Brand strategy, story naming, identity, and messaging for an AI-powered productivity startup

Sean stewards the soul of Flow. He architected the brand strategy. He distills the brand strategy through creative writing and concepts. Sean holds me accountable to the brand promise with an unwavering commitment to consistency.
Rich Prashad
Founder

Background

The working hypothesis is that distractions reduce productivity, and there’s no way to avoid them in an information/notification-filled world.

The new productivity SaaS product is designed to be the user’s attention gatekeeper, distraction antidote, and focus enhancer.

Challenge

AI tools and assistants are popping up like mushrooms after the rain (even though, without meaningful differentiation, most fade into the background). 

Objective

Name, position, and develop an authentic brand for an AI startup that specializes in eliminating noise and helping users become more productive.

Discovery

The main objective of the preliminary research is to understand the project, the product, and the patron.

Specifically: desired outcomes, challenges, target market, customer profiles, competitive analysis, selling proposition, friction map, priority hypothesis, quick-win insight, and roadmap.

Interviews

1. Five in-depth interviews with the founder to understand the vision and extract the essence

2. A dozen interview sessions with potential users (and users of similar products) to understand their underlying needs, wants, and motivators

3. SWOT and competitive analysis to identify market gaps and opportunities

Customer

A closely knit community (mostly male, 28–45) of knowledge workers, technophiles, and productivity junkies who use advanced workflow, personal productivity, and time management (personal or enterprise) tools to manage their work and personal lives. The Productive Man—a self-coined moniker—happens to the world, not the other way around.

Living the Productive Man (PM) lifestyle that scratches the tech itch, adds excitement during the workday, and provides a topic of conversation at dinner parties. The PM likes to spend time with like-minded PMs in the community. He/she seeks learning and takes risks to get and stay ahead. He’s proud to be accountable and requires as much control as possible in his pursuit of personal exceptionalism. The PM believes anyone who resists tech symbiosis is at a disadvantage. Seeing time management and freedom as two sides of the same thing and not subscribing to the work-life balance ethos, he prefers tech integration in exchange for time freedom.

GSuite, Microsoft, Slack, Github, Todoist, Asana, Monday, Notion, Craft, Reflect, Clay (or other personal CRM), Sanebox, Opal, RescueTime, Chat GPT, Salesforce, Hubspot, GitHub, Notion (personal and enterprise); Sunsama, Akiflow, and other advanced personal productivity tools.

Personality

Analytical, practical, methodical

Interests

Tech that makes humans better

Ideology

Anything that can be and should be optimized

Before

Spending time on time-saving tools that require more time to adopt

After

Able to focus on work, be more productive, and excel professionally 

Want

Accomplish more without wasting time

Need

Derive use from multiple tools without getting distracted

Goal

More tasks but the same timeframe

Mission

Achieve the optimal version of oneself

Objective

Get and stay ahead of peers using hacks to achieve more with less

Challenge

An increasing number of useful but distracting tools that consume attention

The solution

Reclaiming one’s attention by eliminating distractions with a single tool

Doesn’t want

 Another complicated tool

Ideal experience

Being able to focus on creative work at will

Target Consumer: Nate, male, 25–38, sales and CS rep.

Journey: Nate was exposed to Flow from other users or through a campaign, found it useful, interesting, better, or more engaging, and shared it with others in the community (network effect).

Target Customer: Tom, male, late 35–53, project manager, C-level, CxOs, other managers, and founders.

Journey: Tom noticed people on the team trying and sharing a product that increases their productivity, and after comparing it with existing tools, he purchased Flow licenses for the team.

SWOT

Opportunities

Develop and lead the AI productivity niche

Strengths

Focus on a narrow niche and the founder’s experience with the subject matter

Weakness

Not first to the broader market (AI assistants exist)

Threats

Low barrier to entry

Brand

The delivery included strategic brand components as well as a brand (design, style, and communication) guide.

What is Flow

An empathy-driven, voice-first, rational productivity assistant whose goal is to eliminate mental barriers and help users achieve the state of flow.

Product

An AI assistant that integrates with advanced tools, learns from interactions, and continuously adjusts to the user’s workflow while maintaining data security.

Positioning

Flow is the first emotionally intelligent productivity assistant.

The first AI to understand your needs, learn from your habits, and help you achieve the most productive version of yourself.

How it makes me look

Sophisticated, effective, and future-thinking

How it makes me feel

Productive, efficient, and in control of my attention and time

What it does for me

Removes distractions, saves time, and helps focus

How I describe it

An assistant that understands my workflow, eliminates distractions, and helps me be more productive

Name

The name was inspired by a book, titled Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi). 

The book explores the productive and focused state of mind that people strive to attain and struggle to maintain. Capturing and harnessing the elusive state of flow is the problem the yet-to-be-named startup promises to solve.

Purpose

Flow’s purpose is to help people reach the near-meditative state of focus and efficiency (aka the state of flow) by managing distractions and optimizing workflows.

Tagline

No one knows your workflow better than Flow

Mission

Declutter the mind and enrich the world with the fruits of focus.

Message

Less distraction, more action

Values

1. Lean is better, and simple is supreme
2. Technology helps us become better
3. Less interruption, more action

Principles

Innovation, EQ, simplicity

Flow’s guiding rule for brand, communication, and experience decisions: Does it contribute to attaining or maintaining Flow?

Identity

Flow the brand vs Flow the assistant

One of the questions posed during customer interviews was how users addressed Siri and Google Assistant. The overwhelming respondents said that Siri is a she, and Google is an it. (A name and a voice were enough to anthropomorphize an assistant.) Since Flow’s identity plays a major part in its differentiation, we added additional layers to her identity to make her distinct, personable, and relatable.

A combination of Gwynne Shotwell (a COO that gets things done), Sam from the movie Her (empathy), and Joan from MadMen (an executive assistant who takes care of mundane tasks with authority)

Noun: intelligence
Adjective: focused
Verb: consolidating

Delivery

Brand guide

Website content

Sean stewards the soul of Flow. He architected the brand strategy. He distills the brand strategy through creative writing and concepts. Sean holds me accountable to the brand promise with an unwavering commitment to consistency.
Rich Prashad
Founder