Turns Out, Having a Business and Building a Brand Are Two Different Things!! 🤦🏾‍♀️

Turns Out, Having a Business and Building a Brand Are Two Different Things

I would like to file a complaint.

Nobody adequately explained the number of decisions involved in turning an idea into a brand.

I thought I had the important part.

The idea.

Cute.

Apparently, an idea is just the beginning of a very long list of questions you didn’t know you needed answers to.

What does it look like?

What does it sound like?

Who is it for?

What does the packaging feel like?

What goes in the first collection?

What’s too much?

What’s not enough?

What makes somebody remember you after they’ve closed the tab?

And my personal favorite:

Do I actually like this—or have I just been staring at it too long?

I’m learning the difference.

You can start a business.

Register the name. Buy the domain. Make the product. Put a price on it.

Technically, there it is.

But a brand?

That’s different.

A brand has a point of view.

It has a feeling.

You recognize it before somebody has to explain it to you.

And that’s the part I’ve been trying to figure out with Sipsy.

Because I don’t want to put tea in a pretty bag, slap a logo on it and call it a day.

There are plenty of pretty bags in the world.

I want Sipsy to feel like something.

And figuring out exactly what that something is has been interesting.

Because I like elegant things.

But I don’t particularly like stuffy things.

I like beautiful things.

But if everything is too perfect, I get bored.

I love culture and tradition, but I’m also the person asking, “Okay, but what happens if we put THIS with it?”

I want color.

I want flavor.

I want personality.

I want you to open something and immediately want to smell it.

Then taste it.

Then turn the package around because now you need to know what’s actually in there.

Basically, I want Sipsy to behave exactly like I do when I find something interesting.

Investigate immediately.

😂

And apparently, I’m picky.

This has been another discovery.

I can like something and still know it isn’t right.

That’s annoying.

Because “this is nice” should be enough sometimes.

It is not.

I’ve looked at things that were perfectly beautiful and thought:

Nope. Not us.

I’ve changed my mind.

Then changed it back.

Then changed one tiny thing that probably nobody else on Earth would notice.

And somehow that was the thing bothering me.

If you’re wondering whether this is exhausting…

occasionally. 😂

But I’m starting to understand why it matters.

People can tell when something knows what it is.

I think that’s what I’m chasing.

Not perfection.

Identity.

I want Sipsy to have one.

I want it to feel like there is an actual person behind it.

Because there is.

Someone curious.

Someone particular.

Someone who probably researched the ingredient you’re holding longer than was reasonably necessary.

Someone who wants good tea but also wants the experience around the tea to be good.

Someone who thinks beautiful packaging matters because anticipation is part of tasting something too.

And someone who is slowly realizing that building a brand isn’t just deciding what you’re going to sell.

It’s deciding how you want people to feel when they meet you.

I’m still figuring that part out.

There are things about Sipsy today that probably won’t look the same a few years from now.

Actually, knowing me, I can almost guarantee that.

But I don’t think changing means I got it wrong.

Sometimes you have to make the first version before you can see the second one.

And maybe that’s what building a brand actually is.

You make a decision.

You live with it.

You learn something.

You get clearer.

Then you make the next one.

Over and over again until one day you look around and realize—

Oh. There you are.

— RI

Tags:
Sipsy by RI, Building Sipsy, Behind the Scenes, Entrepreneurship, Brand Building, From RI With Flavor, The Flavor Files