Week 3 Post 1 - Brands and Customers

Understanding your customer
   - Bringing fans into creative process through feedback
   - Focal point: something we do better than anything else
   - Taking input from customers to shape the project
   - Curating the entire experience of using a product to fit to all of a customer's needs

Building A Team
   - Sum is greater than parts
   - Hire from bottom up
   - Feeling "good" with people
   - Hire diverse people that don't think the same way you do
   - Critics are essential
   - Change people working "for" you to "with" you

Developing Your Brand
   - A brand embodies the values of an individual or company.
   - Artists are more than the music, they are a personality and message
   - Diddy's clothes changed as his brand developed and matured; went from hip hop clothes and chains to suits and ties
   - Solving a problem for consumer benefit
   - Vibe and feel in business interactions are often more impactful than the product itself

Presenting
   - Boost confidence by doing whatever works for you to put you in a state of mind that will present you in a compelling and raw way.
   - Repetition is key to a refined and concise presentation.

Selling and Marketing Your Brand to an Audience
   - Audience and performer become one in great shows
   - Connect an audience to your startup as soon as you create it to create loyalty and a consistent following
   - Musicians who keep their music to themselves are selfish, they should be responsible to share their music and message with as many people as possible

My source, along with my previous posts, is my EdX class (should it be something else?).