A brand team before you can afford a brand team
D2C, ecommerce, new CPG, apps. Launching, or about to.
Most startups and D2C brands I meet have a product that is better than it looks. The logo came from a contest, the site came from a template, the packaging came from the manufacturer's designer, and none of it feels like one thing. Branding and marketing for a startup is about fixing that early, before the first real launch, so every dollar you spend after builds on something solid.
Who this is for
Founders launching a consumer product or a service, usually D2C first, sometimes heading to retail. Food and beverage, supplements, beauty, home, apparel, apps. Pre-launch to a few years in. Small team, real ambition, and no one in-house who has done this before.
What I do for a startup
The order matters. Brand first, then the things people see, then the things that drive them there.
- A brand identity built as a system: mark, type, color, voice, and the rules that keep it consistent as you hire.
- Packaging designed for the shelf it will sit on, with dielines, print files and a printer who does not call you confused.
- A Shopify or custom site where the product pages do the selling, fast on a phone, built to convert.
- Launch content: product photography, short video, the social and email that goes out in the first ninety days.
- Paid ads on Meta, TikTok and Google with creative made to match the landing page, tested and reported honestly.
- A pitch deck and sales sheet that look like the brand, for retail buyers and investors.
Why one person
I spent two years on the marketing side of a multinational CPG brand team, in the rooms where launches, retail programs and packaging got decided. Then I left to do this for brands that cannot hire that team yet. You get that experience from one person, directly, moving at your speed, without the agency layer between you and the work.
Fixed price per project, quoted up front. Most startups start with the identity or the site and add from there.
