A few years ago I left a job I’d had for a long time. I started when there were just a handful of us in a now-condemned co-working space, and got to build a brand from 0 to 1 with a really bright group of people. And then from 1 to 100, and on up to 10,000 employees & 20 offices globally as we scaled up, built the team, built categories, put on an annual conference at Moscone, shipped one of the only billboard campaigns I like, and moved through IPO to life as a public brand.
We started Good Ship at the end of 2023 to help B2B teams build brands that can scale. In the first ~year we’ve worked with big companies and tiny seed-stage teams. I spent most of 2024 full-time with the small team at Objective, making the 0→1 leap and through to a successful exit (still so proud of all you fine folks! 🎉). I’ve been really looking forward to jumping back in with a new handful of smaller companies and helping them make that first leap.
And it’s had me thinking about why the 0→1 is so brutal for so many teams.
We started Good Ship at the end of 2023 to help B2B teams build brands that can scale. In the first ~year we’ve worked with big companies and tiny seed-stage teams. I spent most of 2024 full-time with the small team at Objective, making the 0→1 leap and through to a successful exit (still so proud of all you fine folks! 🎉). I’ve been really looking forward to jumping back in with a new handful of smaller companies and helping them make that first leap.
And it’s had me thinking about why the 0→1 is so brutal for so many teams.
while (Brand):
What’s been true in my past few decades of brand work is that brand building is just a loop. In a particular moment in time, you’re trying to define this thing you’re building in relation to the people building it, and the people it helps. And then you do it over and over again as the team changes, the products change, and customers change.
When you see a brand that feels like it lost its way, it’s almost always because their loop broke, or you stopped being the audience that’s in it. A ton of really stellar developer brands faded in the late 2010’s due to broken loops and huge audience shifts. We all have that one we grieved.
When the company is more established, a lot of the work in your loop becomes incremental — you’re measuring the delta since the last measurement. And you build a lot of process to help the whole company participate in the measuring at scale. Building a user voice program. Shipping global awareness studies. Staying on top of closed-lost sales reports.
But in that first phase of building the loop before you have datapoints, it feels like walking into the shimmer.
When you see a brand that feels like it lost its way, it’s almost always because their loop broke, or you stopped being the audience that’s in it. A ton of really stellar developer brands faded in the late 2010’s due to broken loops and huge audience shifts. We all have that one we grieved.
When the company is more established, a lot of the work in your loop becomes incremental — you’re measuring the delta since the last measurement. And you build a lot of process to help the whole company participate in the measuring at scale. Building a user voice program. Shipping global awareness studies. Staying on top of closed-lost sales reports.
But in that first phase of building the loop before you have datapoints, it feels like walking into the shimmer.
The 0→1 Dead Lift
Some things change more frequently over time, and some less. Once you’re in the >1 you hope you never have to change the company name or the brandmark. You hope to only have to reboot the category definition work once a year as you pivot through growth. But in the 0→1, it’s everything all at once — build an identity, find a mission, write down values, build a category, and do it all while you build the thing and find the people who need the thing. If it doesn't connect, melt it all down and start over.
When it’s done well, though, it actually helps you build the thing better. And find the people who need the thing. I think it’s particularly hard for technical founding teams because it looks like magic & chaos if it’s your first time in the shimmer. You survive it or you don’t, and you try to never look back.
But, we’ve found that it’s just a craft like anything else. It takes some coordination & practice when you’re doing it for the first time, and all at once. Fortunately, though, it doesn’t have to be chaos. The recipe is different for every team, but for the most part the ingredients are all the same. A lot of the work comes down to building structure around what the team already believes the brand is, who the team is, and who the customers are, and then booting up the loop.
I’m really looking forward to jumping back in and helping more teams make the 0→1 leap. And really can’t wait to see what they build.
If you’re about to make that leap, let’s talk!
When it’s done well, though, it actually helps you build the thing better. And find the people who need the thing. I think it’s particularly hard for technical founding teams because it looks like magic & chaos if it’s your first time in the shimmer. You survive it or you don’t, and you try to never look back.
But, we’ve found that it’s just a craft like anything else. It takes some coordination & practice when you’re doing it for the first time, and all at once. Fortunately, though, it doesn’t have to be chaos. The recipe is different for every team, but for the most part the ingredients are all the same. A lot of the work comes down to building structure around what the team already believes the brand is, who the team is, and who the customers are, and then booting up the loop.
I’m really looking forward to jumping back in and helping more teams make the 0→1 leap. And really can’t wait to see what they build.
If you’re about to make that leap, let’s talk!
