Getting Started
Start by entering the loop as quickly as possible with your first Minimum Viable Brand (MVB). Your MVB distills the relationship between you and your audience down to its most meaningful elements: story, artifact, and invitation.
STORY
Story is your story. Who you are. Why you do what you do. Why people should care about a relationship with you. This is your unique rallying point defining what you're fighting against and what you're fighting for.
Relationships are formed in the synchronicity between who you are and whom your audience wants to become.
ARTIFACT
Artifacts are expressions of your story. Whether it's a pink moustache on a car or a hackathon on Google's campus, the goal is to find artifacts that tell your story and engage people with who you are.
Great artifacts evoke emotion and reflect the relationship you are forming with your audience.
INVITATION
Invitations are active calls for people to join your story. It's much more than "messaging." What you say, where you say it, and how you say it impact the way people respond to you.
Customers aren't looking to be sold on features and benefits, they're looking to be inspired. Compelling invitations don't sell, they inspire.
DISCOVER VALUE
To discover value, you must form your best assumptions into one proposed MVB and run live experiments to generate learning.
Learnings are gained through tightly measuring people's reaction to your MVB. To be effective, you must get outside of your building and dig into the relational metrics of activation, engagement, and passion.
Host a meetup and measure who shows up. Participate in social conversations and measure engagement. Or simply buy an early adopter a coffee and have a meaningful conversation.
These learnings become the basis for decision making grounded on empirical evidence rather than subjective opinion.
You preserve the parts that resonate and iterate on the parts that don't, until you find brand-market fit with an audience.
