getting your first customers: a founder's guide to user friendly design, branding, &...

Christy Harner Creative Principal, Binary Ventures

Getting Your First Customers A Founder’s Guide to User Friendly Design, Branding, and Marketing

Binary.Ventures

www.binary.ventures | [email protected] | Twitter: @binaryventure

http://www.binary.ventures

mailto:[email protected]

Introduction Phase 1: Know Thyself • the founder • problem solving • what’s your style? • naming your company • know your weakness

Phase 2: Discover Your Users • make no assumptions • create personas

Phase3: Create Your Brand • brand for your users • brand your user experience

Phase 4: Launch Your Brand • be consistent • use social media

TABLE OF CONTENTS

introduction.

To first understand brands, let’s think of the “brand of you”. For example. I have many different brands: Christy Harner the UX Designer and Filmmaker, Christina Harner the

Author, Christy the Chinese student, Mom, and Christy Harner the Boss and Co-Founder of Binary Ventures.

Introduction

I began as a Cultural Studies major which allowed me to travel to places like West Africa, India, Europe, China, and Pakistan.

In going to these places I learned a lot about people and their thought processes.

Introduction

Introduction

A few years later, Binary Ventures was created by my business partner, Steve Nolan, and I as a Design and Marketing Firm with a focus on helping Startups succeed.

Create. Launch. Grow.

Our purpose is simple: help create, launch, and grow startups.

Introduction

Steve Nolan Managing Principal

There is no better feeling than helping entrepreneurs realize realize their dreams by

successfully launching their business, or enabling an established company to

reinvent themselves, gain efficiencies or mobilize their workforce by leveraging

technology. Binary is the perfect blend of our collective passions: creativity,

technology, marketing and people.

Christy Harner Creative Principal

“It’s kind of fun to do the impossible,” Walt Disney, one of my idols, once said.

From the day my dad introduced our house to the internet, I couldn’t stop

designing and developing websites. I’ve been a geek since 1998. My passion lies in helping people who have unique and passionate ideas for a business venture

make their dreams a reality.

Kenneth Lopez Chief Solutions Officer

Having been raised by a family of engineers, I first fell in love with science at an early age, and I started coding at the age 13. Building software is a mix between art and science,

especially because understanding the human factor is one of the most important keys to building a successful product. Our

team is unrivaled in talent, passion and dedication.

Maria del Pilar

Gamarra Huanes Chief Information Officer

One of the things I like most being a part of Binary is that we are always learning

and testing the bounds of new technology and its best application in the real world. Our main focus is on constant innovation, so we are always pushing ourselves, trying

new things and seeing how we can use them to solve a problem or generate an

improvement in people's lives.

One of the things I like most being a part of Binary is that we are always learning and testing the bounds of new technology and its best

Introduction

know thyself.Phase 1

the founder

Phase 1: Know Thyself

A founder can be anyone. But the best kind of founder is one who is an

expert in their field.


For example…

One of our clients is a doctor who knows the current methods of communication for doctors totally suck. They are either using pagers and waiting for calls and call backs or are completely breaking HIPAA and texting on their personal phones. That’s how he created his app which is HIPAA compliant and fixes a real problem for people who work in a medical field. He is an expert in his field.


Take Carmen, an Ebay merchant with an 100% approval rating, who is has been selling bras and underwear for the past five years. Carmen knows that is is a challenge for women to find sexy and comfortable bras in all sizes so she created Goodie Rack - a line of lingerie that solves the problem for the “Everyday Woman”.

Carmen is an expert in her field.

what problem are you solving


Jake Farmakis, Founder & CEO of Paradine, discovered a

problem. He didn’t know where to take clients out to dinner

when he was on business trips in different cities.



So Jake decided to create an app that gave business men like himself more personalized restaurant recommendations - Paradine.

what’s your style?


[Funny/Witty]

[YOUThFUL]


[HIPSTER]

[CLEAN/ PERSONAL]



_ Cutting Edge _ Corporate _ Refined _ High Tech _ Traditional _ Elegant _ Trendy _ SILLY

_ Sophisticated _ Flowing _ Spontaneous _ Relaxed/Casual _ Bold _ Fun _ Friendly _ Graphic

While your brand may not exactly line up with your personal style. It

is helpful for you to know aesthetically what you like and dislike before trying to develop

your product.

[NAME HERE] naming your brand



The name of the brand is extremely important. It needs to reflect the company and be easily recognized and remembered. At first, FitRaise came to us as Sociersize. Since it’s both a fitness app and focused on raising your heart rate, we decided FitRaise was much more appropriate.


Once a client came to me with his Technology Readiness Levels product named Derwent. I asked him how he came upon the name and he said it was a river in the UK near where he grew up. Now, it is fine and good to have a name that means something to you, I’ve had people come in try to name their product after their dog, mom, you name it, but we also need it to mean something to the user. Unfortunately I had to let him know that Derwent didn’t fit the bill.


He decided he also had this bridge, The Iron Bridge, near his childhood home that meant

something to him. Since the concept of bridging went with the product we were

developing, we decided it would be more relevant to the user.

know your weakness


www.blastfromthepastantiqueboutique.com


Sometimes we need help formulating ideas. Sometimes the ideas come to us and we

need help reining them in. For example, I once had a client who had, what he considered, a stroke of genius. If I had not stepped in, his Antique Shop’s website would have been

located at:

http://www.blastfromthepastantiqueboutique.com

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell


When you do decide to bring someone like a design on board, keep in mind that they are the expert in their field like you are in yours. This humorous, and, unfortunately, too relatable, comic demonstrates what happens when founders

try to take over designs.

http://www.nateshivar.com/486/99-designs-review-with-pros-cons-of-crowdsourced-logo-design/

PROS 1. Super-affordable ($100-800) 2. Fast, easy to implement 3. Choice 4. Trustworthy and branded 5. Multiple perspectives

CONS 1. Lack of Unique Designs 2. No relationship or integration 3. Choice 4. Not local 5. Lack of file-types


If you’re not ready for a designer, resources like 99 designs can be very helpful.

Remember: Know your strengths and your weaknesses, and let the professionals do their job.

discover your users.Phase 2

Phase 2: Discover Your Users

Make no assumptions when discovering your users. You may think you know all about who will be using your product, but, without doing research, you will wasting

efforts on someone who may or may not actually be a user.


At Binary Ventures we use a program called Hubspot. The service helps us track all analytics, keep our personas in mind, and make sure we are following the proper inbound

methodology in order to acquire the people we are after.


NO JOB NORMANHUMAN RESOURCES HANNAH

Here are two personas we made for one of our clients that is a Video Cover Letter service - Human Resources Hannah and No Job Norman.


Once we have our personas we can make sure that everything we do for that brand reaches one of those personas. The website has a recruiter and a job searcher clearly visible on the home screen. In addition we send this worksheet to anyone who may be creating content, like a blog, for the company.

Remember: Make no assumptions about your users and create personas to help guide your content.

Remember: Make no assumptions about your users and create personas to help guide your content.

create your brand.Phase 3

so you’ve discovered your users. build your brand for them.

Phase 3: Create Your Brand


One client, SpendBoss, is a way for office administrators to track how much spending is being done on office items such as paper towels, plastic cups, etc. The client wanted us to create a brand with a Mad Men feel.

BOSSY SNARKY PROFESSIONAL CLEVER



However, we realized that we may have over shot. We didn’t keep in mind that the majority of our users were female and we needed to be designing for them.

Marketing Material

Name Creation

Promotional Video

Social Media

User Experience

Website

Branding

Design

Development

Identity Package

Logo

Market Research


So spendboss was reborn into something more relatable for it’s largely female customer base.

brand your user experience



Remember the businessman, Jake, from Phase 1? We made sure that everything that was created for Paradine used the same fonts, colors, and kept the user in mind. This gives your brand a consistent voice.

Remember: build your brand for your users and keep in mind to brand your user experience.

launch your brand.Phase 4

be anal consistent

Phase 4: Launch Your Brand


I cannot stress enough how important it is to be true to your brand. You and your team worked hard developing a color pallet and voice - use them in

everything you do.

engage your followers on social media


A story is at its best when its not intrusive, when it brings value to a platform’s consumers, and when it fits in as a natural step along the customer’s path to making a purchase.

The perfect story is spun from your intimate knowledge of your history, your competition’s history, and increasingly, what you see going on in the world and what you discover your customers want to talk about.


Recommended Read


1. Is the post entertaining, provocative or surprising?

2. Is the photo striking and high quality?

3. Is the logo visible?

4. Is this interesting in any way, to anyone?

5. Are we asking too much of the person consuming the content?


This is a great example of a brand using Facebook.


1. Is it to the point?

2. Is the hashtag unique and memorable?

3. Does the voice sound authentic?

4. Will it resonate with the Twitter audience?


1. Does my picture feed the consumer dream?

2. Did I give my boards clever, creative titles?

3. Have I included a price when appropriate?

4. Does every photo include a hyperlink?


1. The photo (fun, colorful, simple)

2. The copy

3. The board

GOOD

CHOBANI: REACHING THE HEART OF ITS USERS

nurture your followers


You did a great job of acquiring the right people. But make sure to nurture them in order to keep them around. Interact with

them on social media, send them content you think they would enjoy, make them happy that they are in your grasp!

Remember: be consistent with your band and engage and nurture your social media followers.

Create. Launch. Grow.

Christy Harner Creative Principal, Binary Ventures

www.binary.ventures [email protected] Twitter: @christyharner / @binaryventure Instagram: binary_ventures