Should You Start with Product Brand or Product Design? The Answer Depends.

Episode Transcription

Meghan Pfeifer:
Just make sure that the product and brand look like the same company. So if you have a strong brand, make sure it's reflected in the product and if not, make sure they just look cohesive enough.

Meghan Pfeifer:
I'm Meghan and you're listening to a Better Product original series.

Meghan Pfeifer:
Hey there, it's Meghan and you're listening to Better Product. I'm back with another episode inspired by mine and Christian's slack conversations. As you know, Christian has a strong background in design while I'm more focused on the brand side. So for this round, we decided to duke it out. What's more important to focus on first when you're launching a new product? Let's find out.

Christian Beck:
Meghan, I want to talk about something that's kind of fundamental to what you and I have done with Innovatemap for the last five years, but it's really a topic that's been coming up a lot lately because I've been having office hours with founders, sort of talking through design issues that they're having. It just so happens that recently on the show, we've had a couple product leaders that have talked about design in early stage companies. So we had Kate Donahue representing Pitch and how design has been woven into them from the beginning. We had Dominik Zane from Around on here talking about design details and the product, and all that. So this isn't a new topic per se, but I think that you and I should cover it because you represent brand design really well and I represent product. And if you're open to it, we can really battle it out and have the listeners score and see who wins, whether brand is more important, which that actually sounds like a fun idea.

Meghan Pfeifer:
Fortunately, or unfortunately, for our listeners, Christian and I are in two different places right now. So it's not like it's actually going to come to blows, but we could still see what happens.

Christian Beck:
Yeah. I mean, you're coming to Indy soon, so I guess we could have a sanction brand versus product design fight and just see who wins.

Meghan Pfeifer:
Yeah, we'll have a fuddle up.

Christian Beck:
But from that point, I think I want to get your perspective on it because the more that I was getting this question and stumbling in answering, the more I was realizing I don't know that it's one of those really crappy answers, like, oh, it depends. So this is almost the show where we can help qualify like what situations it would depend on. So let's dive in.

Christian Beck:
So I'll kick it off because I've been talking this whole time and you're just like, please talk some more, right?

Meghan Pfeifer:
Yeah, go for it.

Christian Beck:
So let's go. So, okay, the question that is on a lot of people's mind when they hear like, oh yes I get, design is really fundamental when starting a new product. And when we say starting, we're talking about from not just like an idea in your head, but let's just say any early stage company that's like before a million ARR, like before you've really started to figure out that you've got traction. People, I think, often want to understand what's more important or what do I start with? Do I start with like really creating a killer brand or do I focus on product design?

Christian Beck:
And I think one answer is like, you should do both, but not everybody has the investment quite yet, or even the focus to split on both. So you almost have to make a decision. And I think that's kind of what I want us to talk about today is like, what should you consider when you're thinking about product brand versus product design when you're growing the company. So I'll make the case for product design, which is like from my lens, I look at everything through design of the product. And if you're not building a product that people want to use and they're not going to stick around and use it. And people these days have so many more options and the cost of switching is so low that if you don't get them into the experience, it's a lot easier for them to leave.

Christian Beck:
But I will caveat that with some products, if you're designing in an industry where there aren't a lot of competitors, you actually might be able to maybe kick the can down the road a little bit on really investing in UX, and you might consider brand design first to like really get your voice out there and resonate with buyers.

Meghan Pfeifer:
There are pros and cons to both, and I see opportunities for both, and so I hate telling founders or companies, that really depends, but we pretty much have to dig in from scratch with each new founder to decide which is best for them. And so the case for brand you kind of hinted at already is starting to build a little bit of momentum. So if we start with brand design first, even if your product isn't ready yet, you can start building hype around the product. You can start advertising for this product, you can start getting people ready to see it and getting them familiar with your name, by getting brand out in the market early.

Meghan Pfeifer:
It also kind of buys you more time to focus on the product in that sense. So people are already gaining knowledge and awareness about you out in the wild. You can set your brand free while you are heads down, improving product features and product design.

Christian Beck:
I love that idea of buying time because it's acknowledging that the product design is important and you know how to do it, but so you're not like not going to do it, but that's a great point. I hadn't really thought about the fact that like focusing on brand does buy you some time to work out the product.

Meghan Pfeifer:
The other thing I was going to say is, and I will caution this, because a lot of times we see it go poorly. Some companies, especially in early stage, we'll start with what we call a preliminary brand or a starter brand. Again, kind of just to slap some colors and some type on the product itself and get something out into the wild because they do want to focus on product design. What then ends up usually happening is that there wasn't a ton of thought put into the brand and it ends up sticking around, even if it was only supposed to be preliminary.

Meghan Pfeifer:
So when you get too caught up in product design and everything you could be doing there, you're less inclined to go back to the brand because you're like, oh, we already have one it's been working. But usually that preliminary brand doesn't resonate best with your audience.

Christian Beck:
I think that's a good point. I think the same could be said for having a lack of intention around the product design initially. You can definitely defer design decisions and just have, say engineering, just start coding what's in your head and take features and just build them without design. That's going to catch up with you though. And there's a really common term in engineering called technical debt or tech debt, and a lot of times when I'm talking to people, I say, you can accrue design debt. I've even been using the term a bit that I would describe what you just said, which is like brand debt.

Christian Beck:
You're basically borrowing against future problems to just get through today. That's the concept of debt. So like you're describing a brand debt, I would say you can also do that on the product side and say, yeah. So you don't spend a lot of time being intentional with the way you design your product for the first six months. And it gets in user's hands. That's totally fine, but every new user you onboard, every new customer, makes that harder to fix later. And problems at scale are a lot more expensive and so you may not lose any customers in that time because maybe you are delivering something that's great, but you will have to sort of pay off the debt at some point.

Meghan Pfeifer:
Right. So I guess our advice is get everything right from the beginning, otherwise you're going to have some sort of debt.

Christian Beck:
Well, so I was thinking about though, Meghan, when you were talking, and I do remember telling a founder this recently that, because they were asking this question to me really directly and they had a physical product and then a digital interface that went with the product and then this brand. And they're sort of like, we don't have the money and people to spend on all three of these areas. So like our brand on the website, the product design of the physical product and the digital product design. And one of the things that I told them was, if I had to choose if I were you, I would choose brand. Because if you put some emphasis there, then you can build up a lot of trust. And so when we talk about debt, maybe another sort of like financial analogy here is that like you make an investment, you're almost like filling up an account.

Christian Beck:
So you talked about this like building hype and all that. I also think that builds a lot of trust, people like start to buy into what you're bringing to market in, yes, it buys you time, but it also buys you trust. And it's almost like you can forgive a little bit of errors, or things might be a little bit clunky at first. It's like when a new restaurant opens up that you're really excited about, the grand opening, the first week, service is going to be a little bit slow, they might be behind, but you forgive them for that because you're so excited for it.

Meghan Pfeifer:
Yeah, I completely agree with that, Christian, and I think while we're on the subject of why brand first, another vote for that could be, if you don't have a brand, when you start designing the product you're going to have to do some level of rework to the product design on the other end. So you're still going to have to come back and apply the brand to the product when you could have just been designing it in the brand from the beginning.

Christian Beck:
This is actually bringing up another aspect of what distinguishes product design from UX design. When you think about a new product, you're thinking about first-time users, that's really what your mindset is. And I would say brand has a really powerful position to play when you're onboarding people. If you think about like the brand voice that say Robin Hood has, they haven't had this distinct voice that they show today from the very beginning, but they've always had a voice that was sort of targeted to gen Z and millennials, and it always came through in the product. But I think what you're talking about was like, what do you guys always say in brand is like, nobody wants warm tea, it's like you want hot tea or cold tea, right?

Meghan Pfeifer:
Yeah. As you try to be everything to everyone, then you have something that nobody wants.

Christian Beck:
So it's like, I think of when you're saying it's like brand agnostic, it's like a vanilla product. And so now you haven't like taken advantage of your brand to help onboard people, or help show them new features, or just like have character inside of a product where maybe the feature sets pretty light because you're early on. But you have some brand like moments in there that sort of builds a little bit stronger relationship.

Meghan Pfeifer:
Yep.

Christian Beck:
Around does this really well. So we had Dominik Zane on the show, but we've used Around internally a little bit and Around when it started, we got in on a wait list for their app. So if you haven't listened to that episode, you should. But really quickly, Around is a much more, I don't know, fun, friendlier version of Zoom, and we used it internally with our design team a few times. You know, you just kind of sit around a circle, you can change your filters to fun things. You can comment and put GIFs in there. Like everything's just like a little bit lighter. But what I was going to bring up when you're talking about brand is what stuck out to me is early on, the product's design was fine, but it was light on the feature set, because it was brand new. We were on a wait list, it was like beta testing and all that. But it didn't feel that way because they had used the product as a platform to extend their brand. So anyway, I realized if we are battling, I'm losing big time.

Meghan Pfeifer:
You're like stabbing yourself right now.

Christian Beck:
I know, I know. But I think as we talk through this, I'm seeing a lot of advantage into focusing on the brand first.

Meghan Pfeifer:
To your point about Around, I remember early on when we got on the wait list, a lot of times we have a shared channel between our product designers and our brand designers. And in that channel we'll share different things that we're seeing out there that inspire us, whether that's brand design or product design or a combination of the two. And I remember that we shared Around's product site because we were equally impressed with their brand and with the product features that they were promising. And so like from messaging to visuals to everything, that's what really got us excited about what Around was going to be able to offer us.

Christian Beck:
I think I'm going to try to score one for product design here real quick. Let me throw this out there as an idea for like why you might focus on product design and not brand. The examples we were just talking about are in an area where there's already Precedent, there's already Zoom, so you're not going to be able to build and design a product that can beat Zoom early on. You may get there. So brand is like the thing that helps you like get some shelf space, and say, Hey, there's something here.

Christian Beck:
I've talked to some founders that are building apps that are in new spaces. We're actually going to have somebody in our health and wellness series coming up from Levels, which is a real-time glucose monitoring company, and I started using their product and they actually do put a lot of emphasis on the product design first, because it's kind of new. Like the whole concept of real-time glucose monitoring is really new. Like a strong brand voice isn't really as important as like helping somebody understand how to read it, and like what do you do with something like that?

Christian Beck:
So maybe one thing I'd throw out there is if you're designing or building a product that is a kind of a new way of doing something, then focus on the product design to make sure that it's getting communicated to them more than maybe the brand itself.

Meghan Pfeifer:
I agree with that, and here, I'll throw you another bone for product design. I think, especially in what you're talking about with these industries where you might be a new player or an early player, investors are going to care most about product design. They're going to want to see the screens, they're going to want to know that this product can do what you say it can do, they're going to care about brand only in a sense that it can get in front of the right people and enough of the right people.

Meghan Pfeifer:
So usually when we talk about, we'll be coach founders on how to talk to investors and how to maybe ask for potential investment for a rebrand or a brand for their product, we say the brand design is what gets this product in front of the right people, it's what resonates with the correct audience, so that then that audience can engage with the actual product itself. So, but investors still, I think at the end of the day, care about what the product itself looks like.

Christian Beck:
You're making me think, I think at some point whatever path you've chosen, and we've seen this in our work, and I think maybe what's on the other side of this climb as you're like trying to find traction with the product, I do think that the brand and products should start iterating in like really tight cycles together. So, okay, let's say year one, you have seed investment, you have to kind of like place your chips on one or the other. Start with brand, that's totally fine, and then maybe product design towards the end of the year.

Christian Beck:
But at some point when you start finding traction, I do feel like, well at least we've seen it successfully done, is really like getting the brand like constantly refining your messaging, like what's resonating as people are buying this or as your sales team is out there. And then like, what are people using that are already using this product, and like really starting to iterate on those together so that they're done in parallel.

Meghan Pfeifer:
And another best practice is to just make sure that the product and brand look like the same company. So if you have a strong brand, make sure it's reflected in the product, and if not, make sure they just look cohesive enough.

Christian Beck:
That is really great advice. It's like the brand is like supposed to set that expectation. And then if the product design doesn't deliver on it or deliver something different, it's a terrible experience. I also feel like too, it's really hard to measure that. I think that's one of the things to be aware of is like, if you get caught up in measuring all of these things, it can be tough to measure that true impact.

Christian Beck:
But Meghan, how would you advise somebody to, I don't know, accomplish what you're saying? Because you can't necessarily measure like, is my brand getting matched in the product? What would your advice be to somebody who said, okay, I'm on board, but when I get to that point, how do I make sure that the product design and brand really are connected?

Meghan Pfeifer:
It could be things as tactical as use similar fonts between the two. So maybe especially if this is an early product and you want to make sure that your product is as usable as possible and that's where you're putting the thought behind color and typography is usability, then pull some of those into the brand as well instead of like trying to use a funkier brand that maybe isn't best for usability.

Meghan Pfeifer:
That's a tactical example. I know my bar is usually just, do these look like they came from the same company? Does this company that I see, this website look like this is their product?

Christian Beck:
If I were to like go internally into to the company, I think about the people, I would say like, make sure your people are talking to each other. You don't want to have like someone in product marketing working on your site and they're not talking to the product people. I mean, that seems like really fundamental. But when I've worked in software, it's just amazing how, if silos are not bad on their own, but it's really tough if you don't like get out of your silo and go talk. So I think to make what you're saying possible, like make sure that your teams are talking to each other, is what is the brand team doing? What's product marketing working on? What's the messaging? Is the product keeping up to date?The worst thing would be that there's a website update and the product design team is like, doesn't know until it goes live, and that does happen. So make sure that those teams are talking.

Christian Beck:
So this was a good conversation where there's probably, I wanted to say there's no clear winner, but I think maybe it edges towards brand, but hopefully I think at the very least, we've given you some things to consider as you're building your product, that there isn't necessarily a right answer, but there might be something that fits better for your situation. But I think ultimately I would hope that people get the message that at some point brand and product design should be really in sync and happening together.

Meghan Pfeifer:
I think it depends, and we hate saying that, but sometimes it's just true.

Christian Beck:
So if you have any doubts about product design or questions, you can always email me. If you have any questions about brand, you can always email Meghan. We'll put our emails in the show notes for this episode. You can also find us on our website at innovatemap.com, if you want to hear more. Like I said, I spend about half my time talking to founders and Meghan works with founders from all across the country, so always happy to answer those. So my email, christian.beck@innovatemap.com

Meghan Pfeifer:
And my email, Meghan.pfeifer@innovatemap.com.

Christian Beck:
And there's a bunch of hidden letters in her name people, so just look her up online and you'll see where they are. There's a hidden H.

Meghan Pfeifer:
Like Michelle, but with one less F. There's no H [crosstalk 00:17:53]

Christian Beck:
It's not like Michelle Pfeiffer's [crosstalk 00:17:55], yeah, yeah. There's a hidden H in Meghan and then she's not like Michelle Pfeiffer. So, it's a riddle.

Christian Beck:
Thanks for joining us, and if you haven't yet, be sure to join the Better Product community. We've got all sorts of content and resources for you. And if you want more audio, don't forget the Business of Product is our latest show to join the Better Product network. And you can find that and more at betterproduct.community.