A Startup Founder’s Perspective on Building A Brand

 

Guest Post - Jason Bunnell, founder of FLX Music

I was sitting in a Starbucks about 15 years ago about to meet a young woman at Sabre (the then parent company of Travelocity and IGoUGo) who was a designer in the Marketing department. We were meeting to talk about a side project I was about to launch. After being laid off with a significant portion of the Sabre staff before a hedge fund re-IPOed the company, this would turn into a full time startup that I recently resumed in the Finger Lakes as the FLX Music Group. 

Natasha Sanchez was in a totally different department working in a completely separate location of our office building. We only met by chance, but I asked to meet her at Starbucks because building a brand was completely foreign to me. At this stage of my career, I had been entirely focused on Finance. The creative aspects of Marketing were as unknown to me as the native language of Myanmar. This was one of the most eye-opening marketing related conversations I had had since taking marketing classes in college.

After describing the project turned startup concept, she asked me to “describe how this brand should make you feel.” What was she talking about? “Well, how do you want your customers and users to feel about the product?” I did not see how any of this really mattered.

If you have ever watched HBO’s Silicon Valley, this was exactly what Thomas Middleditch’s character Richard Hendricks was thinking when he met with the designer to help design his box. In that episode, Richard meets with a designer who starts by asking if the box was an animal, what animal would it be. What!?!? Richard leaves the designer saying, “Just make me a box! I don’t care.” Richard later recalls the conversation with his other developer co-founders and they all dismiss the design project as a waste of time, but then they all suggest what animal they think best represents the project and none agree. The importance of design was starting to register with Richard. Later when meeting with the designer to see his prototype, it is just a plain black box. “This is just a black box! I thought you were going to design something. Take some pride in your work for God’s sake!” 

I left that meeting with Natasha with a list of questions: What can I learn from my favorite brands that can be applied to this startup? How does FLX Music make me feel? How do I want customers and users to relate to this brand? It was one of the more overwhelming exercises in the early stages of my startup experience. 

The first attempt at this startup failed. After moving to the Finger Lakes to help my Dad run several of his businesses, I decided to revise the concept, this time with a slightly different premise and with the name FLX Music. I liked the brands SubPop and Digg and felt they achieved, from a branding perspective, what I wanted to accomplish: a short name, a modern feel, and they were both smaller, scrappier brands. I wanted the brand to give users a sense of adventure and feel excited about what they could do in the Finger Lakes region. I wanted customers and users to feel this regional brand was more accessible and ethical than some of the larger national equivalents like Spotify and TripAdvisor. 

The first version was actually FLX Radio. Dresden Engle, the founder of one of Rochester’s leading PR firms, pointed out that “radio” probably didn’t convey what it used to. Later, when asking two interns about the work they had done and comparing our product to radio, they both sheepishly admitted they had never actually listened to the radio. This was a huge surprise to me, maybe showing my age. Later, when recounting this to a friend, he pointed out that streaming had been out for 20+ years and students in their early twenties had grown up with music streaming. Honestly, Dresden’s recommendation did not click until then. So I updated the name to FLX Music. 

I then worked with 99designs. They ran a competition where several designers contributed designs until I had one that I thought was perfect. The logo, which you can see above, has a music note with wifi waves coming off to the right. “FLX,” the common abbreviation for the Finger Lakes, is big and bold and “music” has a tech-like modern feel, similar to Digg. I am really proud of it and have gotten great feedback. 

Branding for a new startup can be challenging, particularly for someone who would not label himself as a creative type, but clearly this can be one of the most important early decisions for a startup as it shapes your customers' and users' view of the business. It is important to get right and getting input from creatives is critical to a brands success and ability to connect with their target audience.