Behind every successful beginning is
a well-planned launch.
“It’s dangerous to go alone.” – An unnamed old man from the first Zelda (1986). Luckily you’re not alone in starting a fresh chapter in your professional life since—and as it’s always with all new and unknown—the beginning is always the hardest part. Let me be your “unnamed old” man and guide you on your journey.
The Startup Kit service package is the most comfortable way to build a digital presence for your new business.
—and who wouldn’t love new beginnings and fresh starts?
The Startup Kit service is a tailor-made service package specifically created and curated to assist and guide new businesses during the first steps of their captivating journey. The service consists of three linear phases. The first phase will be all about branding; we’ll design and create essential brand assets and guidelines that’ll be used later in the second phase, where we produce basic marketing materials to support the novel brand identity. Finally, we’ll create a simple and captivating website based on the freshly established brand identity to captivate potential clients.
Usually, it takes 1–3 months to successfully cover all these three phases because writing copy texts, taking/selecting photos, and developing an SEO-friendly website takes time. These shouldn’t be rushed because, for example, regularly changing the company’s logo doesn’t deliver a clear and consistent brand image—you can only make the first impression once! On the other hand, not all of these steps are necessary if, for example, a (vector) logo is already available.
Read more about the three main phases below!
Phase 1
Creating a Selling Brand Identity
A strong and well-thought brand identity delivers a consistent and captivating message to the audience. During the first phase, we’ll define a desired brand identity and create essential assets to support and build it. The communication must be clear and unfiltered among the project’s stakeholders to create a desired brand identity. We’ll use a few design tools and methods to capture and share thoughts, insights, and ideas between the stakeholder—such as mood boards and benchmarking, to name a few.
This phase takes approximately 3–5 weeks, depending heavily on how many rounds of comments and retouching there will be.
The outcome of this phase:
- New logo and its variations for different mediums (print, web, etc.)
- Selected typography to support the logo
- Created a primary color theme
- Defined brand identity (values, voice, positioning, etc.)
Phase 2
Creating Killer Marketing Materials
Your perfect new business won’t fly all by itself without some marketing efforts. After a desired brand identity has been created during the first phase, it’s time to put it into practice and create essential marketing materials to make the brand fly. This phase usually takes one week, but every company has its own needs for marketing assets to cover its selected marketing mediums, but below are listed the most common ones;
The outcome of this phase:
- Versatile presentation template (MS Office or G Drive)
- Template for print-ready business cards
- Cover and profile images for social media accounts
- Basic document template (MS Office or G Drive)
- Polished pitch book
- Basic email templates for email marketing (MailChimp, SendGrid, etc.)
Phase 3
Developing a Captivating Website
It’s time to shine; differentiate yourself from competitors by creating a modern, scalable, and SEO-optimized website. Designing and publishing a website shouldn’t be a challenging task—it just takes a moment or two to prepare all the needed materials for it. This phase typically consists of five linear steps; benchmarking > wireframing > fine-tuning layout > developing a demo website > publishing the website. This phase usually takes 2–3 weeks after all materials are delivered, and the website will be delivered on a turnkey basis.
The outcome of this phase:
- A modern, responsive, and SEO-optimized WordPress-based website
- A brief guide on how to use the website
- A scalable solution that’s ready for future improvements
- Page templates for subpages and (blog)posts
- Polished landing page/homepage to make a killer first impression
- An integrated contact form with captcha/bot detection
- Integrated into a marketing platform (MailChimp, SendGrid, Marketo, etc.)
- Suitable for integrated analytic tools (Google Analytics, etc.)
- All guidance that’s needed to register a domain and select a suitable web hosting plan.
The Startup Kit
Still confused? Worry not.
Each project is unique—and that’s only a good thing! Trying to force-fit one way of working to every project doesn’t foster creativity or create unique and personal outcomes. I always try to apply scalable and open-source solutions whenever it’s feasible to tackle the ballooning costs of digital services. Just shoot me a message, and let’s take it from there!
p.s I know that buying digital services is hard! I wrote a brief guide, “How to Buy Digital Services?” to guide you in defining a scope for your next budget-friendly project.