Adventures in Logo Land
Let’s not beat around the bush here, we’re a lean startup. In true entrepreneurial spirit we’re trying to maximise the output we receive for every dollar spent. It’s not that we’re tight arses (ok, maybe a little) but we understand the enormity of the challenge we have taken on, and know that our current requirements for Cupstart far outstrip our cash on hand.
This isn’t particularly worrying as we know we have to maintain the momentum and get as far as possible, as quickly as possible, with the least amount of dollars spent as possible before pivoting, tweaking or negotiating our way over the next hurdle.
To do this we must maintain focus on the necessary items like the quality of our product, ease of use, sales & marketing and not the ‘fluffy stuff’. Now I know that some people will kick up a fuss and disagree with me, but honestly, a logo is not a necessary item. It’s a tiny aspect that makes up part of a brand but certainly isn’t THE brand.
We’re about 80% comfortable with the definition of our brand so far – we know we need to experience hitting the market first to truly define who & what we want to be. Cupstart is coupling the wonders of technology with the seduction of coffee. Our target market is young upwardly mobile professionals occupying high-density locations. We’re all about providing convenience by saving you time and energy during your usual daily habit routine.
We’re looking for a simple, elegant and classy brand to match our pitch towards the higher end off the coffee market. We want to access time poor money rich professionals in the CBD, that have far better things to do than wait around in crowds for their coffee fix. Cupstart is the business class of coffee.
To that end, we deliberated over the who/how/where to get a suitable logo designed to match our brand all while trying to get it for next to nothing (Side note: as you might have guessed – don’t have any in-house design skills). We looked at various outsourcing services such 99Designs, Freelancer, Odesk, Guru and eLance. After much to-ing and fro-ing we decided to post a cheap design job on Odesk (simply because I had an account and had used it previously) and received over 30 candidate applications for the job. Choosing one standout is the hardest bit as you never know what you’re getting.
I conversed with the winner over Skype, answered questions and clarified the brief before leaving him to weave his creative magic (I have to admit I was a little excited). The next morning I woke to find an email in my inbox with design mockups attached and they were completely, absolutely, tediously awful!
I’m no designer and admittedly it was a cheap job, but… I was expecting more!
Here they are – what’s your opinion? (Click to load larger image)
So now we’re left with this conundrum. We don’t know where to turn next. We took a risk at an el-cheapo option in the spirit of saving time, energy and dollars and it backfired. Do we re-try our luck at a higher price? Go with a more reputable design service like 99Designs? Or try to call in some favours with clever friends?
If you’ve got any thoughts/ideas/feedback please share them in the comments below.
It’s a tough one and it frustrates me knowing that we’re wasting spending so much time on a lousy logo when we should be maintaining focus on revenue-producing tasks. I’m always reluctant to go down the path of asking friends for favours unless I genuinely have something of value to give in return. The last thing I want to do is damage personal relationships over a few petty dollars.
It’s never about the money.
Mike.
oh. dear.
I think you answered your own question – “we should be maintaining focus on revenue-producing tasks” pretty pictures can wait.
[Reply]
Oh dear…I hope you have recovered from those logo’s….
Ah yes….the eternal struggle between branding and revenue…..which comes first…..the logo that gets noticed and inspires the business owner to keep going each day, to face adversity, to choose the unchoosable….or…..head down, bum up, make the sales calls, negotiate the best deal, refine the idea, eat for another week?
Without one can the other exist? No chance…both are reliable on each other and crucial to success however without the later how can we justify expenditure on the former?
I think your answer lies in your own question as well….call in as many favours as you need, put the design job out to everyone in the world and keep eating!
[Reply]
@Nick McIntosh, absolutely we should be focussing on revenue-producing tasks but we still face the conundrum of launching a business without a brand. A brand is something you have from the beginning, yes it tweaks and improves over time but if you want to gain any traction with early-adopters you can’t be changing your look and feel every second day. At the same time, I have about 10 other things I could spend the money on right now. It’s a classic chicken before the egg problem…
[Reply]
@Ken Blaikie, you nailed it – you found the words I was looking for and described our predicament perfectly. Now can you come up with the perfect solution too??
haha
This post has generated a lot of discussion with friends offline as well and I’m starting realise that I’ve missed the mark completely. I even state in the post “..a logo is not a necessary item. It’s a tiny aspect that makes up part of a brand but certainly isn’t THE brand.”
I think we need to move the goal posts from getting a nice logo designed to having the Cupstart brand properly defined and designed. The logo is a miniscule part of the brand and I’ve been kidding myself that we can start with one and let the rest of the brand emerge from there. We’ve got a tiny window of opportunity to make this dream a reality and that means getting peoples attention early and keeping it. Our messaging must be clear and get to the point immediately.
For now, it’s back to the drawing board but I think we need to design our whole image, not just a logo.
What are your thoughts, am I getting warmer?
[Reply]
Hi Mike.
Sorry to hear about the logo not working out for you. I run two logo design businesses for which one of them includes a contest site.
Out of all contest sites that we can find we are the only ones to offer a unique satisfaction guarantee. If you are not satisfied with any of your logo design contest entries after 7 days you may run your contest again for an additional 7 days at no extra charge. You can do this up to 4 times if you need. I personally have over 15 years of corporate brand design under my belt and have carefully built our site with the client and designer in mind.
Please check out our site http://klick360.com and if you have any questions at all just hit the contact link at the top of the site and I will attend to your request personally.
Regards
Jamie Russ
[Reply]
Jamie, thanks for the details – it’s great to see an Aussie taking on the 99designs giants!
We’ve got our logo all sorted now and I’ve got another post on the way to update everyone. I’ll keep your services in mind for the future.
Cheers,
Mike
[Reply]
Id love to hear how you got the logo done, its an interesting story, one I go through every time i make a new product.
Patrick
A co-hater of queues
[Reply]