Combined with ruthless privacy boundaries. My kids aren't content. My family isn't a brand asset. The parts of my life that fuel the storytelling stay private. You see the thought, not the breakfast table where I had it.

Build a personal brand instead:

Besides founder-led content, you can also build a personal brand and drive traffic and trust from your personal profile to your company. The reason it works is simple: you genuinely live what your company stands for.

A good example is Cadence, a premium hydration brand founded in New York in 2024 by Ross MacKay and George Heaton.

Their personal profiles reinforce the brand’s values and lifestyle, creating credibility and a stronger connection with their audience. The company benefits from the trust and attention they have built as individuals, while their personal content feels authentic because it reflects how they actually live. But the Brand stands own his own feeds. It´s candence and the Ross or George brand.

I write about building brand-first companies in a world obsessed with performance. If this resonated, forward it to a founder who needs to hear it.

Building a brand and want to think it through?

What you’ll take away:

• why discount-driven loyalty creates customers who wait — and leave

• what the goody bag problem taught us about community marketing

• the one mechanic that turns effort into belonging

The trap nobody talks about

You send out a discount code. Orders spike. You feel good for about 48 hours. Then the sale ends, the orders dry up — and you’re left wondering: were those real customers? Or did I just rent their attention for 20% off?

Discount-driven programs create price-sensitive customers who leave the moment a competitor offers a better deal. No emotional connection means zero switching costs. You’re not building a brand. You’re building a race to the bottom.

The brands that don’t play this game — Patagonia, Nike, Apple — have something else. Their customers don’t just buy. They belong. And belonging doesn’t go on sale.

The goody bag problem

When we started showing up at run clubs and cycling events with kamo, we learned this fast.

Some communities are exactly who we’re building for — tight, motivated, genuinely passionate people who care about what they put in their bodies and who they train with.

But there’s another type. You can spot them immediately. They show up for the goody bag. They take the free product, say thanks, and you never hear from them again. No follow. No order. No word of mouth. Just gone — with your beer in their hand.

This is one of the highest frustrations I hear from community managers and brand owners in this space. You invest time, product, presence. And a significant chunk of the room was just there for the freebies.

Free product given to the wrong person isn’t marketing. It’s waste.

We can see exactly who buys

Here’s something that changed how we think about discounts entirely.

When we send a discount email, we can see precisely who converts. And when we cross-reference that with who’s been engaging — opening emails, following on Strava, showing up at events — a very clear picture emerges.

The people who buy aren’t always the ones who needed the discount. They’re the ones who would have bought anyway. The code just gave them a nudge on an intention that was already there.

That’s the only version of a discount worth running.

A first offer can be attractive. If you have a good product. But don’t build your whole model on it. Keep it as small as possible. Deploy it as rarely as you can.

The moment your audience starts waiting for it, you’ve already lost.

Effort unlocks reward — not the other way around

This is the idea we keep coming back to at kamo.

We’re working on connecting discounts directly to effort on Strava. Run a certain distance. Complete a ride. Hit a weekly streak. A reward unlocks — not because you asked, but because you earned it.

This does several things at once: it filters out the goody bag crowd immediately. It creates genuine pride, you didn’t get a discount, you won something. And it ties kamo directly to the ritual we’re built around.

Reward without effort is charity. Reward after effort is something people talk about.

I write about building brand-first companies in a world obsessed with performance. If this resonated, forward it to a founder who needs to hear it.

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Building a brand and want to think it through?

What you’ll take away:

• Why paying for reach stopped being a brand strategy

• What ambassador marketing actually means (and why it’s not what most brands think)

• The one shift that separates brands building trust from brands burning budget

For years, influencer marketing felt like a cheat code.

Find someone with an audience. Pay them to hold your product. Hope the audience converts. Repeat.

It was rented reach. A shortcut that worked — until it didn’t.

As feeds got crowded and rates climbed, something uncomfortable became obvious: paying for access to someone else’s audience is not the same as earning a place in someone’s life. The performance was unpredictable. The returns were inconsistent. And the brand equity? Often zero.

So the model started changing.

From influencer marketing to ambassador marketing.

It sounds like semantics. It isn’t.

An influencer is a transaction. A post, a fee, a link in bio. You’re renting their stage for 48 hours and then it’s gone.

An ambassador is something different entirely. Not a celebrity face. Not a one-time gifted collab. A creator who functions like an extension of your team — someone who actually lives with the product, shows up consistently, and makes it feel chosen rather than sponsored.

The shift, at its core, is from renting reach to owning trust.

I’ve seen what this looks like in practice.

When we were building kamo, we couldn’t afford to rent reach. We didn’t have the budget to spray and pray across influencer platforms and hope something stuck.

So we did the opposite. We found people who genuinely fit the world we were building — cyclists, endurance athletes, people for whom what they put in their body actually mattered.

What trust actually requires.

A product builds trust when it lives inside real routines — not curated moments. When it fits someone’s taste and values, not just their aesthetic.

When it shows up consistently. When the person recommending it would choose it without a contract.

That’s the bar. Higher than a sponsored post. And the only bar that matters if you’re building something with staying power.

The business case is straightforward.

Ambassador relationships give you consistent content output — not random drops. Messaging alignment because the person actually understands your brand. Usage rights across paid channels. The ability to test and iterate. And a lower cost per asset, because you’re buying creative commitment, not celebrity status.

It’s not glamorous. It doesn’t come with a press release.

But it’s the kind of infrastructure that builds a brand that outlasts the next algorithm change.

The goal was never to go viral.

The goal is to mean something to someone. Consistently. Over time.

That’s what turns a brand into a moat. Not a moment — a relationship.

I write about building brand-first companies in a world obsessed with performance. If this resonated, forward it to a founder who needs to hear it.

Building a brand and want to think it through?

There’s a fundamental difference. Sponsorship rents attention. Building earns it. And in a world where every paid channel is more expensive and less trusted than it was two years ago, the brands figuring out how to earn attention are quietly winning.

The playbook isn’t complicated. But it requires a different kind of courage — the kind that says: what if we created something that doesn’t look like marketing at all?

The Format Is the Message

Red Bull didn’t become a cultural institution by putting its logo on existing races. It created Crashed Ice. It created Rampage. It turned cliff faces, frozen city streets, and vertical mountain descents into formats that had never existed — and in doing so, made the product almost irrelevant. You watch Red Bull content and forget you’re watching a brand. That’s the point.

SATISFY and Adidas did something different, and arguably harder. They didn’t take an existing race format and put a logo on it. They invented a ritual from scratch.

THE CIRCLE PIT. A converted pump track in Oro Valley, Arizona. Runners sorted by shoe colorway — Black, Army Green, Earth Brown — each color assigned a heat and a live band. No stopwatch. No fixed distance. Sets lasted as long as they lasted. Heats ran until they ended. Jivebomb, Upchuck, One Step Closer. Sound turned into stride, and the body took over.

That’s what makes it a brand statement. Not the logo placement. The conviction.

What These Formats Have in Common

→ None of them looked like traditional marketing.

→ All of them created content without briefing anyone to create it.

→ And all of them understood something most brand managers don’t: the experience is the media. When you put people inside something genuinely memorable, they carry the story out into the world. Not because you asked. Because that’s what humans do with experiences that made them feel something.

A participant posting their finish is worth more than a paid placement at scale — not because of the numbers, but because of the signal. I was there. This was real. It mattered.

Which Is Exactly Why We Started TAKEOVER.

The concept is simple: a race format built for places you could never normally train. Locations that are unexpected, technical, and memorable. Not a park. Not a velodrome. Somewhere that makes you look twice and then immediately send the location to your group chat.

Two spirals, a tight course, and a night that made riders nervous before the start — not in a bad way. It was a wild race and an even better party. The energy was exactly what you’re chasing when you build something like this: real, loud, and entirely unsponsored in feeling.

Takeover Video

TAKEOVER 2 is coming in June.

If you have a space — a building, a structure, somewhere that has no business being a racecourse — drop it in the comments. The best ideas for what comes next will come from the people who actually ride.

That’s the loop. Community creates the content. Community helps build what’s next.

Build something worth joining, and they will.

What you’ll take away:

• Why AI content is becoming a brand liability, not just an efficiency gain

• How the platforms themselves are starting to penalize AI-generated content

• Where to draw the line — and what actually builds trust at scale

Let´s go:

We’re living in the fastest AI boom ever. New tools every week, new features every day, everyone racing to automate.

Most brands are using it. Quietly, or loudly, depending on their confidence. And the results? Fast. Scalable. Completely interchangeable.

The internet is now flooded with smooth, polished, hyper-perfect visuals. AI product shots. AI-scripted UGC. AI voiceovers over AI-edited video. Clean. Efficient.

And when everything blends together, “anti-AI” becomes a way to stand out.

The Efficiency Trap

AI content is fast. But fast isn’t the same as effective.

Brands adopted it for obvious reasons — cost, speed, scale. What you can’t do is manufacture trust. And consumers are getting better at pattern-matching. They’ve seen enough AI-generated faces and testimonials to know what they’re looking at. The moment something feels slightly too perfect — the connection breaks.

That broken connection is a brand problem. And brand problems are slow to show up and slow to fix.

Now Even the Algorithm Hates It

Here’s what most people haven’t caught up to yet: it’s not just customers pushing back. The platforms are too.

Google has been explicit — AI-generated content that exists to manipulate search rankings violates their guidelines, regardless of quality. They’re actively downranking content that signals low human involvement. Instagram and TikTok are both building detection signals into their ranking systems, prioritizing content that drives genuine engagement over content that looks produced. LinkedIn has started flagging suspected AI-generated posts.

The irony is sharp. Brands are using AI to move faster, to publish more, to game reach — and the algorithms are quietly learning to ignore them.

Human-first content doesn’t just build brand trust. It’s increasingly what the platforms reward.

What “Anti-AI” Actually Means

The brands winning right now aren’t anti-technology. They’re anti-sameness.

Polaroid put a billboard that read: “A.I. can’t generate sand between your toes.” No polish. No production. Just a handwritten line that articulates something people already feel. They positioned themselves as the antidote to digital sameness — the brand of real moments in a hyper-automated world.

Chanel does it differently but for the same reason. A human-first aesthetic signals: we are real, we’re not hiding behind automation. It’s shorthand for authenticity, honesty, emotional grounding.

Neither brand is rejecting technology. They’re using it where it serves them and staying human where it counts.

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How We Use It — And Where We Don’t

We use AI in our content. But we’ve drawn clear lines.

Where it works: product-focused content. Close-ups, texture, motion. Reels where it’s about the product, not the person. Efficient, clean, no human face needed to carry the emotional weight.

Where we don’t touch it: people.

When it comes to UGC — customer stories, brand ambassador content, community voices — we only use real. Real customers, real environments, real imperfection. Unscripted, occasionally badly lit, always authentic.

We made this decision not because AI-generated UGC isn’t convincing. Often it is. We made it because reputation compounds over years. And the moment fake community content surfaces — and it does surface — the damage is far greater than whatever efficiency you captured.

The Bigger Point

Performance can be optimized with AI all day. But brand is the accumulated feeling people have about you before they ever see your ad. You cannot A/B test your way to being trusted.

Most brands don’t have a brand problem. They have a patience problem. They want emotional resonance delivered on performance timelines.

It doesn’t work that way.

If your space is saturated with AI content — and most are — you have an opening. Show the real process. Let your community speak for themselves. Use AI to support creativity, not replace it.

The average brand chases efficiency. The best brands build memory.

Right now, the fastest way to build memory is to be the most human thing someone sees today.

There’s a famous essay by Paul Graham called “Do Things That Don’t Scale.” The idea is simple: early-stage founders should do things manually, personally, even inefficiently — because that’s how you build something real before you can build something big.

The Problem With Launching a Brand Nobody Knows

When we decided to build Kamo — a functional beer brand for people who take their sport seriously — we had a product idea, a category thesis, and exactly zero customers.

The easy path would have been to get the product right, build a website, run some ads, and see what happens. That’s what most brands do.

We didn’t trust that path. Not because we’re contrarian by nature, but because we knew something about the cycling community specifically: they don’t respond to brands that show up out of nowhere with a polished message and a paid media budget. They respond to things that feel real. Things that feel earned.

So we asked ourselves a different question: How do we earn our place in this community before we’ve even launched?

100 Packages. Two Beer Types. One Google Form.

The answer was embarrassingly simple.

We identified around 100 cyclists — a mix of enthusiasts, semi-professionals, and community figures — and reached out to each of them individually via Instagram DM. No automated tool. No template blast. Just a direct, human message explaining what we were building and asking if they’d be willing to try it.

Building that list alone took time. Real time. We had to find the right people, understand who they were, figure out who actually cared about what they put in their body after a long ride.

The ones who said yes got a package. We packed every single one ourselves. Two different beer types, a flyer, and a link to a Google Form asking for honest feedback on the product, the concept, and everything in between.

It didn’t scale. It wasn’t supposed to.

What We Got Back

The feedback was gold — but that wasn’t even the most valuable part.

What we got back was something harder to manufacture: real relationships inside our target community. People who had held the product in their hands. People who had been asked for their opinion. People who felt like they were part of something before it was a thing.

A few things happened almost immediately:

• Proof that our target persona actually liked the product. Not survey data. Not focus group feedback. Real people, who fit our exact profile, telling us what worked and what didn’t.

• First organic reach on Instagram. People posted. People shared. Not because we asked them to, but because they wanted to.

• A community before we had a product to sell. We had built the audience before we built the distribution.

• First sales conversations before launch. Some of those 100 people became our first customers. Some introduced us to others.

And then something happened that we didn’t expect.

The Partnership We Didn’t See Coming

Among the people we reached through that community — through the trust we’d built, the conversations we’d started, the credibility we’d earned in the niche — came an introduction to VAN RYSEL.

VAN RYSEL is Decathlon’s premium cycling brand. One of the most recognized names in the sport.

We hadn’t launched yet. We had no revenue. No proven distribution. No traditional reason for a brand like that to take us seriously.

But we had something more valuable: we were already known and respected within the cycling community they cared about. The people they wanted to reach already trusted us.

That introduction turned into a real partnership. Before our public launch.

No pitch deck did that. No paid campaign. A hundred handpacked boxes and real conversations did that.

What This Actually Taught Us

Looking back, the 100-package campaign wasn’t really a marketing tactic. It was a philosophy made physical.

A few things we learned that I think apply well beyond Kamo:

1. Launch for one persona, not everyone. We didn’t try to reach all Athletes. We reached a specific kind of cyclist — performance-oriented, health-conscious, identity-driven. That specificity made every conversation more meaningful and every conversion more likely.

2. Community built before launch is your most defensible asset. Ads can be copied. Pricing can be matched. A community that was there from the beginning — that helped build the thing — cannot be replicated by a competitor with a bigger budget.

3. Doing things manually is how you learn what to automate later. Packing 100 boxes by hand taught us things about our product, our customer, and our story that no data dashboard would have surfaced. You earn the right to scale by doing the work that doesn’t scale first.

4. Credibility in a niche travels faster than you think. Tight communities talk. When the right people inside a niche respect what you’re building, doors open that money can’t buy. That’s how you end up in a meeting with Decathlon before you’ve made your first public sale.

We’re still early. kamo is still growing. But the foundation we built with those 100 packages is something we keep coming back to — every time we’re tempted to skip a step, automate too early, or optimize before we’ve really understood.

Do things that don’t scale. Especially at the beginning.

The returns come later — and they come in ways you won’t expect.

Building a brand and figuring out what that means in the real world — not in agency decks. If this resonated, I’d love to hear where you’re at with your own brand or product. Feel free to reply or reach out directly.

Hi,

Last year, I started something new.

For the first time in years, it’s not a digital product. No software. No tokens.

Still in sports though.

I combined two passions of mine: movement and beer.

At first, that doesn’t sound like it belongs together.

And that’s exactly the point.

We’re building non-alcoholic beer with functionality — designed as a better-for-you option after training.

It’s called kamo.

The idea is simple:

Celebrate the effort without compromising tomorrow.

The first year has been intense, humbling, and full of lessons. From brewing in Bavaria to building community through challenges and real-world events.

I’ll share more soon —

how we started,

how it’s going,

and what I’ve learned moving from digital products into something physical, cultural, and tangible.

More soon.

Chris

What Will Change

AI is already reshaping branding, particularly in the execution phase. Take the advertising industry as an example:

• Agencies like Wieden+Kennedy are losing revenue from asset execution as brands now create social content in-house with ease.

• Yet, their bold, high-level campaigns (like those from their New York office) continue to thrive because strategic creativity remains irreplaceable.

Similarly, startups will still need unique, bold brands that stand out from Canva templates or other generic designs. However, once the foundation is strong and properly guided, startups can effectively handle asset creation in-house.

The Fear of Templates

Many startup founders ask, “Why should we invest in branding when we can buy decent-looking templates?” This is why designers need to go beyond just creating visually distinct designs—they must also learn how to sell their ideas and demonstrate the value of thoughtful branding.

Fons Mans put it perfectly in a recent tweet:

What’s Next?

The challenge isn’t just creating something unique—it’s convincing founders to see its worth. Many brand designers struggle here, but this skill will be crucial in an AI-driven world.

In my next article, I’ll explore how to pitch your brand design effectively and go beyond “because it looks good.” Stay tuned for practical insights!

Enjoyed this newsletter?

Share it with a friend—it takes 18 seconds to forward, but hours to create. Thank you!

– Chris

Today, in just 3 minutes, we'll uncover how to measure whether your customers truly love your product.

1 - Start your survey with this question:

"How disappointed would you be if your Brand no longer existed tomorrow?"

1. Very disappointed

2. Somewhat disappointed

3. Not disappointed (it really isn't that useful)

4. N/A—I no longer use it

Interpreting results: If 40%+ are "very disappointed," the Brand is a must-have. Proceed with growth.

Below 40% ➡️ Growth team needs to investigate the reasons behind the low response rate. Their priority should be understanding why customers aren't more enthusiastic about the Brand.

25% to 40% answer "very disappointed" ➡️ Tweaks needed either to the product, service, or to the language used to describe the Brand and how to use it.

Less than 25% answer "very disappointed" ➡️ It's likely that either the audience you've attracted is the wrong fit for your Brand, or the Brand itself needs more substantial development before it's ready for a growth push.

2 - What would you likely use as an alternative to your Brand if it were no longer available?

1 → I probably wouldn’t use an alternative

2 → I would use:

• What is the primary benefit that you have received from [name of Brand]?

• Have you recommended [name of Brand] to anyone? No | Yes (Please explain how you described it)

• What type of person do you think would benefit most from [name of Brand]? How can we improve [name of Brand] to better meet your needs?

• Would it be okay if we followed up by email to request a clarification to one or more of your responses?

➡️ Questions about alternative products can help identify your main competitors and highlight features or experiences that attract customers to those brands. This insight can guide you in determining which features to add, refine, or emphasize to win over customers.

➡️ Inquiries about primary benefits may reveal features you should develop or, if already present, suggest new marketing approaches to better communicate these benefits.

➡️ Responses about Brand recommendations can indicate word-of-mouth marketing potential and, if present, how to maximize it. Crucially, the language customers use to describe your product to friends can uncover benefits, features, and terminology to incorporate into your own promotional efforts.

➡️ The question about which type of person users think can benefit the most from the Brand can help the team focus on a better-defined customer niche and thus target those potential users more effectively.

Next week we will look into Whom to Survey? to find your brand Aha moment.

If you enjoy the newsletter, please forward the Newsletter to a friend. It only takes 18 seconds, while creating it took hours. 👋🏼

Thanks,

Chris

Whenever you're ready, here are 2 more ways I can help your early-stage business:

Get your Brand → I've distilled all my learnings into a process that helps early-stage businesses implement a unique brand from the start—saving money and outpacing competition. brandsooner.com

1:1 Consulting → Need guidance to make your brand stand out? Join me for a one-on-one branding session where we'll dive deep into your goals, target audience, and unique value proposition. Email me at chris@brandsooner.com

In the next 3 minutes, we'll explore examples of brands that successfully identified their "aha moment."

Identifying the "aha moment" often requires analyzing user data and feedback, looking for patterns among enthusiastic users. This process may reveal necessary brand improvements or even lead to significant pivots, as it did for Yelp when they shifted their focus to user reviews.

Let's look at some examples:

In its early days, Yelp's journey to success illustrates the power of identifying a brand's "aha moment." Initially struggling against Citysearch, Yelp discovered users were actively using a hidden feature to post business reviews. By making this feature central, Yelp's growth accelerated rapidly.

They pivoted from the original business model of friends asking friends for business recommendations and put the reviews at the heart of the experience.

Or take Uber's "aha moment," which Uber cofounder and CEO Travis Kalanick explained as, "You push a button and a black car comes up. Who's the baller? It was a baller move to get a black car to arrive in 8 minutes."

Many times, delivering a standout aha experience takes extra work beyond just showing up with your brand and hoping for the best.

Creating a true aha experience may require further product development or better user guidance.

• Twitter found that following 30 users led to higher engagement.

• Slack noted that 2,000 team messages often led to paid plan upgrade

It's crucial to analyze user data and feedback, looking for patterns among enthusiastic users.

This process may reveal needed product improvements or even lead to significant pivots. The good news is that while discovering how to make a product deliver an aha moment can be very difficult, determining whether or not your product meets the baseline requirement generally doesn't require elaborate diagnostics.

Next week we will look into a survey how to find your brand Aha moment.

If you enjoy the newsletter, please forward the Newsletter to a friend. It only takes 18 seconds, while creating it took hours. 👋🏼

Today, within 3 minutes, we'll look at how to set up your branding framework for early-stage businesses without overcomplicating it. At the end, I'll share a free Notion template you can use for your business framework.

One of the biggest mistakes early-stage businesses make is starting without strategic brand positioning or making it too complicated. It doesn't have to be complex—when you get these basics right, you're already in a great position to grow.

1. Answer these three questions about your company.

➡️ What is it? (Be descriptive.)

➡️ What are the customer benefits? ( How does it improve customers’ lives?)

➡️ What is its personality? (If your product, company or service was human and you met at a cocktail party, how would you describe them?)

Tipps on writing:

• Avoid positioning exercises alone or in silos.

• Put your descriptions on a diet.

• Introduce your company like you would a person.

• Decide on one word to own.

• Express the benefits from the point of view of the customer — not the company.

2. Define the different levels of your branding pyramid.

Start from the bottom by defining the nitty-gritty, then work your way to the "something bigger."

1️⃣ Product attributes: The "bits and bytes" of what your product offers — the things that deliver benefit to customers.

2️⃣ Product benefits: How does your product improve customers’ lives?

3️⃣ Emotional benefits: If your product does a great job delivering benefits, how do you want your customers to feel? Emotion makes brands memorable.

4️⃣ Something bigger: In the next decade or two, how might your product or service dent the universe? Think big.

Netflix Example:

1️⃣ Streaming TV shows, movies, and original content. 2️⃣ Convenience, selection, value. 3️⃣ Satisfied, delighted. 4️⃣ Escape from reality.

(Find more Examples like Nike and Apple in the Notion Template)

3. Complete your concept summary

➡️ Your concept summary: It must answer the question: Do people understand who I am, my benefits, my personality and the something bigger I will represent? Keep it short!!!

Let me help you invest in your strategy before growing your brand. Get a free copy of our Notion Template by simply replying to this email with "Branding framework for early-stage businesses"

If you enjoy the newsletter, please forward the newsletter to a friend. It only takes 18 seconds, while creating it took hours. 👋🏼

s➡️➡️ner

Make your early-stage business irresistible with high-impact branding and marketing tips.

By s➡️➡️ner - EarlyStage Branding

I came across the Playbook from Sam Altman at Y-Combinator a week ago, and I think it's great, even for experienced founders. Especially during busy days, it's helpful to take some time to think about the fundamentals.

Within 3 minutes, I will summarize some key takeaways from the article. I'll also link it if you want to read the whole masterpiece.

Intro:

Your goal as an early-stage business is to make something users love. If you do that, then you have to figure out how to get a lot more users. Successful companies today all started with a product that their early users loved so much they told other people about it. If you fail to do this, you will fail.

It’s much better to first make a product a small number of users love than a product that a large number of users like.

The Idea:

We seek clear, concise answers to evaluate you and your idea. Clear thinking and communication are vital for recruiting, fundraising, and selling. Ideas must be clear to spread; complex ideas often indicate unclear thinking or a non-existent problem. If your idea doesn't excite some people initially, it's a bad sign.

A Great Team:

Good founders have seemingly contradictory traits, like rigidity and flexibility. They hold strong beliefs about the company's core mission but stay flexible and open to learning in other areas.

The best founders are highly responsive, showing decisiveness, focus, intensity, and the ability to get things done.

A Great Product:

A great product is essential for long-term growth. Eventually, growth hacks stop working, and you must rely on people wanting to use your product. Super-successful companies understand this. Think about all the successful technology companies—they all follow this principle.

“Do things that don’t scale” has rightfully become a mantra for startups. You usually need to recruit initial users one at a time (Ben Silbermann used to approach strangers in coffee shops in Palo Alto and ask them to try Pinterest) and then build things they ask for. Many founders hate this part, and just want to announce their product in the press. But that almost never works. Recruit users manually, and make the product so good the users you recruit tell their friends.

Great Execution:

Although it’s necessary to build a great product, you’re not done after that. You still have to turn it into a great company, and you have to do it yourself—the fantasy of hiring an “experienced manager” to do all this work is both extremely prevalent and a graveyard for failed companies. You cannot outsource the work to someone else for a long time.

This sounds obvious, but you have to make money. This would be a good time to start thinking about how that’s going to work.

Growth:

Founders and employees that are burn out nearly always work at startups without momentum. It’s hard to overstate how demoralizing it is.

Keep a list of growth blockers and discuss as a company how to overcome them. Knowing the limiters helps in addressing them.

For any action, ask, “Is this the best way to optimize growth?” Attending a conference, for instance, may not be unless significant sales are expected.

If you want to find out how Altman thinks about focus, the CEO's job, or hiring, you can read the full article here: Link

evian Mountain

Reading Time: 2 Minutes

Today, we will explore how a brand story based on heritage can be an extremely rewarding proposition if you can connect your brand with the desire of consumers to formulate a deeper connection with the place or culture your brand will be known for.

We love to connect with places we've been to, call home, or dream of visiting one day. We sense an immediate feeling of connection and sometimes belonging. Marketing has always taken full advantage of this, from Evian water showcasing the beauty of its origin, Évian-les-Bains on the south shore of Lake Geneva in Switzerland (where I was once lucky to live across the lake and enjoy the view daily), to the Danish-sounding Häagen-Dazs, which actually hails from the Bronx. That's right – the brand association we make with a location can sometimes be misleading. The next time you use Irish Spring soap, dream of Germany instead of Celtic landscapes because that is where the "Irish" soap actually originates.

Do you remember the Super Bowl spot from Chrysler and Eminem? "Born of Fire", also known as "Imported from Detroit". Featuring the rapper Eminem (from Detroit), it showcased storytelling built on heritage at its best. I even got goosebumps, and I'm not from Detroit.

How to use Heritage in Brand Building

• Connect with (your) heritage and let it speak. It will create conversations that will have your brand as the centerpiece.

• Just like attaching your brand to a personality, a location can make for bad headlines. Know the risks, and be prepared to partake in flipping it around as you are now an unofficial spokesperson for that location.

• Expanding a heritage brand needs to be well-planned to keep a brand aura of authenticity.

• If heritage becomes your brand, “buy/support local” may turn into an obvious and sometimes immediate added benefit to your brand.

💡Takeaway → Heritage can enhance brand authenticity, but it requires careful management to maintain credibility and handle potential risks.

If you enjoy the newsletter, please forward the Newsletter to a friend. It only takes 18 seconds, while creating it took hours. 👋🏼

Reading Time: 3 Minutes

Today, we will explore how transparency can help your brand strategy and what to do to get it right. Especially in business spaces known for opacity and complexity, transparency is a powerful strategy.

The cornerstone of any lasting relationship is honesty and transparency. So naturally, if customers are going to forge a long relationship with your brand, they expect you to provide this.

👋🏼 But you need to know that for startup brands founded on a desire for honesty, going fully transparent is a path to success that takes a fair share of moxie. If you commit to leading with honesty, understand that there is no way back. If you have committed to sharing your financial statements publicly on your website in 2022, for example, going quiet in 2024 will backfire.

Look at Everlane's story. They started with the claim of being “Radical Transparency.” These days, however, employees past and present are challenging management, saying the company’s ethical image was an illusion. Even the NYT wrote about it.

New York Times

Let's examine better brand examples

Ritual, a Los Angeles-based seller of vitamins, insists on a clean supply chain and keeps itself honest by listing details on the origins and manufacturers of its ingredients and clinical trials on its website. As a brand that sells vegan, dye-free, sugar-free, gluten-free, non-GMO, and dairy-free products, Ritual applied the rule of transparency because it knows its niche customers care deeply about that information and the notion that the company’s values align with what they themselves stand for.

Ritual

How to Get Transparency in Startup Brand Building

➡️ ➡️ Reveal everything. It's the quickest way to showcase transparency. Customers will instantly trust your brand and its products over your competitors’.

➡️ ➡️ Commit fully. Once you choose this path, there’s no turning back.

➡️ ➡️ Understand that your product and audience crave transparency, especially if your industry has a history of dishonesty. For instance, if you're in the fashion industry, which has faced scandals over sweatshops, mention where garments are made. If you run a financial company, explain how funds are used. If you sell a food product, answer questions about its ingredients.

➡️ ➡️ Create a strategic plan on how far you will take transparency and where your brand will draw the line. Measure it against projected ROI, and promote the most important areas of transparency. Keep other areas as brand surprises for continued storytelling and customer engagement.

94% of all consumers are more likely to be loyal to a brand when it commits to full transparency.

ink.com

💡Takeaway → Transparency fosters trust and credibility, which are essential elements for building lasting relationships with your customers.

I am exploring a topic that is a big discussion in any startup I've worked at: the split of the marketing budget between Performance Marketing and Brand Building. If any of my subscribers have insights, ideas, or input on this, I would really appreciate your help. Just send me an email or connect with me on LinkedIn.

If you enjoy the newsletter, please forward the Newsletter to a friend. It only takes 18 seconds, while creating it took hours. 👋🏼

Reading Time: 3 Minutes

Today, We're exploring the journey of a brand, from its inception as a challenger to its status as a market leader, and looking into strategies brands can use to expand their market reach.

Breaking into the Masses

Establishing a new brand is a challenge. It's about carving a distinctive identity separate from pre-existing entities. Brands need to be reductive and efficient, anchoring a business soundly and simply. But it's easier said than done.

As your brand matures, it's essential to understand its limitations and strengths, and to discover its core essence. Staying in tune and nimble while adhering to the inherent brand image is crucial.

The key is to focus on:

• Flexibility, remain dynamic, and continue learning.

• Diversify through different product categories and new product lines while staying true to the brand’s essence.

• Use market sensing, run diagnostics, and maintain customer insight.

💡Tipp: The best thing you can do as a startup brand is to have the very best experts in the room from the start and be able to quickly build from them.

Brand strategies to expand market reach

The Power of Collaboration

One of the best pieces of advice that I can think of is the belief that you need to seek out brands themselves and see things in which to connect to help them – the collaborations can add mutual value to the brand. It’s a chance to open up a new part of the communications that builds communities. Many of the best ideas come from a wider collaboration, getting and harnessing other ideas and angles.

Ketchup or Makeup

Just think about: "The Chunky Dunky Nike" or "Ketchup or Makeup?" from Rihanna's Fenty Beauty. For my German friends, remember the Adidas BVG Sneaker from Jung von Matt back in the day.

Going Physical: A Digital Brand's Transition

There's a strong business case for digitally native brands moving into physical spaces. Despite the allure of beautifully designed websites, there’s something about a physical space that brings an exclusive value. Today’s experiential business models, like Casper’s, initially launched solely online, but have shifted to "sleep shops" in different areas of the country, offering a place for customers to have actual experiential moments and enjoy the true understanding of the brand.

allbirds store

Examples include: allbirds, Casper, Adore Me, Bonobos, Wayfair, and many more.

💡Takeway → The journey of a brand is a fascinating one, filled with opportunities for learning and growth at every stage. Enjoy it 🫶🏻

If you're loving the newsletter, how about sharing it with just one friend?It would be a great way to show some love for what I do. ➡️➡️ NEWSLETTER LINK 🔗 Until next time!! 🙂

For more daily content related to startup banding, let's connect on X.

Firstly, I apologize for the pause in my newsletter over the last few weeks. In addition to the hustle of our startup, I had personal matters that consumed all of my time. However, receiving messages from some of my subscribers, who were eagerly awaiting the newsletter, was a very motivating and positive sign for me. 🫶🏻

Reading Time: 3 Minutes

Today, In just three minutes, we'll explore how to find deeper human needs for your startup problem.

Successful brands today have not become popular by introducing new needs. They've provided innovative solutions to timeless needs.

Essentially, a business solves a functional problem. For instance, toothpaste is for cleaning teeth, and airplanes are for quick long-distance travel.

But, beneath these needs are core drivers that we all value. Top startups tap into these deeper human needs, beyond the functional, in some way. To create a brand that people love and value, we need to identify more than just the obvious needs being met.

The Why Test

You're holding an incredible innovation in your hands. In your pitch deck, you'll need to clearly state the problem your innovation solves - this should be one of the first slides. This description can be functional and straightforward.

However, before you can build a beloved brand around your startup, you need to identify the problem it solves for your customers on a deeper level, in a more human way. (Let's use Henry Ford's quote as an example.) The problem isn't as simple as "People want a personal motorized means of transportation." That's a superficial insight, similar to saying "people want a crunchy cereal with raisins." Instead, let's start with an obvious, relatable problem that people face daily. Perhaps it's something like "I rely on my horse to get around, but horses are slow and tire easily."

Don't stop here. This is where the 'Why Test' begins:

• Why does it matter to people that their horses are slow?

  • "It takes me too long to get places and I can’t travel very far."

• And why does that matter?

  • "I spend more time commuting than enjoying my life and accomplishing things."

• And why does that matter?

  • "Because my life is short and I have so much to achieve! I can’t waste my short life on the back of this horse!"

By understanding your customers' deeper needs, you can better tailor your product and brand to them, making it a valued part of their lives.

💡Takeaway → Top startup brands address deeper human needs, not just functional ones.

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Reading Time: 3 Minutes

Today, we're focusing on a vital Distinctive Brand Asset: The Claim. In just three minutes, we'll explore what makes a good one and why it's crucial for even early-stage startups.

Claims, also known as Taglines or slogans, like Nike’s “Just do it”, Netflix’s “See what’s next”, McDonald's “I'm Loving it”, or Airbnb's “Belong anywhere” are often neglected in the branding process for startups. This is a mistake, as the claim for your company and its offerings is as important as the logo, if not more so.

What are Claims? Claims are short phrases that suggest or brand your offering and startup to your audience. They encapsulate the unique benefit your company provides, the problem your offerings solve, or the desire your product, service, or message fulfills.

Let's examine some well-known examples and one lesser-known one.

Airbnb: “Belong anywhere.”

Airbnb perfectly uses its slogan to convey the experience it aims to give its customers. Just two words were more than enough to deliver that message. The word “belong” captures the feeling of being at home, exactly how Airbnb wants its customers to feel in a rented property. “Anywhere” implies that Airbnb offers services worldwide. It's concise and effective.

Netflix: “See what’s next.”

This slogan perfectly captures the spirit of watching Netflix. It's simple, yet it manages to articulate the company's goals and the customers' needs. Watching Netflix, you always find yourself wanting to “see what’s next”, whether it's another episode or a new movie. Netflix invites you to discover what the next big show or movie will be.

Netflix leverages their claim beyond traditional marketing materials.

FANtium: “Let US Rise”

At FANtium, we connect fans with athletes through investment opportunities, creating a unified team. When the athlete wins, the fan also wins. However, the claim isn't just used for marketing or community engagement, it's also used internally as part of the company's DNA. Every meeting concludes with the call to action (CTA) “Let Us Rise”.

Why are Claims a powerful marketing tool?

Claims communicate a real or perceived benefit of your offering and uniquely position your product and company for launch and beyond. They can also revitalize a company's brand. Instead of rebranding the entire corporation, which can be costly, simply changing the tagline can reposition your offering and/or company to encapsulate its uniqueness and differentiate your startup from competitors.

How to write your Claim:

• Use a sequence of two to five words (the shorter, the better)

• Have a clear call to action

• Connect it to your unique startup benefit

• Ensure it's memorable so it's easy to remember.

💡Takeaway → The best claims are always a call to action. This is because a call to action engages the consumer with the brand, while a creative description often leaves out the consumer.

Disclaimer → Distinctiveness alone does not constitute a great brand

While distinctiveness is important, it is not a substitute for creativity, imagination, wit, and empathy for the audience. It is valuable only as a means to ensure that all the credit for such creativity and quality is attributed back to the brand.

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