This question applies to all businesses, whether owners preemptively have a branding and marketing strategy or when a company’s brand is put under the microscope after things start to get real. And by real we mean when there’s a significant need and interest for a product or service and an investment is on the table. A strong brand is the guiding discipline, aesthetics and personality necessary for the kind of interactions a company wants from its customers, employees and stakeholders and, while not infinite, it’s important to know thyself—otherwise you really can’t expect others to just “get you.”

In our experience brand establishment is a sooner rather than later endeavor.

This is typically in the seed (or even pre-seed) round and usually before an A series round of funding is attempted. Of course, with most things, there is no absolute perfect timing, and this includes when to invest in your brand. There is no sacred deal to be missed or heavenly opportunity lost never again to be achieved just because you don’t have all ducks in proverbial rows. However, also like most things, the sooner is indeed the better.

General rules do apply to every business, whether it’s a B2C or B2B company, startup, tech mogul, etc. Branding isn’t as obvious and straightforward as say the qualities or features of your product. It’s not as easy to measure ROI on something like brand identity and therefore is a bit difficult to determine how much should be invested in the name and brand of a company. But an absence of this identity does not a successful company make and this should be worked on as soon as possible since there will certainly be ongoing developments to your company’s brand as it grows and changes. So the sooner the better.

Key milestones in your business will tell you when you need to focus on brand. These are when:

You know you have a viable business model and you’re ready to grow

You know who your ideal customers are and want to reach them

You want to grow your community, which often mean partnerships or acquisitions

You want to get more out of your marketing

You want to position yourself inline (or, better yet, well above) your competitors

Have you ever wanted to invest in a company but their name is just… bad? As a partner or investor, when is it polite to tell someone they need a shower and a haircut? Again, ultimately it’s when real money is on the line and, again, the sooner the better.

Before a company is ready to peek its head out into the market, before its time to really play in the beautiful but brutal traffic called commerce and competition, that company will have a competitive advantage if it has established a quality (and dare we say inspiring) brand. As we’ve said this isn’t infinite. Things like name, logo, colors, voice, messaging, visual guides and fonts, physical and digital presence, all the things that position you where you want to be in the market are brand items essential to all businesses. Have these things been thoughtfully crafted and built in sincerity? It’s worth asking yourself. It could be worth up to 40% of your company value.

 

A N E C D O T E

 

This medical device company invested in their brand and went on to help countless patients live better lives.

During his long career, Dr. Jeffrey Kleiner was a highly respected spinal surgeon. His experience spanned 25 years and over 6,000 surgeries. When you’ve done anything for that long and that many times you tend to know what you’re talking about and also what works and what doesn’t. For Dr. Kleiner what wasn’t working for him was the 35% acceptable failure rate for spinal surgeries — across the board! He also knew why: surgical instrument design and quality was subpar. This directly contributed to why a significant number of his (and every practicing surgeon’s) patients didn’t get better after expensive and physically tolling surgeries and, in fact, had to inevitably return to the operating table. This didn’t sit right with the seasoned professional.

Dr. Kleiner knew what to do about it but didn’t see anyone else doing it. So he invented the solution himself. Using his own money (it’s hard for a man without a brand to find funding no matter how good of any idea he has) he designed and prototyped his first medical device. He used it on multiple consenting patients and the results were remarkable. Simply by using a superior tool his surgery success rate went up astronomically.

But his success and excitement didn’t last long. He was unable to get hospitals to adopt his invention and even colleagues couldn’t (or wouldn’t) use his device despite its clear utility and performance. The primary reason was that Dr. Kleiner was an individual. He needed to be more than a smart guy driven by a cause. He needed a brand.

We were tasked with turning Dr. Kleiner’s proven ideas into a company people could believe in. Through our naming and branding process, we were able to design assets to set the good doctor up for success. Being in the medical industry, we wanted the brand to be strong, professional and reliable but contemporary, innovative and built to be approbate in case other products were included (which ended being true).

Sometimes the answer was right in front of you the whole time.

The client made one request which was not to include his own name in the company brand (quite humble for a surgeon!). However, during our research we thought it would be a missed opportunity not to take advantage of subliminal piggybacking with the well-established pharmaceutical and biotechnology giant GlaxoSmithKline (now GSK). The client initially resisted, but we aren’t doing our jobs if we don’t defend our ideas and convert hearts. We came up with a surname (device labs) that rolled off the tongue well with the doctor’s name. Combined with the serendipitous word association the client loved it and Kleiner Device Labs was born.

We designed the client’s logo and icon to also be used for product branding, choosing a light, almost lime green expressing excitement, newness and innovation and a blue embodying medical stoicism, trust and expertise. The icon represents a K for Kleiner. We also studied the design of the company’s first product (the KG1) and noticed the angles of the device also resembled a K so we incorporated this feature into the logo.

Since the client team was made up of individuals almost exclusively in the medical field, the messaging was highly clinical and features based. Our brand voice started with outcomes, not patients on the cutting board or images of x-rays with spinal alignments that most wouldn’t even recognize as good or bad. Going through multiple personas and voices of outcome we came up with “Better Life. Not Just Better Surgery”. All first level imagery would include people happy and active, not laid out in an operating room. We later produced multiple assets for use on various digital channels and presentation decks for fundraising.

Once he was armed with a professional brand he was able trademark, patent and raise funds to begin building his new company that would save hospitals, surgeons, service providers and payors a whole lot of money and time but most importantly to increase quality of life for patients. Kleiner Device Labs has since gone on to create a suite of noninvasive surgical products that ensure better lives, not just better surgery.