Founder Lesson
Over the years I’ve developed a very specific playbook for my own startup ideas. Determine what is most likely to be a 10x better product in a space. Once that’s been tested, layer a very strong brand on top of that product. There are many playbooks to be successful…this is mine.

Put as simply as possible, the brand of a startup is your personality to the outside world. How do you look? How do you sound? How do you treat people when they first meet you? How do you treat them over time? How do you make people feel?

When I think about the topic of “brand,” I’m a purist. This ethos is driven 100% by the founding team because it has to be authentic.

But what happens when the founders skip brand at the beginning and/or are just plain bad at it?

In this podcast, the founder of NatureBox describes how they tackled this issue knowing that they weren’t very good at brand. Their main strategy was to hire the people who reflected the values they wanted in their brand. As a result of this process, they grew a very authentic brand.

It’s never been easier to reach your target customers and have them help you spread the love about your product. But a necessary first step in this process is to have a brand worth spreading.

Get Right to the Lesson
I’d recommend listening to the entire thing, but to get right to the point go to minute 6:07 of this podcast.

Thanks to these folks for helping us all learn faster
Ken Chen (@ikenchen), co-founder of NatureBox (@naturebox)
NextView Ventures (@NextViewVC)
Jay Acunzo (@jayacunzo) of NextView Ventures (@NextViewVC)
Rob Go (@robgo), co-founder of NextView Ventures (@NextViewVC)

Please let me and others know what you think about this topic
Email me privately at dave@switchyards.com or let's discuss publicly at @davempayne.