You may not know it yet, but your brand will soon be a tech startup.
What defines a tech startup? Its size? Having fewer than five people working there? Having a CEO with pimples and a sweatshirt? Or necessarily having its office in a garage? Well, none of that.
1 – UNCERTAINTY
What most defines a startup is its high degree of uncertainty about the future. In yesterday's column, I cited what happened to Blockbuster in just two years. All brands already live, or will live, with increasing uncertainty about themselves. Thinking about this only reinforces the importance of preparing your brand's strategy so that, far more than just being prepared, it becomes a leader and agent of change within its category.
2 – Multidisciplinary Team
A designer, a programmer, a strategist, a project manager, and a CEO. We can consider these to be the roles (often with one person performing more than one function) that we will find in most startups. Just like in a band, in a startup each person performs the activity they are most comfortable with, but always in total harmony and synchronicity with the others. A startup doesn't have the time (or resources) to expend energy on power games and internal politics. The focus on delivery means that the major evils of corporatism and bureaucracy don't exist, and because of this, everyone works and performs better.
3 – Agile Work Culture
Plan, design, develop, and deliver. Sounds great, but it doesn't work in a fast-paced, chaotic, and digital world like ours. If you've never read anything about Agile, Scrum, or Design Sprints, read on! These methodologies take into account the prioritization of activities and the focus on what needs to happen today. In a ten-minute meeting, which should be done standing up (yes, standing up, to be quick, focused, and to the point), the Scrum Master (the project manager in the Agile methodology) talks about the overall goal of the project, where we are, and what each person needs to do by the end of the day. This way, everyone needs to be productive, focus on the result, and get to the delivery.
4 – FAST AND ALWAYS BETA
Unfortunately, every year we see at least one case of a brand that took so long to launch a project that it was born dead. It's necessary to develop an internal culture of speed. And that means it's acceptable to launch something even in the Beta phase. That's not a problem. What is a problem is not making it clear that it's in Beta and thus damaging the brand's image due to any problems that might arise.
5 – USER STORIES
All development prioritization is based on User Stories, which are nothing more than complaint reports or in-depth research and interviews with real or potential customers after they experience the product or service. By putting the consumer's truth at the center of everything, startups have greater accuracy in their launches and, naturally, gain more relevance. It seems obvious, but many large companies don't do it.
6 - INCREASE THE VALUE, THROW AWAY THE WASTE
What is the real value that your brand delivers in its products and services? Once this value is discovered or confirmed, how can you rewrite the customer journey to increase the value delivered and reduce any steps that don't add value to the end customer (from their perspective)?
7 – LEARNING AND ADAPTATION
Learn quickly from mistakes, adapt, evolve, and share with the internal team. It's pointless to be a results-oriented organization if there's no room for learning.
Does all this really make sense for brands? Let's look at Nike, the world's most valuable sporting goods brand. Its essence: "If you have a body, you are an athlete." And over the last ten years, Nike has developed an entire ecosystem of technology services to expand the brand's delivery in a real way. Both the Nike+ running app and the FuelBand wristband are good examples of everything we're talking about. Nike, as a brand, understood that regardless of the technology available or the product it sells, all value should be generated through its purpose. By the way, they still sell sneakers.
