I've recently taken on a new role at the MaRS Discovery District as a volunteer brand advisor. MaRS is a science, technology and social innovation incubator and accelerator of sorts: a place where entrepreneurs can get advice, ideas, space and support to build their businesses.
My role is to advise MaRS' clients on brand strategy, which at the start-up phase, is a delicate matter. While I want to drag them into fundamental questions about how to tell a story about something that no one has ever heard of or thought they needed, they mostly only want to talk about their name, logo and UX design. Or maybe also their feature stream, like kids in an engineering candy shop. It's really hard to ask these mostly very young, smart, restless entrepreneurs to be dispassionate about what they are doing, but my role is to remind them of that need. This is the passion trap.
We love our product, our algorithm, our IP, our feature stream, our release schedule, our name, our logo, our tagline, our user interface, our app icon...we sweated blood day and night with no money to create it all and so we always want to talk about it. But really, who cares? I've seen too many early stage start-ups with beautiful identities, gorgeous sites and yummy logos, but no real ability to explain how their idea will matter, to whom, for what price. They cling to these talismen against reason, claiming they are too far down the road to change now. Really? You've got one angel investor and 50 beta users and you're too far down the road?
I can see how these tangibles are important in the early start-up phase. You need something to cling to before you have a product, a market, revenues, investors and fame. But there is a critical point when you have to be willing to let it all go and re-assess the story for the future which means sidelining the story of where you've come from. It's that moment you switch from the story you tell your angels and VCs to the story you tell your customers.
[One of the best branded start-ups I know of out there is Evernote. I just did a great interview with their super-savvy CMO and I'll post something on it this week.]
The passion trap is a difficult paradox in the start-up space. If you're advising newly minted entrepreneurs keep it in mind. It's great to be passionate but it's better to know when to tuck the passion away and address the tough questions. This will separate the great entrepreneurs from the kids with a bit of interesting IP.
