You're 6 weeks from your Series A pitch. Your co-founder says, "We need to work on our brand."
You hire a branding agency. They deliver a mood board, a new logo, and 40 pages of "brand guidelines."
You launch it. Nothing changes. Investors still don’t get what you do. Customers still compare you to the incumbent.
The problem with "branding"
Most startup branding is cargo cult behavior.
Founders see successful companies with beautiful brands. Think Stripe, Notion, or Linear.
They assume brand equals visual identity.
So they hire agencies who deliver aesthetics, not strategy.
But here's what they miss: Those companies didn't start with a brand. They started with a category.
Stripe didn't need a prettier logo than PayPal. They needed to own "payments for developers."
Notion didn't need a sleeker UI than Evernote. They needed to own the "all-in-one workspace."
Linear didn't need better colors than Jira. They needed to own "issue tracking for fast-moving teams."
The mistake is simple. Founders optimize for looking credible. They should optimize for being obvious.
What a category actually is
A category is the mental box people put you in when they hear your name.
If that box doesn't exist, you have to create it.
If it exists but it's crowded, you have to own a wedge of it.
If it's the wrong box, you have to redefine it.
Consider our client, Pinyya.
Before, their pitch was: "We're a fintech for real estate."
Investors heard: "So... another mortgage startup?"
After our work, the pitch became: "We're the co-ownership platform that makes real estate accessible without traditional mortgages."
Investors heard: "Oh, you're creating a new category."
The difference is clarity. Buyers and investors can now place you.
Category design is defining the problem in a way that makes your solution inevitable. It's naming the game so you win by default. It's building the narrative that buyers, press, and investors repeat.
Branding is making that category look and sound consistent.
One is strategy. The other is execution.
Why investors care about category
VCs don't fund "better versions." They fund category creators and category leaders.
Why? Because markets reward the #1 and #2 players in a category. #5 gets acquired or dies.
If you're in an existing category, your pitch is "we're 10% better than X." That's a feature, not a fundable company.
If you're creating a category, your pitch is "we're solving a $10B problem no one else is addressing." That's a narrative investors can sell to their partners.
When we worked with a client in the identity verification space, their original pitch was "Better identity verification." Investors said no. We repositioned them as "The compliance engine for regulated fintech." Same product. New category. They raised their round.
How to find your category
Here is a tactical framework.
Step 1: What's the real problem?Not "users need X." What structural or emotional problem does your product solve that alternatives don't? Slack didn't solve "we need chat." They solved "email is where work goes to die."
Step 2: Who else tried to solve this?Map your competitors. Not to copy them, but to see where the gaps are.
Step 3: What do you believe that they don't?This is your contrarian insight. The thing you know that the market hasn't caught up to yet. For Pinyya, it was: "We believe real estate should be accessible without debt." That's a point of view. That's a category.
Step 4: Name it.The category needs a name. Ideally 2-4 words. "Payments for developers." "All-in-one workspace." "AI-powered CRM."
Step 5: Build the narrative.Every piece of content, every pitch, every landing page should reinforce: "We are the [category]. Here's why it matters. Here's why we own it."
When to actually do brand work
You need branding work after you've defined the category.
Brand is the visual and verbal system that makes your category recognizable.
Do it in this order:
1.Category (positioning, messaging, narrative)
2.Brand (logo, colors, tone, design system)
Most founders do it backwards. They get a logo and hope it implies a strategy.
Start with category
If you're raising soon or launching publicly, don't start with brand. Start with category.
Define the problem in a way that makes you the inevitable solution. Name it. Own it. Then build the brand that represents it.
We've done this for fintech, SaaS, and proptech startups raising seed through Series B. Every time, category clarity unlocks the round.
Need help defining your category? Book a strategy session.
