[NEXT] Branding for Founders: Your Minimum Viable Brand

​Branding for Founders: Your Minimum Viable Brand

Anyone can ship a product now. What they can't ship overnight is how the market sees them.

​Brand isn't your logo. It's your position, and the feeling people attach to it. It's also the one thing you can't vibe code.

​Simon Hakim from Hunter has spent years helping founders work out what their brand actually is before they spend a cent making it look good. This one is about the smallest set of brand decisions that lets you go to market with conviction, and knowing when to stop there. We'll close on a live teardown of a real start-up brand.

​Who should come along

• ​First-time founders who can build the product but freeze when asked what makes it different

• ​Non-technical builders who already know the look isn't the point

• ​Anyone about to drop money on a logo or a rebrand before they've nailed their positioning

​What you'll walk away with

• ​A definition of brand you can actually use, minus the agency fluff

• ​A clear line between what's worth building now and what can wait

• ​A real start-up brand pulled apart end to end, so you can see the process in action

​About Simon Hakim

​Simon Hakim has been building brands for founders since 2010, when he co-founded the Melbourne agency Hunter. An RMIT engineer before he was a brand strategist, he has spent more than fifteen years up close with what actually separates the startups that break out from the ones that blend in. He has taken challenger brands to number one in their category and through to acquisition, but the useful part for this room is the pattern recognition that comes with it. He wrote Hunter's guide to minimum viable brand, and he is refreshingly blunt about what is worth your money early on and what is not.

​About Hunter

​Hunter is a Melbourne-based Creative Branding Agency helping ambitious founders, leadership teams and investors start, scale and reboot businesses. They simplify strategy, humanise brands and connect businesses with the people who matter most, creating the clarity, confidence and commercial value needed to grow. Founded in 2010 by Simon Hakim and Matt Gibbins, Hunter has partnered with organisations ranging from early-stage startups to established brands including 2XU, Cannatrek, Coca-Cola, Glizzy, Grinders Coffee, Hubbards, Sourci, Suntory, The Lumery, ThorAI, Vitadrop and Vodka Soda &.