by Clay Ostrom | Last Updated: Jan 11, 2021 | Brand Strategy, Marketing, Messaging, Positioning, Startups, Website
< Back to The Campfire When developing a brand it’s easy to find yourself trapped in a mental bubble. You live and breathe your business every day, and as a result tend to lose perspective on the work. This can lead to writer’s block for your messaging, designer’s...
by Clay Ostrom | Last Updated: Mar 26, 2022 | Brand Strategy, Building Your Brand, Industry Trends, Messaging, Positioning, Startups
< Back to The Campfire This article was featured in the March 2020 issue of Foundr Magazine(click to view the piece) No matter how great your product or service is or how much funding you have, every brand starts at zero when it comes to their audience. Zero...
by Clay Ostrom | Last Updated: Jul 18, 2020 | Brand Think Pieces, Entrepreneurship, Psychology, Startups
< Back to The Campfire You’re at your desk. You’re deep into a problem. You’ve stared at it for hours. You’ve hacked away most of the obvious nonsense. You’ve got it down to the core.And now you’re stuck. You need to figure out:That right combination of words for...
by Clay Ostrom | Last Updated: Jan 3, 2019 | Customers, Marketing, Psychology, Startups, Strategy
< Back to The Campfire Whether you’re a startup or you’ve been around for years, talking to your customers is a critical practice. It provides a level of insight into your business that you can’t get through surveys and analytics alone. I recently worked on a...
by Clay Ostrom | Last Updated: Mar 26, 2022 | Brand Teardowns, Elements of Value, Jobs To Be Done, Marketing, Psychology, Startups, Strategy, Teardown
< Back to The Campfire The 10X Rule for innovation sets a bar that’s simple to understand but very difficult to achieve. The rule roughly states that in order for customers to switch from a current behavior, they need a new option that’s 10X better. The value of...
by Clay Ostrom | Last Updated: Jul 18, 2020 | Customers, Data, Marketing, Psychology, Startups, Strategy
< Back to The Campfire As business owners, we all make assumptions about how our customers think and feel. But when those assumptions are wrong, customers will struggle to see the value of our offering.To validate our assumptions, we do things like:Talk to...
