The secret to scale a startup

Time of India

2 days ago

HighlightsFigma, a collaborative design platform, achieved a valuation of $12.5 billion and was almost acquired by Adobe for $20 billion in 2023, emphasizing the importance of brand building from its inception. Wholsum Foods, the parent company of Slurrp Farm and Mille, prioritized brand documentation early on, which helped them maintain clarity and consistency during their growth phase, despite skepticism from investors. The article emphasizes that strong branding not only enhances customer acquisition and loyalty but also significantly influences a startup's valuation and potential exit price, as seen with brands like Minimalist and Licious.
When
Figma
, a collaborative design platform, recently announced its IPO, it spotlighted the company's meteoric rise in just a few years. Valued at $12.5 billion on the secondary market — and almost acquired by Adobe for $20 billion in 2023 — Figma's impressive worth is deeply rooted in its early focus on brand. From the start, the company embedded itself into the language, rituals and workflows of the global design community --and built the brand with them.
Tori Hinn, who joined Figma as creative director two years after its launch, said that because there was so much good work in place, they 'didn't need to start from scratch — just give the brand a longer runway'. Figma exemplifies a gradual shift among
startups
, where brand building comes in, not as an afterthought, but as a strategic move.
For new age ventures, brand is no longer the cherry on top — it's the scaffolding supporting growth. Closer to home, Wholsum Foods — the parent company of Slurrp Farm and Mille — made drafting a brand document one of its first priorities when it started out. The company needed a north star. 'We wanted to be clear on what mattered — that we wouldn't make a product here that felt like the lower quality version of something abroad,' says co-founder Shauravi
Malik
.
In their 'lean' days, even as they were working out supply chains and toddler taste tests, Malik and co-founder Meghana Narayan brought on brand director Umang Bhattacharyya. 'He helped give shape and spirit to the soul of Slurrp Farm long before we had the language for it,' says Malik. Their first illustrators built a visual world of animals from India, which still defines the brand today. Though many, including venture capitalists, questioned their emphasis on brand, Malik shares that the clarity helped them stay consistent through the 'pivots and growing pains'.
This focus paid off: The company was backed by Fireside Venture and caught the attention of actor Anushka Sharma, who later joined as brand ambassador and strategic investor. But this shift in mindset wasn't evident earlier in the industry. Joseph
George
, founder of Tilt Brand Solutions, observes, '[Earlier] Most founders saw brand building as an indulgence that only established businesses should and could undertake. But it became painfully clear to them that significant and sustained product superiority was going to be tough to pull off. Today, they've started to see brand building as not just necessary but something that can shape the business itself.'
Meet your brand before your customers do
In the world of blitz-scaling and bootstrapping, brand building was often seen as a luxury — a Series B task at best, a distraction at worst. Founders focused their energies on chasing product-market fit, scrambling for funding and prioritising growth hacks over brand. But a new wave of entrepreneurs and investors are controlling the narrative. As more startups compete in crowded, noisy categories, there is risk in letting consumers define your brand before you do. Modern branding experts caution that it's not about having a 'cool' brand--it's about controlling the bias – as the latter either opens doors or closes them.
One sees real value creation from the brand when it reaches a point of salience, which is not about awareness, but the ability to come to mind at the right time vis-a-vis the category associations. 'A large brand can launch a variant, invest massive sums on share-of-voice (SOV) and build salience fast. But an early-stage brand needs time: Investing small but consistently and focusing on marketing budget vs. trying to do everything based on a generic playbook,' says Meghana Bhat, co-founder of Early Partners.
Take Subko Coffee, which launched in 2020 during the Covid lockdown. 'It chose to grow deliberately rather than chase rapid scale,' says Bhat. And founder Rahul Reddy plans to use the funds from its latest raise ($10 million at a $34-million valuation) to scale in a 'responsible, calibrated and slow way', she adds.
Today, consultants and investment firms bring brand experts into the boardroom at a very early stage, says Arvind Krishnan, co-founder at Manja. He advises
startup
founders to start with a 'minimum viable brand' and not just a minimum viable product. That includes a clear name, tone of voice and origin story. 'These are assets that prevent startups from making abrupt narrative pivots as they scale. You can continue building on the core brand story as you go along and keep adding to it.'
The brand clarity advantage
A misconception founders have about brand building is that it's more about advertising and buying media. But at its core it's about clarity. A well-defined brand shows up in every touchpoint:
Packaging
, website UX, and even the walls of your office. And it is also a draw for top talent who want to be part of something meaningful.
'There is enough data to show how strong brands have lower customer acquisition cost (CAC), higher trial rates, better price premium and better stickiness,' explains George. He adds that as unit economics become non-negotiable, the ability to charge a premium — or launch premium variants — becomes critical. Consumers have too many choices, too little time or patience. In this triple whammy environment, brands will slip up,' he cautions. 'Only strong brands have 'forgivability' — they can invoke that irrational bias where the consumer says: 'I'll give them another shot.''
From your first pitch deck to your first customer interaction, you're building a brand whether you intend to, or not. 'Your logo, packaging, first social post, distribution choice, how you frame your pricing strategy, the copy on your website, it all creates the mix of mental associations that define your brand in your consumer's mind,' says Bhat.
Brand as blueprint
Define who you are, your purpose, proposition and values. 'Your brand should give you clarity in how you position yourselves to investors, employees and consumers alike,' says Rohan Talati, portfolio partner at Spring Marketing Capital. 'This is as much internal as it is external.'
He points to wearables brand Ultrahuman, which had embedded brand thinking into its DNA from inception. 'With little to no advertising, the brand became aspirational by design — a carefully considered identity that influenced everything from packaging to the user interface,' he explains.
Whether you are building to sell or scale, strong branding can boost your exit price or funding valuation. Bhat mentions skincare brand
Minimalist
, which was acquired by HUL for Rs 2,955 crore despite generating revenue in the Rs 300 crore range — is likely attributed to 'intangible assets' – which is one-way brand equity shows up on the balance sheet.
India's first D2C unicorn — meat and seafood brand
Licious
— tackled a largely unorganised market with a brand built on trust. Early on, the company sought select testimonials and featured those customers' sketches in their packaging, transforming the latter into brand advocates.
For its founders Abhay Hanjura and
Vivek Gupta
, the brand was never just a logo or a campaign — it was personal. 'We built Licious around a simple promise: We won't serve anything we won't feed our own families.' That brand promise guided every decision, even the difficult ones. 'We invested in a full cold chain before we had scale — not for optics, but because it was the right thing to do. In the early days, it's tempting to chase growth at all costs. But if you don't build trust from day one, you may never get a second chance,' they add.