Design starts with asking questions
Elan Miller
I recently gave a talk at Day One on how to build v1 of your brand or product on a limited budget. After the talk, several founders followed up asking for the framework I use, so figured I’d open source it for everyone with a real-world example from an old client.
When building something new, there’s pressure to get it right without having the budget to hire a premiere agency.
So the question becomes, how do you make the most of your limited budget (which let’s be honest is probably your hard earned money if you haven’t raised yet) and increase the chances you’re happy with the result?
It all starts with a creative brief. Anyone who’s worked at agencies or design studios knows that briefs are the bridge between strategy & creative execution.
They’re designed to be short, digestible documents that clarify the problem you’re solving, align the team around what success looks like, and unpack key insights to help inspire your creative team to see the problem differently — all in service of helping you stand out in a crowded market.
Whether it’s at my day job at Twitter, advising startups in my portfolio, or exploring new side hustles — I start every project with a brief.
Before we dive-in, it’s important to note that briefs aren’t meant to be plug & play documents that are filled out in 15 minutes. Rather, they’re designed to help yourself ask the hard questions to inspire your creative partners and help them understand what you’re looking for — all without being too prescriptive around the solution.
A few more caveats:
In an ideal world answers to these questions are 2 - 3 sentences max. If it’s too long, and takes too much explanation, it will overwhelm whoever you’re partnering with.
Briefs are a story, and every brief is different. Feel free to re-order and/or change out the questions depending on the problem you’re solving. Just make sure it has a POV.
Answering the questions effectively often requires research and understanding your customer on the deepest of levels. If you don’t truly understand your target customer, you should prioritize that before moving to creative (otherwise you’ll probably have to scrap your creative once you realize it’s not what they want). This is the biggest mistake new founder make.
Brief template
What is the problem we’re trying to solve?
What does success look like?
Who are we talking to?
What is their truth?
What is the competitor approach?
How is our brand differentiated?
What’s the core strategic idea?
How does it all come together?
Let’s break each of these down with an example from a former client, Founder Shield, whose brand & website I helped re-imagine alongside my friend & uber talented designer Chris Reath.
Kick off the brief with the problem you’re trying to solve.
This seems easy in practice, but it’s where most briefs go off the rails. If you have multiple problems, you need to zero-in on the biggest challenge, otherwise your solution won’t feel focused. Pro-trip: I like to lead with the human problem behind the business problem.
Meh Example: Founder Shield is facing tougher competition on deals with late-stage companies.
Better Example: Founder Shield has built a great brand for early stage founders, but doesn’t look the part for ambitious companies looking to ring the bell at the NYSE.
Be upfront about what success looks like.
Make sure you and your creative team are aligned around what success looks like, so there are no surprises when they come back with something to show you.
Meh Example: Create a better looking logo & landing page that better represents us and gets us more leads.
Better Example: Success means late stage founders & CFOs want to work with us. We already get a ton of inbound leads from early-stage VC backed companies — we’d like to add X% more established, high growth companies to our base.
Now let’s talk audience.
You’ve heard it time and time again, but if you try to be for everyone, you end up being for no one. The more specific you can get around your audience, the more impactful your creative will be.
Meh example: Founders
Better example: CFO types for aspiring unicorns at Series B/C+ companies.
Go beyond demographics, and surface and an emotional insight or truth that will change the way your creative team understands the problem.
Example: Risk management is what Founders & CFOs of late stage companies talk about in therapy. Unlike early stage founders who are just getting started, these aspiring unicorns have more to lose. Choosing the right provider is not only high stakes; it’s scary. As these companies grow up, they need a partner to help manage their risk. During the early days, insurance was a box to check. Now it’s something that can’t afford to fail.
For the competitor section, focus on what’s interesting vs. being too prescriptive.
If you want to do a detailed competitive audit (which is usually how you get to what’s interesting), keep that in a separate document or in an appendix. For this section I like to focus on 2 - 3 direct competitors and then bring out a few inspirational examples from outside of the category.
Example: Competitors like XXX and XXX lead with their technology. They’re focused on efficiency via a self-serve model which tends to be good for customers who just need to check insurance off their list.
Then there’s the biggest insurance brokerages in the world like XXX & XXX who are more established and rely on their brand name to make customers feel safe.
Inspiration from outside the category is key if you want to feel truly different. In the case of Founder Shield, we drew inspiration from the world of Hospitality and Danny Meyer, founder of several successful restaurants (including Shake Shack), and author of Setting the Table. (More on how it integrates in our narrative next.)
“Virtually nothing else is as important as how one is made to feel in any business transaction.”
“Service is a monologue. We decide how we want to do things and set our own standards for service. Hospitality is a dialogue. To be on the guest’s side requires listening to that person with every sense, and following up with a thoughtful, gracious, and appropriate response.”
“Hospitality exists when you believe the other person is on your side. The converse is just as true. Hospitality is present when something happens for you. It is absent when something happens to you. ”
When it comes to surfacing your brand’s unique differentiator, stick to one thing.
It’s okay to list what you think makes your brand unique, but definitely highlight the number one thing otherwise it’ll get lost.
Your unique differentiator should answer what makes the thing you’re working on unique & motivating in people’s minds. One of my favorite questions to help surface this answer is asking customers, “How would you describe or recommend this product to friends/family?”
Example: Founder Shield operates more like a hospitality company than a risk management company. We understand risk management is an emotional category. While competitors are focused on the technical delivery of risk management solutions, we care about how the delivery of those solutions makes people feel. Our white glove approach is designed to quiet the internal monologue of Founders/CFOs at aspiring unicorns so they can make decisions from a place of confidence, not fear, and not have to go at it alone.
Now comes the fun part — your strategy, aka “What’s a new way of seeing the world based on all of the above?”
Here’s your golden opportunity to re-frame the opportunity for your creative team. Beyond having a strategy statement, I like to have a “Before/After” or a “From/To” statement to help illustrate how we’re tackling the problem in a fresh way.
Meh Example: Risk management for Series B/C+ companies
Better Example: Risk management feels good when you don’t have to go at it alone. (Shift from being seen as a vendor to being viewed as partner in your corner)
Strategy isn’t actionable without a set of design or creative principles.
These help inspire your creative team with specific examples so they know where to play. I often give an adjective or mantra, followed by a short description, and links to a few examples to help bring it to life.
1. Personal. Risk management isn’t one-size-fits all. Our brand needs to highlight our unique ability to custom solutions to your company’s specific problems. (Ex: Sweetgreen app, Care/of Personalized Vitamins, Tracksmith letters)
2. Proactive. While our competitors are focused on helping companies “check the box” for their insurance needs, we see ourselves as partners, not vendors. That means we proactively engage our customers as we protect their growth. (Ex: Forward Health, Airbnb Plus, Union Square Hospitality Group)
3. Relatable. We’re laser focused on partnering with aspirational unicorns who’ve received at least their B round of funding. Our messaging should get uber specific, speaking their language and highlighting their pain points, so its clear Founder Shield is for them. (Ex: Postmates We Get It campaign, Varo Money Headlines, Bumble empowerment campaign)
4. Collaborative. The key emotional benefit of working with Founder Shield is not having to tackle risk management alone. We’re a people first company who takes pride in unique expertise and personal relationships with clients. (Ex: Paired Programming, Part & Sum “Bolt On” Approach, Bravely coaching)
Now it’s finally time to summarize what’s above through a positioning statement.
Just keep in mind this framework is designed to align your team around the big things that matter — it’s not designed to be external facing.
For (target audience)
Who (need state / opportunity)
Company name is a (product description) that (key benefit)
Unlike other brands, our product…(unique differentiator)
Example: For Founders/CFOs at high growth companies with a lot to lose, Founder Shield is your risk management partner who builds custom solutions to your company’s unique problems. Unlike other brokers, Found Shield’s white glove approach makes you feel like you never have to tackle risk management alone (which feels pretty good).
Going through this exercise isn’t going to be easy. The shorter, more clear answers you can give your creative team, the better results you’ll see. If you’re struggling to meaningfully answer any of these questions, I suggest you take the time to talk to your customers, otherwise the time and money put into this initiative will be a waste.
Anyone can create a strong brief; they just need to be dedicated to asking the right questions and being intentional about what they build.
Hit reply if you’d be interested in a brief template in google doc form.
In order to unsubscribe, click here.
If you were forwarded this newsletter and you like it, you can subscribe here.
Created with Revue by Twitter.