A minimum viable brand is an essential element of any early-stage startup. Whether you’re in Lean, Seed or Series A funding rounds, a minimum viable brand is a low-cost alternative to traditional digital marketing paths. Instead of spending months building a brand that doesn’t resonate with an audience, or build a product no one wants to use, you can build a minimum viable brand that doesn’t cost a lot of money, is user-friendly, and is easy to update as you scale.

What Is A Minimum Viable Brand?

A minimum viable brand is a brand that meets a bare minimum of functional requirements. It is, essentially, a brand that speaks to your current customer but is more affordable than your established, and expensive, brand. A minimum viable brand allows pivots and has the flexibility to scale without the red tape usually found in marketing conversations with co-founders.

The Minimum Viable Brand Advantage

There’s no right or wrong way to build a minimum viable brand. Instead, this process is flexible enough to allow you to “fast-track” your brand’s creation in as little as 6-8 weeks. The process is structured in four steps summarized here:

• First, reflect and determine your Ideal Customer Avatar
• Next, reflect on the mission and values of your startup to build out your UVP
• Third, choose color palettes, tones and themes based off your brand personality
• Finally, build a one-page website & simple logo to acquire users, early adopters and to present to investors

Getting Started With A Minimum Viable Brand

When it comes to building your minimum viable brand, the following questions are helpful:

• Start with a vision: Who are you? What’s your mission?
• Set a minimum amount of time in which to accomplish this mission: What’s your time commitment?
• Figure out what your audience loves and hates: What do they like? What do they dislike? What do they think about the product or service you’re offering?
• Think about customer pain points: Who is your target audience? What are the problems your customers face? What are the reasons they aren’t using your product or service?
• Take ownership of your product: How will you make sure your brand lives up to your promise?
• Identify your minimum viable product: Is this a one-off or scalable solution? What’s the impact of your product? How much value is your product making your customer, relative to the value you’re adding to the customer’s experience?

Why Startups Need A MVB (And How We Help)

The process of building a minimum viable brand isn’t difficult, but it does require the right mindset, strategic thinking, and most importantly, the ability to make decisions. By building a MVB, your early-stage startup has a greater chance of testing content, product-market fit, and acquiring interested potential customers. By leveraging the MVB, you are able to position your product or service in a way that is more likely to find success.

At BrandPsyche, that’s exactly what we do with female founders. In our extensive process, we support startups in uncovering their core – most profitable – audience, while supporting them in creating a core mission, value statement, and message that resonates well beyond the Series A funding rounds. Book a call and learn more about this unique process.

Key Takeaways

As a fast-growing startup, you might know you’re destined for success, but that isn’t enough. You need to build a loyal and engaged customer base. The key to doing that is in your unique brand.

With a MVB, startups have the opportunity to be lean and agile as they scale and grow. This creativity allows for flexibility in an ever-increasing fast-paced virtual environment.