Brand revolution from 0 to 1: a16z's brand experts teach you how to stand out in Web3

Collation and compilation: Cikey, ArtMap

Original video: Positioning and Branding in web3 with Steven Ebert , provided by a16z crypto.

Brand expert Steven Ebert is the speaker. In-depth discussion of the key elements of brand building for early Web3 startups. And how to define your brand story, build a minimum viable brand to stand out in the competitive environment, etc.

Do you want to know how to create a compelling brand story for your Web3 project or organization?

Are you curious about how to clarify goals, optimize information delivery, and capture influence through clear brand stories?

Steven Ebert:I work with many startups at different stages, whether they are startups, mature enterprises or established companies, mainly to help them tell their stories better.

Today, we will focus on early brand building. Many entrepreneurs tend to overlook the importance of brand story and narrative in the early stages of their startups, thinking that these are things that need to be considered later. However, what I want to share is what you can do at this stage, what to focus on, and what to deal with later.

Please take a moment to think about it. Give yourself 60 seconds, don't think too much, and answer this question intuitively: What is the purpose of your project? Answer it in as few words as possible, and then put it aside for now, and we will explore it in depth later.

First, let's start with a question: "What is a brand?"

It is something that people can recognize.

It's like a tribe, people can be loyal to it.

It's something you associate yourself with.

......

Your answer reflects how we usually think of brands. If you look it up on Google, you will find a variety of different definitions.

And today we’re going to talk about this definition: Brand is a set of beliefs that people have about your company.

Let’s break that down a bit - “set of beliefs” means these are what people think about your company: Is it cool? Is it useful? Is it fun? Do I want to use it? Is it worth the money? These are people’s opinions about the company or product. When we say “people” we mean customers, users, but also partners, investors, potential members, even the cryptocurrency community and market, really the world.

Next is “your company”, which is not just you, but the product you’re building, the team, and what you’re bringing to the world. What I like about this definition is that it reminds us that brand is not something that can be “set and forget”. Brand is more like an organism that evolves as it grows with products, teams, and users. When you launch a product, you’re actually handing over some control of your brand because the perception of your brand becomes more complex as more people come into contact with your product.

So now is the time to think about what we want our brand to convey. The core task of brand building is to actively shape people's beliefs about our company, that is, "perception management".

When you become a larger company, you can use many tools to manage the brand. These tools include visual or language methods to help us consistently convey information about who we are and what we want to be perceived in the market.

However, for you who are currently in the early stages of company building, there are some issues that large companies do not need to consider, but you must pay attention to.

First, you may not have a large team yet. The reason why large companies need these tools is that they have hundreds or thousands of employees, each of whom is advocating for the brand in some way, and it is difficult to get everyone to consistently convey the same message.

Second, you may not have a complete operation function yet, so many traditional brand tools may not be useful to you for the time being.

Finally, you may still be looking for market fit, and although you may have some early customers or revenue, you have not yet fully validated your business hypothesis.

Therefore, what you need is a more flexible thinking framework to help you tell your story in the market, which is called the "Minimum Viable Brand" (MVB). Although this term is a bit cringe, it conveys an important concept - use the most basic ideas to tell your story to the world.

Three things your minimum viable brand needs to accomplish:

1. Explain why you exist

This is probably the point you should focus on the most today. Many companies can easily say what they do, but few can clearly explain why they exist. Why do you exist? What problem are you solving? If you don’t think about these questions early on, it will be much harder to develop a consistent brand image when your company scales.

2. Tell your story in a compelling way

This isn’t just for operations, it will also help you with issues like recruiting and fundraising. With fierce competition for talent, being able to tell a compelling story is crucial.

3. Differentiate you from your competitors

Especially in high-risk commoditized industries, your brand story may be the only thing that makes you stand out.

In conclusion, brand building is an evolving process, and proactively shaping your brand at an early stage can earn you market recognition and trust.

We have determined that we need to build a "minimum viable brand" and understand why it is very valuable. The question now is, how to achieve it specifically? What do we actually want to focus on? There are two key directions:

1. The story itself

What language will we use? How to tell the story of this brand? What ideas do we want to have in the market? How do we describe our way of solving problems?

2. Visual identity

What is our brand visual image?

Since brand storytelling is an area of my daily work, I will spend more time on this part, and we can explore it in depth. I will briefly talk about visual identity.

First, start with your brand story. Brand storytelling is great for us because it helps us clearly define the “why” — why our brand exists, it helps us define the problem in the market and how we solve it. It’s also the fundamental reason why we exist. If you can articulate that well, you’ll be in a better position than most brands.

Brand storytelling also gives you a language tool that you can test and iterate on. A brand is like a living thing, it grows and evolves over time. Ideally, when we first start, we’ll have a set language that we use, but we test that language when we talk to customers, investors, and people we trust. Through feedback, we can learn which ideas resonate with people. As the product evolves, the brand language will evolve with it.

Brand stories have a third benefit, which is that they can accumulate goodwill for you among the public. This is a backup benefit, but in the worst case scenario, when a crisis occurs, if you have built a solid brand with a good reputation, public trust, and a favorite brand image, then in times of crisis, the public will often be more willing to give you more trust and tolerance. Therefore, it is very valuable to have a clear brand story.

To better understand the process of building a brand story, let's take a look at a familiar example - "Zora".

How did Zora build a unique brand in the market and continue to evolve? What are the three key steps of their brand story? The idea is more relevant to their business and audience.

Zora’s brand story has gone through three steps:

1. Clearly define the problem

When Zora was first launched, it was an NFT marketplace where creators could publish their own NFT projects on this platform and people could buy and sell these works on it. Shortly after the launch, co-founder Jacob gave a speech about the mindset of information ownership. He defined the problem in the market very well: platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Spotify are essentially private networks that take and monetize content created by ordinary users in various ways, while creators can usually only get rewards through "social currency", such as likes and attention. This is our current inherent cognitive model of Internet ownership and information ownership. We have not really escaped from the traditional Internet. Therefore, Zora defined the problem well, and interestingly, they created an idea or "meme" for the new future they are pursuing, which they call the "Internet Renaissance." This concept describes a new future in which creators will be able to use technology to control the distribution of their own content, control their relationship with the community, and enjoy the fruits of their creation. The creation of this language played a very important role in the development of Zora.

2. Propose an innovative vision

Of course, Zora did not say that they were the only ones leading the "Internet Renaissance", but they said that they observed the emergence of this trend. They saw this problem and how NFT and distributed network technology can break the monopoly of content control. Therefore, they decided to participate in this movement and contribute in their own way.

They explained how they solved this problem with the specific mission language: "Our mission is to make creation on the Internet free and valuable." On this basis, they also created more language to explain how they achieve this goal. They call these languages beliefs, some call them values, some call them pillars, and others call them interests. This language is very detailed, well-thought-out, and closely related to their brand.

3. Deliver on the promise with actual products

This GIF is a screenshot from a few days ago, where you can see a lot of artwork posted by creators on Zora's marketplace. The quality of these artworks varies, but the creators have control over these works and distribute the content by building relationships with collectors. Therefore, this simple three-step process - define the problem, explain the solution, and prove its effectiveness through products, constitutes an effective way to think about brand stories.

If you want to learn more about how to build these languages, I suggest you focus on three aspects.

1. Define our why

This will be the part you need to spend the most time thinking about. Define the problem again and define how we solve it.

2. Articulate the benefits of the product

What do we provide to the market? Why would users want to use our product? What is the value of our product? Why would users choose our product over other products?

3. Define the "tone of voice" of the brand

This is often an overlooked point in brand strategy. It's not just what you want to say that's important, but also what language and how you say it. We need to first understand who our target audience is, and then adjust the tone of our voice based on their characteristics. In simple terms, it's about communicating in different ways for different people.

Next is the visual identity part. I expect most of you will want to work with a design partner because you are here to build great crypto products, not because you are a visual designer. If you happen to have both skills, that's great, but in most cases, you may need to work with a design partner. You may also work with a strategic partner for the brand story, but you will almost certainly work with an external design partner to develop the visual identity.

There are several factors to consider when choosing a design partner.

1. Target Audience

If you’re building a product to help crypto enthusiasts buy shitcoin, your brand’s visual identity and style will be very different than a product aimed at institutional investors. So think very carefully about the needs and preferences of your target audience.

2. Competitor Analysis

Take a look at what your competitors are doing in the space. What is their brand style? What do you like and don’t like? What styles are common in the industry? Can you do something different and recognizable?

3. Brand Vibe

When working through the creative brief with your design partner, be clear about the brand vibe and energy you want to convey. If you’ve done the work of defining your brand story, this will provide a great framework for guiding the design work. For example, Zora’s brand story is about making internet creation free and valuable, which provides an excellent creative brief for designers.

Through these steps, you can effectively define and present your brand story to stand out in the market.

For example, a brand that has done this very successfully is Party.

Party is a tool that allows users to work together on-chain. Their mission is to make cryptocurrency a multiplayer game (“multiplayer”), which is a great brand language. Through this language, they make it easy for users to work together to buy, sell, and manage assets.

There are a few key things that are very smart here.

1. It ties in with the brand story

If the whole concept is about multiple people working together to accomplish tasks and bringing the group to the chain, they chose a logo that shows four different cursors moving in the same direction. This visual expression makes a very intuitive connection to the story they are telling, showing a very thoughtful connection, making the brand image even stronger.

2. They designed a very flexible system

This is something that really impressed me, and I would admire anyone who could develop such a strong brand identity system at this time. They built a system that allows for extremely flexible visual communication. They designed separate logos for the company, the app, the mascot Kazoo, and the underlying open source protocol. There is even a quality seal designed, similar to the seal on the cover or box of early Nintendo games. Therefore, any communication that comes from Party is very distinctive and cannot be confused with any other brand. No matter what content you see, if it’s from Party, you’ll instantly recognize it. That’s because they spent a lot of time thinking about how the visual system should be presented.

This is even more important if you’re building a consumer-facing brand rather than a B2B brand. I guess if you’re building content related to ZK proofs, you probably don’t need to think too much about branding, but if you’re building a consumer-facing product, this visual system is particularly valuable.

Here are some elements you may want to consider:

First, the logo. The symbol that represents the brand may be an icon, a word logo, or a combination of the two.

Second, the color scheme. Think about the color combination of the official website, presentations, and other communication content.

Finally, the font. Most companies use two or more fonts to create a contrast between the title and the body text.

Finally, I would like to share some scattered ideas and do a QA based on them.

1. Avoid using existing brand stories

Once a big brand comes up with a loud concept in the market, it will soon be followed by a bunch of people saying they are doing the same thing. For example, companies like Coinbase and a16z successfully came up with some loud concepts in their early days, such as "building a new Internet" and "making finance more free and fair." So, if people still use these concepts now, it will seem unoriginal and unattractive.

2. Be careful with naming issues

If your company, team, and project all use the same name, it may be confusing. Many lending protocols have similar problems. Different names help to better distinguish and understand, such as the naming differences between OpenSea and SeaPort, Party App and Party Protocol, which avoids this problem well.

3. Avoid following current trends

Just like a few years ago, many brands built their images around buzzwords such as "GM" and "WAGMI", which now look outdated. Your brand should not be popular for a while, but should establish an image that can attract people in the long run.

4. The brand story should evolve with the development of the product

The story you tell today does not necessarily have to be used in two or three years. It should be adaptable to the current situation. You should be open to your ideas and be ready to adjust and change over time.

I mentioned earlier that visual identity is especially important for consumer-facing businesses. B2B brands are more about expressing clear functionality than creating some kind of "cool" atmosphere. But if you are building a consumer-facing business, visual identity is very important, especially in a competitive market where you need to stand out by telling a unique brand story.

Finally, you may need to seek professional help with design. You may want to consider working with a partner who specializes in strategy or design. But be aware that some small agencies may charge high fees, such as $50,000, just to help you build a brand, which may not be the most economical option.

So I would advise you not to rush into investing a lot of money. You can wait until the company has raised Series A or even Series C before considering investing in the brand. The specific timing of the investment should be determined by how much money you are willing to invest in brand building.

When choosing a partner, you should look for individuals or small teams that you trust and whose tastes and thinking align with yours. Once you decide to work with a partner, remember to ask them to show you their work and listen to their stories about how they built their brand and brand story. This will help you determine if their ideas align with yours, as this partnership is crucial to the quality of the final product.

Also, be wary. If someone calls themselves an agency or independent consulting firm (which is what I often call them), you need to be careful because they may try to increase their prices. Be sure to do enough research and evaluation when choosing a partner.

Finally, I want to relieve a little pressure. The above information can be a lot, especially if you have never thought about brand building before, it can be a bit overwhelming.

But the good news is that we’re focused on the short term right now and you should be focused on closing your next round of funding.

So after Demo Day, stop thinking about those distant things and focus on the next few months. Brand building often requires a large investment because many agencies will try to help you build a brand that will last for 3-5 years. But the reality is that if you don’t know if your product has market fit, it’s hard enough to predict what it will be like in 18 months, let alone three years from now. Therefore, you should focus on shorter time periods, give yourself the freedom and flexibility to focus on what works now, and then gradually improve and evolve along the way.

QA

Q: What do you think about using AI to generate brand designs, such as using tools like MidJourney to create a brand image for the next round of financing?

If you mean using a tool like MidJourney to build a brand identity, my take is: If you’re really good at generating cues so that the design doesn’t look AI-generated, then it’s doable. Some designers are very good at this. However, if you can’t do this, AI-generated designs may reduce the perceived value of the brand.

So I’d advise caution. If it were me, I’d be more inclined to take the time to focus on a refined design process and create a simple but powerful logo rather than opting for something that looks complicated but is obviously AI-generated.

As a startup, we can consider working with a designer to create visual elements around the brand DNA and ensure that the design is in line with the core spirit of the brand. The key to operating this process is efficiency, getting a complete brand core report and extracting the main visual and design direction of the brand from it. At the specific execution level, you can consider whether to work with a freelance designer every few weeks, hire a full-time designer, or work with a design agency. These are all options, depending on resources and needs.

The challenge is that as an early startup, we usually need to work with an agency to learn about frameworks such as brand positioning and brand values. These are very important for startups. The first step in working with a startup is usually to identify the core elements of the brand and then build a brand image around these elements.

But your situation may be different. When working with early-stage companies, my advice is usually not to go directly to the specific execution level, such as mission or positioning statements, but to help you gain confidence in telling the brand story and ensure that you can tell the brand story well in different scenarios.

Q: How do you build a community in the process of promoting smart contracts to people who don't understand them?

This is an interesting question, especially considering that they only knew about Bitcoin before. When you build something that is very abstract and lacks ready-made metaphors, your task is to build these metaphors. For example, a technology like ZK (zero-knowledge proof) is a good example. Companies such as Aztec have successfully found a mental shortcut to make their technical functions easier to understand when dealing with ZK technology. You can talk about multi-party computation and specific mathematical processes, which is useful for some users, but it is also important to explain why this technology works and why it is valuable. Like the analogy of smart contracts, it is like a self-executing machine that completes the task as long as the conditions are met, without the intervention of a third party. Ethereum has gone through a similar process, they had to find a metaphor to explain what smart contracts are, what account abstraction is, and what all these technical concepts are. By emphasizing a new framework to handle the flow of money, they made its core value understandable to those who don't understand technology. For multiple audiences—including regular users and developers—messages need to be approached at different levels.For regular users, you can focus on the practical application scenarios of the technology, while for developers, you can go into technical details. This approach ensures that your explanation is both comprehensive and easy to understand.

Q: In the "why, how, what" framework, what is the balance between these three parts when telling your story?

This is a good question. The maturity of the industry is a good shortcut to determine the focus. If you are building a brand new category, then the "why" will be more important because it is the easiest part to connect to. For example, when you are solving an abstract problem, the core of the company lies in this. For early-stage categories, the focus should be on the "why". If there is a certain amount of competition in your market, then the "how" becomes more important. If your approach, methodology, or delivery method is different, then the "how" becomes more prominent. And the "what" is usually most useful in categories with less competition, such as the operation of functional sports drinks, you will talk more about the "what". Nonetheless, all three parts should be covered, but one may be emphasized depending on the circumstances.

For example, you can better communicate your company’s core values and mission by saying “We’re solving a pain point that’s not being touched.”

Q: When building a new data layer, should you adopt a new narrative if the existing metaphors no longer apply?

This is a great question. If you find that the existing metaphors are not working well, you can try a new narrative. For example, if your data layer solves a different problem than the existing “oracles” in the market, you can highlight this. You can choose a different strategy, such as: “We solve this problem differently than the other seven competitors.” This strategy not only highlights your uniqueness, but also avoids direct comparison with existing competitors. Just as the data we provide is not just data, but a new way to turn data into value, this narrative can help you highlight your unique characteristics.

Q: How do you build your brand in the face of groups that are nervous about crypto-related language?

If your target group is resistant to crypto, consider reducing the visibility of the technology so that its presence is no longer important to the solution you provide. For example, you can focus on how to use these technologies to provide practical solutions instead of emphasizing the crypto itself. In addition, you can educate them to understand how you are different from your competitors and how your crypto technology adds value. This approach can help you overcome the group's nervousness about crypto and effectively communicate your brand values.

Q: How do you balance the decision of whether to change your company name when it no longer fully matches the business direction?

The classic answer is "it depends." But generally speaking, if your company has built a reputation around the brand, this reputation is very valuable and worth preserving. If the name is completely inconsistent with the existing business direction (for example, the company was called "Sports Drink Manufacturer" and now produces hockey balls), then it is indeed necessary to consider changing the name.

But if your name is not too far from your original business, or your name is quite descriptive, then you can consider messaging around this issue rather than changing your name and giving up the brand value you have built.

It is a common phenomenon that many people change their names. We can further explore the specific messaging methods for name changes.

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