 excited to have Sophia, Aunt and Natasha here. They all have tremendous experience in brand marketing, both at startups and larger corporations. But to kick things off, why don't we start with each one of you sharing a very common misconception about brand marketing from a founder perspective? Dang. So, ease us in early. Ease us in gently. I think the most common one I tend to see is that it's just not important, which is crazy to me because brand is absolutely everything that you do, think, say, touch and make. And it impacts everything. And for me, the idea and especially, you know, working with as many very early stage companies as I do and a lot of companies in the B2B space and for them thinking that marketing and brand just isn't something they need to think about is a total oversight to me. I can just echo that and say that many startups I find are very tech and product driven. So at least my experience with Spotify, spending a lot of time with extremely talented developers, I really needed to sort of convince them that it was important to build a brand. And it took a while, but I felt a bit sort of singled out in the beginning because they said, you know, if we just have a great product, we don't need to put any makeup on it. So let's just build something that's good. And I think, of course, that's key. But even though you have a great product, you need to make it easy for people to talk about it and to understand what it is. No, maybe maybe this is boring if I just build on what was said, because I think this is actually the true aspect of it. I think we most of the people look at brand as being advertising or media or something like that. But I think we need to understand that there is a much broader approach to brand. And from the founder perspective, I think it's also important that they understand the whole ecosystem, the whole aspect of the holisticness of branding. And sometimes that's a struggle because, you know, if you compartmentalize everything, you know, communication, branding, you know, such product, and there is a lot of other disciplines, I think it's not leading you to the real result that you need to bring, which is consumer concentricity and really building something that has purpose and is strong. So it sounds like we're all in alignment that a common misconception is that founders just don't value brand enough. And in terms of companies that are doing well with branding and brand marketing, do you have any examples of brands that you think the audience here should look out for from a brand marketing standpoint? I have one that I really love. It's called Oatly. I don't know if many have ever seen it, but they're doing Oat Milk. And they're really driving the course of that, you know, humans aren't really made for drinking cow's milk. So they are raising awareness, and it's kind of both quirky and fun, but they're really taking a stand and being bold. And I love that. Brands that have a bit of balls and need to want to stand out. And didn't Oatly also sponsor like a music festival in Sweden? Yes. Yeah, which is like a milk sponsoring a music festival, yeah. I love this brand in the UK at the moment called Bulb. So they are somewhere you get your energy from. So really boring, absolute commodity, right? As well as something where there's just not really any customer loyalties or really difficult market. And they've created this entire positioning around positive energy. And the fact that, you know, if you use Bulb, that you get, you know, that there's renewable energy and there's money going into renewables. So it's got that amazing balance of the emotional drivers, why you would want to use that over other ones. And then as well, there's the brilliant kicker of a 50-pound referral fee. So you have that rational thing as well that if I do use this product, I'm going to save money. And I get to sort of, you know, peacock and tell everybody that I've done a really good thing in the process by using something that is renewable. The beauty of it being that the energy comes off the same grid as everyone else. It is pure branding. It's genius. You're like, no, let's go on. So knowing that brand is super important, we talked about it here. What are, for startups that are maybe in the audience here, just starting to think about their brand marketing and maybe their marketing budget in general, like, what does it actually cost to build a good brand? Like, is there such price? Time? I'm sorry to say it again. How much does it actually cost to build a good brand for someone who is allocating their marketing budget as we speak? So I think it's not coming for free, that's for sure. And this is not a misconception that you have to actually always discuss with founders, obviously. But I think there is something to be said about, again, you know, what is the actual proposition that you have? I think in some cases you have brands that actually take so much attention because the product and the proposition that you have is so unique and so new. And I'm actually glad that I work in a company like that, that, you know, has an incredible attention at the moment, even if we don't have a product in the market at the moment. And so sometimes then it gives you the opportunity to actually do things that are much cheaper than, you know, just a traditional company would do it. Obviously the marketing budgets of traditional companies are much broader and much bigger than the startups. But I think it is also, it's really depending on, you know, how new, how innovative your business model really is. And if you can score on that one, it's actually possible to build a brand from very little, I would say. I can testify to that, actually, because my first two years with Spotify, I didn't really have a budget. But I think if you use PR, no, I know it's a bit stupid. But if you work with PR in a smart way, and depending on what type of product you have, and if you find the network's effects and listen to what the audience is sort of getting excited about around your product, and if you can tap into like fan bases or communities that are fans, I think there's a lot you can do. But I would say that the most important sort of ingredients when building a brand is time and passion and dedication, and just being relentless. Yeah. And also repeating your message in every opportunity you get, in all of the channels you get. But I think as well, you know, what I tend to see a lot of the time, especially in there's not necessarily a marketing or a brand person in the founding team. So you've got that entire skill set that's missing. And so then what happens is people think, right, well, I need to just throw money at the problem, because I've sort of delayed it. I've not thought about it. And then it's like, ah, we need to actually grow. What do we do? How do we do it? And so then they're like, okay, let's bring in a consultant or someone from the outside. But I often see that full flat, because when you spend a lot of money on a kind of a piece of paper, essentially a lot of the time, which is maybe your purpose, your values, your mission, all of those things, then you have nobody internally who can actually activate on it. It's a total waste of time. And so I kind of, I really urge and advise people if they are going to invest in brand to make sure it's something that they can follow through. I like your suggestion on seeing what the consumers are saying and amplifying on that. That's definitely something we had experienced with that Uber as well. I think normally you have to spend a lot of money when you're changing the message. But if you're just amplifying it, you can really tap into network effects. My other question, and speaking on like product, and you're at a company that's having a very innovative product right now. So Ant is at Lilium, which is the first, I mean, maybe you can do a quick, just like elevator picture. We are creating a innovative air mobility service that is based on air taxis. It goes like this. Yeah. Vertical takeoff and landing. It's like no starting path. So my question is. MailChimp. I'm sure all of you in here are familiar with MailChimp and their latest campaign is all about the fact that they have outgrown their name. They're no longer just a newsletter service, but rather a full service marketing tool. What is your advice in terms of like early stage marketing strategies around your product? Are there any do's and don'ts between like creating your brand, surrounding your product services? I think it's good to think about the bigger picture and not just the first product or feature, so that you're not limiting yourself with a name that is talking about that first thing. So maybe more think broadly about what is the area that I want to become the spokesperson of, which is the area that I want to take lead on and what is the change that I want to drive and how do we do it? I think the reality when you're very early is it's going to evolve. What shouldn't evolve is the purpose and the why you're doing it, but the reality of what the product is, especially right at the beginning, is going to change. And so a lot of the time people want tag lines and strap lines and things, and I often look to those as kind of conduits for campaign moments. So things that you can iterate on and you can evolve and sort of flex as your product evolves alongside you. I think for me this is, first of all, as we heard, it's the end in mind, being clear about what you're trying to get to, but then also being extremely crystal clear on the value that you bring to the customer. So at the end of the day, it's very sobering to sit down to really think about the fact what makes this product so valuable and what makes it different to others in some cases. And really understand the user cases and you have to be crystal clear on this and you have to be really relentless in understanding this because that's the starting point of everything. If you don't, if you skip that point, if you try to be, let's say, a storyteller without having the story, then you're missing the point. I think it's super important to be very clear about that. The three of you have experience working both within smaller startups and with larger brands, either on an agency level in your case or with Fortune 500 companies in your case. And, Sophia, you were within Spotify from super small startup to large corporation. How does the role of marketing evolve in such a shift? Like from being at a startup versus a large corporation? I can give my two cents, but I think it goes from being kind of man-made, in-house, one person doing it all to turn into like a big machinery where you act in plus 50 markets in probably as many languages and you're doing multiple campaigns on an ongoing basis. So you really need to be good at hiring and have a big team that supports you. And of course, processes in place that help you maintain the brand. So in the beginning it was easy because then I made all the decisions about what was right and on brand for us. But then as we grew bigger and the local team started doing things, we needed to keep that in control. So we created this whole brand management scheme that I was running and overseeing. A brand management team. Yeah. Wow. I think this is a totally different business, in my point of view. The moment you're getting to a certain threshold, everything changes. So you have international teams, you have communication challenges, and you think about cultural diversity in the markets that you want to enter. I think in the beginning of the startup career, let's say, this is playing a role in the background, but it's not really up front. But as you go forward, then all these things become, let's say, front and center. And you're thinking much more about entering different markets. And how do you enter different markets? How do you have to actually build adaptation to your proposition, to actually enter these markets? So it becomes another ballgame. I think being in this situation that I had, let's say this scenario before, I can say that startup thinking is super different to running an actual corporate marketing team. That's different and both wonderful. In between, there's a long journey. Sophia, as an investor, what do you look for when you're investing in a brand? Do you have a checklist? What do you look for? I don't have that checklist, but maybe I should put one in place. I think it is that authenticity that you look for. And normally it starts within a company. So I think you can tell from the founder if they have that sort of enormous passion and grit and determination to do this and to drive the type of change they want to see. So I think, I don't know, I think I have some sort of antenna for when it's real or when it's people that are just putting something together, but the purpose and the heart is not in it. When the heart is in it, you can normally feel it in the culture of the team and that they just do it without thinking about it. It kind of comes natural to them, I think. When your whole soul is embodied and you just want to do this. And Natasha, you are the CMO at Seed Camp, so a CMO within a VC firm. I'm curious to hear what your work entails and what does a week look like for you. Yeah, it's super varied and it was a really weird transition going from doing that role in a startup to doing it in a fund, I guess, namely because in a startup you have all of the metrics and the numbers you need to be hitting and it's very tangible. You can measure it really clearly, especially when you're in product type businesses as I was, whereas when you're in a fund, obviously the core measure is how you're returning on your investments, which takes seven plus years. So the things you're doing the kind of day to day and actually measuring the impact on it is so much harder, but it's so rewarding because we at Seed Camp because we invest so early, we have such a massive breadth of companies who are really doing anything and everything because we're sector agnostic. So I get the chance to work with all of those businesses on how they build their brand and taking them really from often their pre-product and there's nothing there to how they shape something around it. And as they scale and as they grow into bigger businesses, what that then looks like, if they are starting to think about different markets or hiring or agencies or speaking to the media, it's really varied, which is great. Cool. And Arndt, you're at a company who hasn't yet launched the product. What's exciting about that versus challenging? So it's kind of challenging because when you think about it, we are starting from scratch, really from scratch. So it's starting a new category that people really can't really grasp. Even though I tell you that we're working on an air mobility service, we think, what? Right? So at the end of the day, so what we are trying to do here is, and we have to do that, is basically launching the brand before the product is launched. And the reason is first of all, we need credibility for a whole new way of moving around a whole new way of, let's say, mobility that people need to understand first. So we have to bring them along. So in the beginning, it's all about credibility, understanding that this is possible, understanding that it should happen this way. And then on the next step, we have to think about how do we actually bring people along the idea that this is something for them. They consider it as something that is important. So we need to have social acceptance. So in order to do that, we have a couple of years to really educate people about the brand and the category and the business model before we actually launch. If we wouldn't do it, I think it would be a quite a surprise to everybody. And I think this is something that happens naturally because there's also so much interest in this category right now so that we basically have to build the brand in already a very significant competition level that is happening from day one. So it is something that is not even a choice. So we have to really build this brand and build the brand Lilium to be able to compete in the market. And what's your guys' experience when it comes to prioritizing brand versus performance marketing? I sometimes feel like they're at the opposite end of the spectrum. Can these work together? Are they separate departments? What's your experience? They have to work together. I think especially at the very early stage, performance makes sense. It's more tangible, it's more immediate when you're trying to speak to investors and demonstrate your growth. It's a lot easier to make the case for it. However, if the brand message and content is crap, your performance is not going to fly. So they're not one or the other. You have to invest the time in thinking around the stories that you want to tell and then thinking about the channels and the levers you're going to pull to help you tell those stories. And performance is a really critical part of that in the early stage. Does this story part come from like one player in-house and like the performance marketing from someone else or how is that collaboration? Again, at the early stage, from what I've seen, it would be one key player shaping what the brand message in the story is and then you perhaps have somebody underneath who's actually planning what the performance is going to look like, running the Facebook campaigns, iterating, testing, seeing what your customer segments are looking like and being able to quickly turn things on and off based on what customers are performing and responding best to the messages you're putting out there. It's my favorite topic because I think this is really two sides of the same metal and people really make it very difficult. But at the end of the day, both is needed. Both have reasons to be. There's different strategies that drive both parts. The one is more transactional. The other one is, of course, more driven by consideration and brand, let's say, equity aspect. Do they have to be managed sometimes simultaneously? And I come from an omnichannel company environment where this conversation is happening all the time. How much money is going in this direction? How much money is going in this direction? So there needs to be strong leadership that is protecting, of course, the brand part because it plays an important role. But also, there needs to be also clarity on the performance and, for example, performance marketing lost some of its magic in terms of retail, for example, in the fashion industry. We all know the retargeting banners are following you around when you looked at a product and people got tired of it and totally lost its kind of spin. So at the end of the day, it loses efficiency by 50% and more. So at the end of the day, there is always movement and you have to react to it and it's part of the marketing mix that you have to manage. It's part of your keyboard that you're playing when you manage a brand. And so it's not the one or the other. It's hard to actually make them work together in the best and possible way. I echo what you guys said and the way we did it. I think it's super important that it worked together. The way we did it was that my team was the sort of storytelling team and we had like an in-house agency that created all of the correctorals. And it was our job to make sure that people understood who we were and sort of trying to convey our soul. And then we saw the growth team as the machinery that would take the message out. Could we maybe also talk a little bit about the inevitable transition from having a product that's tailored for the early adopters and then shifting towards the mainstream market. This is a shift that I feel like every startup hopefully has to go through. And what are your do's and don'ts in that transition? It's a good one. One reflection I had is that when you are operating in one or maybe few markets, it's easier to have a personality and it's easier to have a tone of voice that can make jokes and be more than a vanilla voice. But when you are in 50 plus markets and you want to roll out a campaign, it's hard to localize a joke for instance. Then I saw that the tendency we had that we became a bit more boring actually and in the more markets we were rolling out because we were trying to be not offending anyone and just be sort of not doing harm. But that also meant that we didn't make as much sort of impression I guess because we didn't make any jokes in the same way as we did when we were in few markets. So I think it's a bit of a challenge to keep your personality and your tone of voice when you're operating in many countries. I don't have the solution to it. I think it's a hard one that everybody probably is trying to crack. I think there are nuances as well with the type of brand and product that you are. It's something that we've really seen with Transferwise which is one of our investments. Transferwise started up in 2011. It was a few years after the economic crash and the banks were kind of public enemy number one. So having a really irreverent strident brand coming out and literally saying F you the banks which was the early marketing campaigns, everyone loved and it was brilliant and it was you know they did nothing to hide and they did a sort of naked protest showing that because there was no fees with their product they also had nothing to hide. You know that as as they build as the market sort of calmed down as that hatred towards the banks has sort of swayed and they've had to sort of convey the importance of trust. The message has has sort of you know not diluted but has had to to calm down I think a little bit alongside it but they still know the sort of brand that they are and I think that that still comes through and which is important to that earlier doctor customer because otherwise you sort of look at it and like well this no longer speaks to me. I always think of it as you know like a musician that you first discovered and then everyone else knows about them and it's like oh they're not cool now because everyone else. Yeah and I guess that's part of my question too with like taking an example like Nike they have mastered being both in the sense that they're very mainstream you can probably find them in like every outlet but then at the same time they continue to innovate and engage with the early adopters and the trendsetters and I'm curious as to like what does that recipe look like for startups. I think I think the recipe works I personally think the recipe works I think this should also of course in a startup scenario you are already and by definition when you're using the word startup you're already very early in the process right so later you're becoming a real grown-up company mature company you're not necessary startup anymore but at the end of the day I think every company needs to think about that every company needs to think how can it be let's say a little bit more bold and interesting at the very at the very beginning of the brand career and and how can we actually build you know build a story about it and Nike is exactly what I also think you know if you ask me about Nike I think this is wonderful how they did it how they were able to create a business in all channels you know being able to the highest possible channels with celebrities and you know with with all the other things that are going around and they're potentially also in a Walmart right so it's really it's really something that that is that is mastering the idea of of the of the brand Pyramid and I think it I would love that to I would love to see that also happening in the case of Lillium and this would be my my hope that we get there but I I don't think that every brand should or can be bold and I think that's the sort of misconception as well with a lot of startup brands like Nike works because it's true to their brand DNA and so when you see things like the Kaepernick campaign you know it's brilliant and it doesn't feel too jarring whereas a lot of the time with startups they because I don't think they've properly defined that early stage you know the why do you exist where do you sit in the market how do you express yourself it then means that the sort of campaigns like flip-flops they think oh we want to be bold this moment I will want to be this and what they haven't done is actually think about what do our customers want from us and what's that disproportionately influential customer going to want from us and how do we tailor the brand and the message and the story around them I guess it's also sometimes being bold in a campaign versus being bold in your DNA and that's where authenticity comes in it's not authentic for a brand to just be bold from one day to the next but if that's like part of your DNA then maybe that's your strategy and I also wanted to talk speaking of like going from early adopters to to mainstream what are the possible trade-offs between marketing and sales I guess it depends on where you are and what organization you're in for me it meant sometimes that we were having discussions about integrity of the brand versus a pile of money and it's hard to win that battle so you know in the end of the day it's again it's the same scenario that we already had with performance and so on there is a part in the organization that is driven by other KPIs and it's driven by tactical approaches that's not wrong we all kind of want to be successful in everything and so sales has a role in that and there is marketing and that tend to be on the other side of this of this kind of scenario where we are also thinking about protecting the brand protecting the bigger idea but the other thing is most of the time this is just a debate and the debate needs to happen within the company and it is very important that it happens but in the end of the day it's also a debate that needs to be somehow mature because we're talking about the same thing we're talking about short term on mid and long term right so and I think there is first there's times when you have to give more focus on the sales and then there is times that you probably don't do this because you know you might harm your brand or you know there are certain certain aspects that a mature company manage well and is that a valid argument by the way like we can't do this because it will like dilute the brand even though if it if it has a pile of money for me that was a very very wise leadership to actually understand where to say no that's that's that's clear otherwise brand is always in defense because because you you know if you have you have somebody you know waving a check then it's an it's an easier it's an easier way to describe you know what the benefit is thank you guys so much thank you thank you