#11: Branding, Palantir & Mental Alignment
Ok, so there are a couple of things I’d like to talk about this week. First, I’ve got some updates, and the next thing would be an idea or a theme, I suppose, that has come to mind recently.
I think it’s important to talk about because it’s pretty central to my life and the way I’ve accomplished things in the past, so I think that’ll be useful to share.
Weekly Updates
So starting with the updates, the first thing is that I made the name of my company official this past week. I bought the domain and I got everything set up on socials and whatnot.
The reason I waited this long was honestly no reason at all. It’s not that important in the beginning. I was more focused on finding some level of product market fit and getting my initial users in with the community that I launched recently.
Since I have the software side and the advisory/community side, I had this placeholder name that I was using until this week.
Now that I know with more clarity where I’m going and what I’m building, it made more sense for me to come up with a name or brand that could encompass everything I wanted it to be.
I found a pretty good one. It’s three syllables. If you’ve never come up with a domain name before, from a branding standpoint, you want it to be memorable and have as few syllables as possible.
A lot of memorable brand names are usually between one and three syllables long. I got mine to be three syllables, and I didn’t have to pay a ludicrous amount to buy the domain either. I got it for like 200 bucks or something, so not bad at all.
Domains can get pretty expensive, especially two-syllable ones. The most expensive one I looked at cost $100,000 with a broker’s fee.
They’re important because the name that I chose is one word. It’s memorable, doesn’t really mean anything, but it’s easy for people to remember and it’s something I can build a brand around. That’s important for the long-term.
Think, for example, Palantir. It’s pretty memorable, based on The Lord of the Rings if you know the reference. It’s three syllables, easy to pronounce, easy to spell. And what have they done?
They’ve turned Palantir into this global technology conglomerate, and part of what makes its brand so strong is its one-word name. It makes it really easy to distinguish from every other brand out there.
Consider a typical consulting and development firm. They’re usually named after the last name of the founder with the word “consulting” after it, similar to how legal firms operate. Even firms like McKinsey, BCG and Bain are branded in a similar fashion.
These three are really big, so they stand out, but most consulting firms don’t stand out as a brand of any kind.
Another thing I took care of this week was dialing in my content strategy for driving traffic to the community’s landing page. I put together a template/system that allows me to create one long-form video and repurpose it into nearly 100 short-form pieces of content.
All of these drive traffic, build authority, and build trust with potential buyers. I put that together and started implementing it this week. I’ve seen some pretty good results with that so far, which has been nice.
A Useful Mental Framework
Now that the updates are out of the way, the next thing I’d like to talk about is this idea or concept or mental framework. I don’t know what to call it. I guess the best word is alignment, or concordance is another word.
What I’ve noticed throughout my life so far (I’m not that old, I’m in my 20s) is that in order for me to achieve any outcome or get a result that I’m after, I need to make changes to who I am internally long before I see the outcome itself.
You have to change internally before you see results externally.
For example, when you’re first getting into the gym, let’s say you’re someone who has never been in shape and you’re trying to get into the best shape of your life. In order to accomplish that, you need to start acting like someone who has a six pack, who’s healthy, lean, and muscular.
I’m talking to the guys here. For girls, whatever the equivalent is. I’m a dude, so I’m not really sure… But you have to start acting like a person who is all those things long before you can look, feel, and move like that person.
You have to start working out consistently. You have to watch what you eat. Maybe you have to track your calories if you need to go on a cut or lean bulk.
You have to take the actions of a person who already has the results you want, the person with the six pack, long before you actually get the six pack.
The same concept is applicable to almost every domain of your life. For anything you want to accomplish, you have to become the person capable of achieving that outcome long before you actually get it.
I’ve been reminded of that this past week. I didn’t make as much progress as I wanted to on the business. I think that’s because I’ve been approaching it with the mindset of someone who has the results I have right now (basically nothing).
What I realized is that in order for me to get to the next level, which for me is to cross 6 figures in MRR, so at least $100K p/m, I have to begin operating like someone who already runs a $100K p/m company between the advisory side and the software side.
I’m not acting like that. I haven’t been acting like that. So that’s a change I need to make and am actively working on.
I’m doing an audit of everything I’m spending time on inside the business. I’m ranking them based on whether they give me energy or drain my energy. I’m also ranking them based on impact.
The things that don’t give me energy and don’t drive a lot of impact or aren’t the highest leverage tasks, I’m looking to either delete, automate, or delegate them. Delegating is the last option because when you bring on people that comes with its own set of challenges.
I think automation is the simplest option with all the tools out there nowadays, like Make, n8n, Zapier. I have a programming background, so it’s not a problem for me to build out Python scripts for basic automations and simple workflows.
But yeah, that’s what I’ve been up to the past week.
If you have any questions or suggestions for future content, feel free to leave a comment (happy to chat).
That’s all for this week.
See ya next Sunday 🙂
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