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What is your story? Why did you decide to start your business? What is urgent about the problem you're solving? How did you meet your co-founder?
If you're rebranding, why? What has changed? How did it get to the current point?
What keeps you up at night? Which traits do you admire in people? What does your startup stand for?
What does your startup do? What problem does it solve? What are your key features?
What makes your startup different? What is unique about your solution?
If your startup was a person, how would it act? Would it be loud or quiet? Rebellious or peaceful? Impulsive or thoughtful?
How would it speak? Slowly or fast? Is it a talker or a listener? Straight-forward or metaphorical?
What language would it use? Academic or casual? Does it prefer verbs or nouns?
Understanding your brand DNA helps your startup develop an authentic brand voice. It is essential for the sustainable growth of startups in science. But before we dive into that, let's consider why a startup needs DNA.
Brand DNA elements provide criteria for evaluating future relationships and steps. Choosing partnerships can serve as an example. It serves as a strong brand guide.
When founders look for partnerships, they ultimately look for someone to develop their business with long-term. It is worth questioning:
It also supports marketing efforts of successful businesses by providing content guidelines and a singular brand voice to maintain consistency.
In addition, startup founders are in charge of sharing company values among teammates. Shared values help maintain brand consistency. Knowing what your startup is made of makes it easier to communicate it.
Now every goal needs an action plan.
Your brand DNA is who you are as a company.
You don't change who you are. But you can pick what to do with it. Similarly, your startup's DNA drives its actions and content developed from it.
Your mission and purpose are the most important assets. We can choose a startup's mission and even change it. Our personality and experience form our purpose. However, neither is part of the brand DNA because DNA is given. It drives brand and business strategies.
With enough time, it can evolve.
Of course, it won't change within a week, a month, or a year. But it will advance to adapt to new market conditions.
People build startups. That includes founders, employees, and target audience. As each develops their interpretation and gets a sense of your business, it will develop new layers which will be reflected in design elements and ambitions.
Successful brands are created by people for people.
Your startup will have employees and customers.
Going back to the definition of brand DNA, it's an instruction. It instructs your startup's behavior. It also facilitates a relationship with your customers.
Scientific innovation is alluring at the beginning. But once the initial spark is gone, the strategy has to change. It switches from innovation-focused to relationship-focused.
The new challenge is to build and maintain relationships with your audience. How will your startup attract people for whom high-quality features are a commodity? The connection has to become more profound. Branding can help nurture a relationship.
On the other hand, any scientific invention will have its share of skepticism. A startup needs to build trust by being transparent, competent, and benevolent. So it's worth including those characteristics in the value system of a startup in science.
Brand DNA helps you to be authentic, relevant, consistent, and ethical. It adds a human element to your business. In addition, it helps address the following industry challenges:
To address skepticism, you have to start a conversation. It has to show the match between the startup's values and the audience's.
Sharing values will help innovation implementation. Because it will help change the image from weird science to a valuable partner.
Your customers may not be academics. So how are they supposed to know the benefits of science? A startup has to educate them.
Accessible education and transparency should be a part of the company's value system. Visual elements such as infographics support ease of understanding.
Consumers don't have time to read research papers. They are busy living their lives. To implement a scientific discovery into regular life, it has to sound “normal”. Choosing a friendlier and clearer tone of voice will help communicate complicated ideas to the masses.
A story helps the audience comprehend complex information. Understanding makes it more believable.
When it's more believable, it feels more reliable. Believable helps generate trust which in return helps you win valuable customers.
The foundation of company culture lies in values and purpose. The purpose gives people a reason to do their job beyond making money.
If a startup has personal growth among its values, it facilitates the self-actualization of its employees. A startup in science becomes a platform to explore one's full potential for people from different backgrounds. A healthy and motivating culture facilitates reliable customer experience.
Some startups develop new medicine while others find ways to implement scientific research into their products or services. Either way, people expect higher quality from science than any commodity product.
Integrity has to be part of a value set to meet the audience's expectations.
A startup in science needs customers to use the product, investors to fund the company, and partners to develop the technology.
People are both rational and emotional. They want to engage with companies with a big goal and a proven action plan.
Features, values, and a story are already three topics to share on social media. They work well as an introduction.
Brand DNA also gives a startup substance. It makes any content more compelling and alive. A startup stops being a collection of features. Instead, a brand DNA turns it into an entity, a human institution to grow and develop.
So include those elements when developing marketing content or presentations.
A well-crafted, consistently implemented brand identity is one of the main ways to instill trust, look professional and stand out among the competition.
