Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, gave us all in the startup world words to live by: "If you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late."

And the same can be said for the first version of your brand’s visual look and feel. Because if you’re a startup, you want to bring a product to market quicker than the rest, and sometimes that means things won’t be absolutely perfect when you launch.

Taking a product from 0 to 100 swiftly is no easy feat; and once that stage is over and it’s time to iterate, refine and elevate, that may mean refreshing your brand’s aesthetic - whether it’s your site, app or also the content copy that brings your message to life.

Here’s how to approach a brand uplift in the most efficient way possible.

Planning

At Faye where I lead Brand, we recently pushed live a new visual language. Speaking from firsthand experience, if you don’t want to recreate the wheel, and if you want to save on budget by avoiding a major brand overhaul, simply start with a list of things you love, and things that you can say goodbye to. For us that was easy: we love our logo and emphasis on purple; are connected to an illustrative language and also showing real people. But we wanted to have a more sophisticated, wider color palette, typography, real-life photo language and more.

Nailing down this list will help you settle on what resources you need, both in-house (such as a product and brand designer) and externally, such as a design agency, animator and illustrator. If you want to cut back on spend, note what your must-haves are for launch, and leave the rest to be tackled later. Also make sure to differentiate what tasks can be done in-house, rather than by third-parties who will charge more. But remember, any agency or external resource you use should act as an extension of your team - set up direct lines of communication with weekly calls, a Slack channel and more where you can all collaborate as one unit.

From there, grab a few quotes so you can compare pricing, ask for references (crucial), and then build a timeline so you can plan backwards. Keep in mind that such an initiative can take 6 months to a year. In our case, it took 8 months from inception to going live.

The build up

A brand uplift does not just live with a Brand, Communications or Marketing team. It’s a company-wide initiative and needs to be treated as such, starting from the top.

Leadership must prioritize sharing key timeline dates and milestones with the entire team to make it clear that as a company, you are working towards this large goal. This can take place during company weeklies, quarterly updates or key announcements in-person and virtually. 

Simultaneously, build up excitement. We shared weekly sneak peeks, hosted an internal QA party, created swag for employees (to be handed out the day of launch) and even printed custom invites for the go live celebration. 

To generate even more anticipation, hold team-by-team meetings so you can harness the excitement of every one of your coworkers - from dev to HR.  

All the while you’re doing the work of course; design iterations must be reviewed and refined, your app and site pages need to be developed and repeatedly tested, new ads should be created and content needs to be drafted ahead of time so once the big day arrives, you have all assets ready. In the case of Faye’s brand uplift, this included a blog post, emails to travelers and our partners, social media assets including videos and new imagery, and preparing information to share with the press so they had an advance heads up in case they wanted to cover the story. Note that you’re more likely to score a press story about your brand uplift if you can couple it with even more news - such as a partnership update or new features (the latter of which we did).

This build up stage is when you determine what must go live to have a successful launch, and what’s not a blocker for
  
launch that can be saved for later in case there’s not enough time or resources to get it all done. Remember, if everything doesn’t go live the day of launch - you’ll live.

Launch

As a startup, rejuvenating your visual aesthetic is a huge milestone. It means you’ve invested in your brand which will touch your target audience in every which way they interact with your company.

Set a timeline for the weeks leading up to it, and a more detailed timeline for the day of, so things go off without a hitch. 

Make sure your content is set to go live - from a blog, to a pop up on your homepage announcing the new look, to emails to stakeholders. My point is, you should transparently communicate this exciting update so users are not surprised when they come across your company’s new look. 

And beyond the content you must have prepared, is how to translate this milestone to company culture. Make sure that you plan a team-wide celebration to keep the air of excitement going strong. This is a day for all employees to be proud of what’s been accomplished, so much so that they hopefully share the news organically on their own social channels and spur even more excitement. This in turn will generate interest from outsiders, ideally increase your sales, and also prompt potential candidates to send you their CVs. From branded food to new swag, you can’t go wrong.

 
 
Continuing the fun

Remember, just because your refreshed branding goes live, it doesn’t mean all the work is done. You can’t just set it and forget it. Your updated branding should be woven into everything you do moving forward - even your Slack, which you can customize with your company’s new color palette. From social posting to putting your new logo on the wall (if relevant), upholding your fresh brand guidelines is a daily practice which will pay off big as you continue to disrupt.