Evolving Brand Identities and Efficient Strategies for Early-Stage Companies

What makes a great brand? After working at Google and Square, Arielle Jackson has spent the past eight years consulting startups on how to create powerful messaging that works. In this jam-packed episode, she shares how to pick a winning name for your company, create a brand purpose that excites your team and customers, and position your company and its products for success. You don’t want to miss this one!

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Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-art-of-building-legendary-brands

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Where to find Arielle Jackson:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/hiiamarielle

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ariellerjackson/

• Course: https://maven.com/arielle/startupbrandstrategy

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for making this episode possible:

• Flatfile: https://www.flatfile.com/lenny

• Unit: https://unit.co/lenny

• Athletic Greens: https://athleticgreens.com/lenny

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Referenced:

• Positioning Your Startup Is Vital—Here’s How to Nail It: https://review.firstround.com/Positioning-Your-Startup-is-Vital-Heres-How-to-Do-It-Right

• Three Moves Every Startup Founder Must Make to Build a Brand That Matters: https://review.firstround.com/three-moves-every-startup-founder-must-make-to-build-a-brand-that-matters

• What I Learned from Developing Branding for Airbnb, Dropbox, and Thumbtack: https://review.firstround.com/what-i-learned-from-developing-branding-for-airbnb-dropbox-and-thumbtack

• Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind: https://www.amazon.com/Positioning-Battle-Your-Al-Ries/dp/0071373586

• Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life: https://www.amazon.com/Alchemy-Curious-Science-Creating-Business/dp/006238841X

• The Vanishing Half: https://britbennett.com/the-vanishing-half

• The Mothers: https://britbennett.com/the-mothers

• Nik Sharma’s weekly newsletter: https://www.nik.co/subscribe

• How I Built This: https://www.npr.org/series/490248027/how-i-built-this

• In Depth: https://review.firstround.com/podcast

• Unseen Unknown: https://unseen-unknown.simplecast.com/

• Luca: https://movies.disney.com/luca

• Encanto: https://movies.disney.com/encanto

• Old Enough!: https://www.netflix.com/title/81506279

• The Sociology of Business with Ana Andjelic: https://andjelicaaa.substack.com

• David Ogilvy: https://www.oneclub.org/hall-of-fame/-bio/david-ogilvy

• Rory Sutherland: https://twitter.com/rorysutherland

• Seth Godin: https://seths.blog/

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In this episode, we cover:

[04:04] From making jewelry as a side hustle to launching products for Square: Arielle’s background[12:32] What makes a good name for a product or a startup[19:17] How to come up with a great name[24:59] How to run a naming brainstorm for the best results[31:09] Bad names and naming mistakes[34:17] Arielle’s brand development framework and when founders should implement it[36:02] How do you know when brand development is completed?[41:17] How long should branding take?[42:42] How to build a brand purpose that ignites excitement[48:51] Specific tactics for building your brand purpose[51:12] How to master your positioning[55:22] Why it’s important to stay niche when you’re mastering your positioning[59:15] The process of positioning and Arielle’s bar test[1:02:38] How to build a brand personality using the five big brand descriptions[1:07:39] Where to put brand and product positioning documents so they’ll actually get used[1:09:14] How startups can get PR[1:14:49] When should you hire a marketer?—Production and marketing: https://penname.co/

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