Brand is nothing less than who we are in the markets eye.

The customers view of themselves in your product to how they work, play or live.

It’s what they hold in their hand if you have a consumer product. It’s what drives them to put your app on the front screen of your phone and keep it there.

It is also where I like to start, even before understanding your product or how you plan to get it to market.

And invariably it’s the most problematic part for most companies to get right.

Marketing is a catch all umbrella term for countless tactics with a smattering of behavioral science tying them together.

But at its core—at least how I practice it—it is about that simple brand connection between you and the customer. The place where what you sell intersects with what they think they are buying.

Tactics aside, I find a core discrepancy in most entrepreneurs around understanding brand as a defining value.

When you pitch your company you are transporting the listener to the top of your private hill and laying out a landscape of a changed world. Where what you believe and what you build is core to the how people live. Or how companies go about their business.

This is the fire that drives.

Most entrepreneurs know what they are about. At a gut level they know why the market should care.

Connecting that vision to product value is the kicker.  Invariably this is where companies falter.

Many early companies build something clean and shiny to a very crisp spec, then flounder at a cold stop in front of the market.

Think about it this way.

When you pitch your vision you are sharing a sense of wonder. A sense of personal possibility.

It’s  your job to do the same thing for the market when you are launching your product.

Where what you believe becomes a large part of what the market adopts. Where your sense of inspiration around an idea becomes the customers sense of wonderment around how it works for them.

Step back a moment and think about how your company functions at this juncture.

How with focused intent you took your vision and materialized it into a product. How you have labored insanely hard to build something simple, intuitive and ready for public consumption.

Right here is where ideas like Lean Startup clash with market reality and brand awareness.

We iterate our way to market fit. No question.

So how do you balance iterating your product with selling the value of your brand and the sharing of your core brand belief—even at an early stage?

Sell your vision is what you must do. Asking the market what they think of you, you certainly can’t in those terms.

That’s why brand first even at the earliest stage is something to hold onto. Something to lead with.

The market will guide you but it will not tell you who you are without a sense of what you bring to them. It is not their job to help you. It is your job to share the wonder that drove you to this place and inspire them to respond.

It is your job to create the environment that both sells hard and listens patiently. That speaks your customer’s language but tests your core brand beliefs in a fluid way.

Brand first is a workable methodology for choice for early stage companies. Your language to have a conversation with a yet unaware market.

It begins with you, it ends with the customer.

But always, it’s about how you share wonder and create the possibility for that to grow and change.

It’s marketing at its core.