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On Sunday I went to the National Museum of Art in Oslo. As I passed the security, the first hall in front of me opened to a bright purple cubist painting. Since I had nowhere in particular to be, I went straight in where I discovered Thorvald Hellesen, a Norwegian cubist painter.
Hellesen was born to an upper-class family and moved to Paris at the age of 23 to pursue a career as an artist and designer. He was associated with Orphism which was a branch of Cubism focused on bright blocks of color and abstraction. Aside from participating in salons and exhibitions he also developed patterns for textiles.
Those paintings were magical, almost from another world. Just take a look at the combination of colors! Violet with turquoise? Delicious! Their axiomatic correctness hypnotized. They were beautiful, even different. He gave an impression of being passionate and thoughtful. When we think of Cubism, usually dirty brown, yellowish-grey, and black parts of Picasso’s paintings come to mind. Hellessen’s work, on the other hand, felt fresh and calculative. If one has to work to understand Picasso, Hellesen’s puzzles collected themselves.
He was in Paris, the mecca of culture at that moment. He was a cubist, but his pieces breathed different life of colors. Critics liked him. His social circle included a wide range of salons and exhibitions to mingle and borrow ideas. He even managed to find a practical application to his visual language by working with textiles and interior design. What else did one need to succeed?
He was working within the hip trend, producing work different enough to be noticed with the craft and quality of a high-end artist. Yet, it was Picasso who got all the wealth and recognition, not Hellesen who never went further than some positive reviews. And it is a brilliant lesson on commercial success for any entrepreneur.
One of the factors that determine the success of a startup is its unique selling proposition (USP). In other words, the product’s differentiator.
How is the tech different from the competition on the market? Or what does it do better than the solutions that already exist?
If there is no USP, there is little point to develop a product. And thanks to all the available literature and online resources, developing a USP has been cemented in the minds of any startup founder. But is it enough? If being unique was enough to get success, then Hellessen could’ve become a Figma to Picasso’s Miro. So what else is needed?
As my mentor once told me: “You have to have an opinion.”
Opinion or a point of view was exactly what Picasso had that attributed to his success over Hellessen or pretty much any other cubist at the time. While artists were looking for ways to represent the world in their paintings, Picasso did the polar opposite: he accentuated the difference between reality and painting. He and his “co-founder” Georges Braque were the first to object to the state of the art. They challenged the traditional techniques which prevailed the art scene at the moment by redefining perspective and space.
In another corner, we have Hellensen. If Picasso established a point of view that turned into a trend, Hellessen mastered the trend. He got to a high level of craftsmanship that even allowed him to find his unique path - Orphism. However, Orphism was still Cubism and Hellessen was never a challenger. He was an exemplary master, different enough to be noticed, but lacked a point of view to manifest.
Commercial success favors those who question the status quo and polarize (although a slippery slope and should be pursued carefully). By nature, startups challenge existing processes: something isn’t done well or there is a better way to execute, boom - an opportunity to build a new business.
If everyone is doing this, we want to do something different (your USP) because of the following reason (your POV).
USP is about product development while POV is about your brand.
USP is a feature that makes your product or service different. POV is the reason why that product should exist.
USP helps you develop a product. POV helps you position it on the market. POV is at the core of your market strategy and brand messaging.
Approaching your brand is almost like creating a movement with a manifesto and a plan of action.
So when chasing commercial success, it is worth considering the stance your startup takes on a certain issue. Then communicate it through your startup brand. It is especially relevant, for startups in deep tech where everyone is revolutionizing drug discovery nowadays. How? What is so different about another revolution? Why does it matter?
In addition, technology and its benefits may not be clear to the public due to the niche terms. Having a clear stance helps position your brand in the minds of your potential customers prior to going into the details of advanced technology or complex science.
Some prompts to develop a POV of a successful company:
Is there anything else that contributes to the startup’s commercial success? Yes.
Ana Andjelic, a brand executive, suggested in her book “The Business of Aspiration” two strategies for brand building. One is called “kuuki wo yomu” which is a Japanese term for “Read the atmosphere”. She proposes “to piggyback on existing influence & amplify it through social activity”.
In other words, find a hidden trend within among your potential customers - something that is in the air, but isn’t widely discussed - and use it as a market opportunity to manifest it with your brand.
So what did Picasso kuuki?
Cubists existed at the high point of reevaluation of:
To start with, Einstein was thinking of relativity, which was another way to redefine time and space. Secondly, technological advancements brought machines and optimization to our lives. Such upgrades demand people to revise their perception of the world. Last but not least, photography. If there appeared a tech that represented our world with less effort and more precision, who needed artists? Speaking contemporary slang of the world of artificial intelligence, machines took artists’ jobs - what shall we do now?
Did Picasso intentionally kuuki that trend? I have no idea. But those attitudes definitely affected his work.
For deep tech companies, these are valuable questions: if you are on a mission to revolutionize, how does your science or technology fit in the world? With whom? Is there some hidden trend you could leverage to help drive your brand?
The answer depends on the target customer of the deep tech company. Is your target market part of the scientific world or not? If they are and, for example, your B2B startup is working with biopharma companies, then the trend will hide within the same scientific community. However, when it comes to B2C startups whose customer isn’t scientists, their moods will most likely be connected to their lifestyles and everyday matters, not the type of protein used in the discovery or methods used in developing another advanced technology.
Some social moods to explore in your marketing strategies:
“Genius is a story. We remember people who happened to be at the right time at the right place and hence there was a way of recording their accomplishments,” - “Finding the world’s next “hidden genius”, Albert-László Barabási for Big Think
Timing is the difference between a genius and a master, a tremendous success and a great job.
All those things happening in the background led artists in the early 1900s to reevaluate who they were and redefine their craft. They went from representing the world to conceptualizing it.
Timing or a moment played one of the key roles in Picasso’s success. He happened to be at the right place at the right time with the right expertise among the right people who could document his success to be the first Cubist. Just like Hellessen, but with a pre-fabricated opinion.
“Owning a time or occasion is a way of diversifying or specialising. It narrows the field of context and makes it easier to define a territory, then own it through association,” - Peter Wilken, “Dim Sum Strategy: Bite-Sized Tools to Build Stronger Brands”
We often miss out on the importance of luck in commercial success because it is something out of our control. If you read online, the common prescriptions to reach success include doing marketing research, partnering, focusing on customer needs, designing your unique value proposition, adopting new technologies, attracting top talent and yada yada yada…
These things aren’t wrong. Control means you can influence the outcome. However, it totally ignores external conditions that are out of our control. And the funny thing is: it’s actually the external conditions that decide who gets success and who needs to work a little bit harder and wait forever longer.
Now just because luck is a capricious beast, doesn’t mean you should ignore it, but prepare for it:
You can’t force success, but you can develop a USP and a POV so when luck throws a hidden trend your way, you are ready to kuuki wo yomu the hell out of it.
“It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck come you are ready,” - “The Old Man and the Sea” by Ernest Hemingway.
I think I’ve dropped enough of mogul names for one article. So let’s wrap it up till I add a pinch of Darwin somewhere.
Reaching success is one of the toughest challenges for startups. One of the most overlooked factors of commercial success is opinion. A sole focus on a unique selling proposition is not enough to differentiate the startup on the market. Developing a USP is only the beginning of brand positioning. To position your tech startup better, develop a POV on the issue you are solving that will support your USP. Having a strong opinion helps build a unique brand around your technology An opinion that is rooted in your WHY will help deep tech companies communicate advanced science to potential customers. Implement it into your marketing plan.
Another important element that contributes to the startup’s success is an understanding of the current times. Luckily for startups in science, there is a growing interest in taking deep tech innovation outside of academia. Is there a hidden trend within your target market that you can leverage to build an engaging and appealing brand? How can you use it in your market strategies? Pioneers are those who bring to the spotlight matters that aren’t seen yet.
And lastly, look for the right moment. Fortune favors the bold. Bold are those with a unique POV.
To build a deep tech startup brand with higher chances of commercial success:
Hellesen, Thorvald Pioneering Cubism Exhibition. The National Museum in Oslo, 2023
Andjelic, Ana The Business of Aspiration: How Cultural, Social, and Environmental Capital Changes Brands. 2020
Barabási, Albert-László Finding the world’s next “hidden genius”. The Big Think, 2023
Wilken, Peter Dim Sum Strategy: Bite-Sized Tools to Build Stronger Brands. 2019
