Why is it important for start-ups to be iterative with their brand-building?

In the early days of a start-up, there are a lot of unknowns and a lot to tackle – a limited definition of the customers, product, experience, and even the category you are changing or creating. Most of the businesses we’ve worked with have a healthy amount of ambiguity and complexity. On top of that, the market is so saturated with new trends and behavioral shifts in how people consume. It’s undeniably hard work to articulate a brand positioning that sticks.

I remember those days in my agency life when creatives, including myself, spent overnight redesigning and rewriting presentation slides to “sell” an idea or concept. I often compare our brand-building process at Yung Studio to the wabi-sabi philosophy on acceptance of transience and imperfection. An artist Richard J. Powell said it well, "Wabi-sabi nurtures all that is authentic by acknowledging three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect.”

At Yung Studio, we intentionally get rid of polished decks, performance-like presentations, and multi-level org structure. We love a shared file that invites our clients to add questions, thoughts, and reference materials to build on each other. We always say, “Nothing is precious.” Let’s start testing the elevator pitch in front of beta users and investors, and see how they respond. Imagine how the press will write about the brand with this positioning. The faster we get ideas in front of founders, the quicker we can validate an idea. So every week, that’s exactly what we do, we bring focus to what matters most to get startups off the ground quickly.