Ask HN: What place should "branding" have at a tech startup?
A while ago I worked for a startup that built mobile apps in the edtech space. Our apps had decent traction for the market we were in, but it didn't look like this was going to become a "venture scale" business anytime soon. We had just received a bridge loan to keep us afloat when the CEO decided that what the company lacked was branding and better "storytelling".
So instead of the normal avenues for app promotion: reaching out to communities, building an email campaign, advertising, etc., the company spent $30,000 (a large chunk of our remaining runway) for a "brand" consultant to teach us copywriting. At the same time, we were holding meetings with an advisor who spent time putting together indecipherable brand decks where he talked about "using spiral imagery to indicate upward progress for students"—it felt like a scene out of "Mad Men".
Throughout this period, I was making the argument to the rest of the team that we needed someone with digital marketing experience who knew what an A/B test was, and that these other efforts were ineffective and wasteful. I wasn't winning the argument and growing increasingly frustrated at the money being hemorrhaged on "branding" and left the company.
So I guess my question is this: was my antipathy towards the emphasis on branding efforts justified? or is there still a place for mad-men style advertising at the tech startup? what evidence is there on this question, in either direction?