Marketing 101

How to build a brand strategy from 0-1: a guide for startups

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Reminder: brand strategy should be done WITH your Head of product and Head of Ops vs presented to them.

This creates buy-in and alignment on why this is important from day 1.
Brand strategy is NOT a marketing plan.

Brand strategy is WHY you will win.

Marketing plan is HOW: levers you will pull to hit your goals.
Step 1: Review Competitive Landscape

Do tear downs.
Understand leading value props.
Interview users of your competition to understand what’s working, what’s not.

Know who the players are and where they play vs where you will play.
Step 1b: Create your “ONLY” statement

Complete this sentence

We are the only brand that does x, y and/ or z.

Are you better, faster, cheaper? What makes you different and how would you say that efficiently.
Step 2: Identity customer segments

Data helps. If you already have a product, know who is already a purchaser and why.

Otherwise, create user personas of ideal customers.

Have fun! How do they get news? What social accounts do they follow? What shows are they watching?
Step 3: use 1 & 2 to create your brand pyramid

A brand pyramid helps you to think about the core essence / brand sentiment.

How do you want to make someone feel.
Step 4: Bring that feeling to life - VOICE

Create your voice & tone of your brand

Use statements like: We are this, not this
Ex: we are bold, not judgemental
Ex: we are funny, not crass

Pull together examples of social captions, welcome email and product copy for North Star.
Step 5: Bring that feeling to life - VISUAL

Pull inspirational photos to guide a designer to create 3 mood boards for your brand to react to. Use the brand pyramid to guide you.

Refine and get to your MVP quickly. Don’t obsess over every pixel in the beginning.
Step 6: Learn and Iterate

A brand is a living thing. Just like a human it learns and grows as new pieces of information from customers, product and market.
If you thought this was useful, join me for a 1 week virtual Masterclass on Agile Startup Marketing

May 6-13th (4.5 hrs total + 1:1s)

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Reading this article, the story sounds pretty wild. But I spent a weird amount of time with Martin Shkreli, and I’m not surprised the journalist fell in love w him

A few years back my team built an app called Blab. It was like clubhouse before clubhouse.


When he first joined the app I had no idea who he was. I just saw that his live streams instantly had 3-4K viewers. More than anyone on our tiny platform.

I googled him and it came up: “Martin Shkreli, most hated man in America”

I assumed he was bad news

And he was... but also he wasn’t.

He was a douchebag, but he was in on the joke. He was a dick, but he was also very entertaining.

In the mornings he would live stream himself analyzing stocks or walking through drug discovery pathways.

In the afternoon he’d let people call in and debate him live on air. A CNN reporter tried to get him to go on TV, he refused, and said debate me here on Blab, no edits, no tv time limits.

At night he’d host late night convos - and eventually fall asleep on cam

The guy was a pain in the ass but man he drove traffic.

We had big celebs like Tony Robbins, the Jonas brothers etc... he outperformed them all.

At one point he was bringing in 100k users per month directly to his channel. And Bc he was so entertaining, they stuck.
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#talesofkrishna https://t.co/E85MTPkF9W


Now Suniti was the daughter of a tribal chief while Suruchi was the daughter of a rich king. Hence Suruchi was always favored the most by Raja while Suniti was ignored. But while Suniti was gentle & kind hearted by nature Suruchi was venomous inside.
#KrishnaLeela


The story is of a time when ideally the eldest son of the king becomes the heir to the throne. Hence the sinhasan of the Raja belonged to Dhruva.This is why Suruchi who was the 2nd wife nourished poison in her heart for Dhruva as she knew her son will never get the throne.


One day when Dhruva was just 5 years old he went on to sit on his father's lap. Suruchi, the jealous queen, got enraged and shoved him away from Raja as she never wanted Raja to shower Dhruva with his fatherly affection.


Dhruva protested questioning his step mother "why can't i sit on my own father's lap?" A furious Suruchi berated him saying "only God can allow him that privilege. Go ask him"
1. Project 1742 (EcoHealth/DTRA)
Risks of bat-borne zoonotic diseases in Western Asia

Duration: 24/10/2018-23 /10/2019

Funding: $71,500
@dgaytandzhieva
https://t.co/680CdD8uug


2. Bat Virus Database
Access to the database is limited only to those scientists participating in our ‘Bats and Coronaviruses’ project
Our intention is to eventually open up this database to the larger scientific community
https://t.co/mPn7b9HM48


3. EcoHealth Alliance & DTRA Asking for Trouble
One Health research project focused on characterizing bat diversity, bat coronavirus diversity and the risk of bat-borne zoonotic disease emergence in the region.
https://t.co/u6aUeWBGEN


4. Phelps, Olival, Epstein, Karesh - EcoHealth/DTRA


5, Methods and Expected Outcomes
(Unexpected Outcome = New Coronavirus Pandemic)