Real Life Lessons About Startups

Our adventure in marketing communications for tech started from two simple observations. Simple and yet aha generating, as all insightful observations.

The first one was that tech is infiltrating everything; tech companies are part of our everyday, they change our lives and they change the economy. 

About 10 years ago I was working for The Coca-Cola Company and I remember the mobilising speech of the Global CMO calling to keep Coca-Cola as the 1st global brand in the Interbrand’s Annual Best Global Brands Report. That year, the brands that made the biggest leap were Apple (+129%), Amazon (+46%), Samsung (+40%) and Oracle (+28%).

Today, the chart shows Coca-Cola in the 6th place, preceded exclusively by technology brands.

This happens at the top of the brand value world. Trickling down, the situations amplifies. Yesterday’s tech startups are part of today’s top global brands. 

The second observation was that the majority of tech companies are exclusively focused on their product. This is embedded in their origin story - one founder, usually a tech brain, who wants to change something in the world with his or her idea. The product is everything.

And yet we know it is not everything. It was not everything in the old world, and it’s not everything in the new one.

Strong companies are more than product engineering and good sales. They grow strong brands. And strong brands means strong relationships the company established with its audience.

Building strong relationships is all about how we feel, it’s the emotional connection we have with one’s story or promise.

A good product experience is always convincing. But it’s the emotional connection that builds resilience and ensures growth beyond the whims of the public, the fashion or the zeitgeist.

It is difficult to tell a founder that the product she or he dedicated so much time, effort and money is not enough. This is why the majority of startups keep focusing only on building a great product. Their relationship with their audience is utilitarian and transactional. They spot a problem and find a way to solve it though technology, some people find their solution helpful and buy it. But transactional also means opportunistic: as soon as a better perceived option appears, they’re out.

We also encountered startups willing to emotionally connect with their audiences; they communicate a lot, they keep people in the loop with new features and new developments, they celebrate victories in public. There are a lot of important things happening in the life of the company and its audience is made part of it; everything is (as) important, there is no main message, communication is substantial but inconsistent.

And then, there are the startups that have clarity on who they are and why they exist and get to communicate this clearly and consistently to their audiences. 

This is where brands are built. The size of the company doesn’t really matter. What matters is how clear and powerful their identity is, how distinctive (vs competitors), how relevant (vs customers), how authentic (vs oneself). 

Our aim is to bring startups with a transactional approach or a tangled emotional approach to discover and communicate their identity, to get the public to know who they really are, what they want and why, and though coherent communications to build a true, long-term connection. 

And transform their beautiful product into a strong brand.

By Mirela Angelescu