As a founder, you have a lot on your plate: building a product, securing funding, hiring talents, figuring out a business model—all of this before you run out of money. It’s easily overwhelming.

When it comes to your brand, conventional wisdom suggests that you should focus on finding product-market fit, and just worry about branding later.

But what if prioritizing branding helped the other pieces fall into place?

We said brand, not logo.

Let's start by dispelling a common misconception: a brand is not merely a logo, some colors, or fancy fonts. Those are just tangible expressions of your brand. Your brand goes way deeper than that—it is the organizing idea for every activity your company engages in, from UX to sales, recruitment, and even your organizational structure.

Your brand is the story that you tell yourself, your employees, customers, investors, and everyone else about what you are building.

Why does it matter? You might ask. Well, there are a few reasons.

You’re not selling a product, but a potential.

Elon Musk once said: "Brand is just a perception, and perception will match reality over time. Sometimes it will be ahead, other times it will be behind."

By definition, a startup represents potential, and in the early days, it is crucial that perception outpaces reality. This is necessary for gaining traction, attracting investors, and acquiring users. If the perception surrounding a startup is not greater than its Minimum Viable Product, it will not gain the momentum it needs to turn potential into success.

Investing in building a brand early on will help you create a narrative that extends beyond your current reality. It will also make your MVP’s shortcomings easier to accept.

Your product needs translation.

Startups are, by definition, innovative—they build things that don't exist. The tradeoff of innovation is that it can make your product difficult to understand.

Whether you're selling a SaaS platform, deep tech solution, or any kind of disruptive consumer product, the very novelty that makes it remarkable is also a relatability challenge.

The more you try to describe the technical superiority and concrete benefits of your products, the less it’ll spark interest. Our brains are inherently lazy and tend to take shortcuts. That’s why simple emotional ideas, not lengthy feature descriptions, often drive purchase decisions; especially when the first version of your product does not fully showcase how valuable it can be.

To get customers and investors interested, you need to find out the emotional triggers that truly convey your value. It’s the foundation of your brand.

Your product will change. Your brand will remain.

There will inevitably be moments when you have to make tough decisions: pivoting, cutting out features, restructuring your offering, reshaping your business model. During these critical moments, having a clear, high-level brand story that defines who you are (and what you're not) becomes invaluable. It acts as a strategic compass, helping you navigate difficult choices with confidence and clarity.

It can also help with retention and lifetime customer value. For better or for worse, once a person holds a strong perception of your brand, it is extremely difficult to change that perception. Creating a shoe that is better than Nike's is much simpler than changing people's perception of Nike.

Founders often view branding as merely packaging for their product—a way to make it more appealing with catchy copy and visuals. In those terms, branding can be seen as an unnecessary expense when trying to maintain a lean operation and focusing on finding a market.

But the true purpose of establishing your brand identity early on is to gain clarity on your purpose, direction, and value proposition. And in the uncertainty of the early days, having a clear guiding principle is not a luxury, but a necessity.