So you’ve started a small business. Yay! Now that you’re in the (shh!) secret club, these things will soon arrive at your doorstep:
- A stack of books by Seth Godin
- A special pass allowing you free business-class upgrades on every airline
- A sackful of money to develop a brand that will put your business on a level with Apple.
If you’re like me, you spent the sackful of money on Apple products. So it’s back to square one on that pesky branding thing.
When the sackful of money doesn’t arrive right away
If you’re like most new business owners (or, ahem… me), you do the fun stuff first and save the tax stuff for later. So, the fun stuff: a web site, twitter account, facebook fan page, logo, business cards, and custom pens to give away. Right. As long as we’re not pretending otherwise here.
Since you don’t have a sackful of money on day one, creating your brand or even getting a logo designed can be daunting. It’s a big expense. Working with a professional designer or branding pro is well worth the investment and if you can swing it, that’s the route you should go.
But let’s pretend that me saying that’s what you should do doesn’t mean you can suddenly afford it. There’s still that missing sack.
I’m going to tell you about something that seems counter to everything I’ve ever said on this blog about getting cheap design. It’s called 99 Designs.
99 Designs is a web site where you can pick out an image from a vast catalog and get a logo created, lickety-split, for the obvious price of $99. It’s almost painless and certainly fast. It’s at least a tenth of the price of working with a designer.
In the past I’ve warned people (in strongly-worded rants) to stay far away from these kinds of services. So why have I changed my stance? Simple, really.
I started to think about this logo design process from the perspective of a shiny new (micro) business owner. Wow, imagine that.
From what I see, it’s incredibly tough. Aside from those free Seth Godin books at your door, there’s no information that just comes to you about how to do all this stuff. So if you can’t afford a designer, the only choice seems to be to do nothing (or incur the wrath of elitist designers like me).
Okay, so there’s not doing nothing. There’s doing it yourself. I’ve recommended in the past (and I still think this is a good idea) that if you can’t afford a logo, just type your business name in a common, legible font and sit tight until you build some capital.
But $99.00 to get something decent that will make your business cards look a step above something you created with your printer’s design software? Man, that’s tempting. And could be a really great deal for you.
So get a $99 logo but consider this first
Here’s the thing about these off-the-rack logos. They’re not tailored for you and the people you serve. You’re not creating a brand. You’re decorating. Is that okay with you? Maybe you don’t need to think Branding with your tiny felt monster biz on etsy. It’s way more important to just get moving and create your cool felt dudes than get mired in branding strategies.
Listen, if you have a landscaping business you can go pick out a tree image and let the $99 Designs people pair it with a nice font and lay it out. Boom, landscaping logo. You’re not going to do any harm. You are not evil. You’re smart. You would be stupid not to take advantage of this deal in your early days.
However, when you need to get across who you are to your right people instead of just any ol’ shmoe looking for the cheapest landscaper, you’ll need to wor