How to scale a tech start-up that grows exponentially using the DAC system

The question remains. How to scale a tech start-up? Time and time again, a strong brand has been the difference between success and failure for tech start-ups and SMEs. To ensure that your tech start-up reaches your audience, and engages with the products and services that your tech brand offer, you need to strengthen your Brand DNA and upscale your business to grow.

At 3 Colours Rule, the DAC system is a framework we created and use to grow our client’s brands and scale a tech start-up. We also use it for strategy and effective implementation through marketing and branding purposes, by identifying and assessing your brand’s strengths and weaknesses.

This article will focus on how to scale a tech start-up, case studies, and the impact of the DAC system on a tech start-up.

Our brand DNA to scale a tech start-up

To upscale your tech startup, you need to know what your brand is, and what you can bring to your audience. For this, to work you need to strengthen your Brand DNA. A Brand DNA sets the tone of your business and is the heart of the brand. It contains all the traits that describe the brand and distinguishes it from others.

Vision & Mission

A vision should be where you want to take your company and your ambition for the business. You need to think and understand how you want your target audience to perceive the brand. Your mission would come after, where you identify what your tech brand’s purpose is. Your tech brand mission helps make decisions that will help you achieve the aims you have set for your company.

Core Purpose

The core purpose of a  is not the same as vision, mission, or values.  It’s an instinctive and emotional connection to why you’re doing what you’re doing. The difference you’re going to make to customers, your staff, and the market.

Values

A company’s values are what they find most important to them and what they believe in. Aims and objectives can be influenced by a brand’s values.

Products, Services & Benefits

A brand’s products or services are what they sell to their audience.

Most brands have their products or services that come with benefits, which entice their audience to buy from them over competitors. These benefits could come in the form of a particular function only your product can do or an aspect of a service you can provide.

Positioning

Positioning is the process of deciding where to place your brand or product in the market. Who is your audience? Does the brand or your product match the market you want to sell into?

Your tech start-up has to be positioned in the correct market so that your product and message are delivered to the right audience. If your brand is positioned incorrectly, you’ll be promoting your brand, product, or service to the wrong people.

Personality

It’s a structure that helps a brand influence the way people feel about its product, service, or mission. It can produce an emotional response from your target audience, to gain positive actions that would benefit the brand.

There are 5 main types of brand personality; excitement, sincerity, ruggedness, competence, and sophistication. Customers are more likely to purchase a brand if its personality is similar to their own.

The DAC System to scale a tech start-up

The DAC system has 3 phases, and for the system to work correctly, they have to be done in the correct order.

A brand strategy that works, the correct brand identity to attract your audience, and the marketing techniques to sell your brand to your audience – that is the DAC system.

Case Studies on how to scale a tech start-up

Apple – Distinguish

Apple’s brand strategy focuses on the emotions and how the product makes you feel. The Apple brand personality is about lifestyle; innovation; passion; hopes, dreams, and aspirations.

The Apple brand personality is also about simplicity and the removal of problems from people’s lives; people-driven product design; and being a humanistic company with a heartfelt connection with its customers.

Monzo – Attract

Monzo needed to have stand out visuals for its brand. Colours are important to a brand identity. The pink, salmon colour of the Monzo card helps it stand out against other cards that could be in a person’s wallet, and is one of the most significant ways you can build awareness and recognition for your company.

The Monzo logo is both simple, and evocative. With a range of colours intended to draw the eye and create focus, the smooth and friendly font also suggests that the company is more informal than any bank.

PlayStation – Convert

PlayStation’s slogans for the brand “Play has no limits” emphasize its positioning as a core gaming product. A few of their slogans which have been used by Sony include, “The Ultimate Just Got Power”, “It only does everything”, “Move into the action”.

PlayStation also shows its upcoming products and games in many exhibitions across the globe. The Electronic Entertainment Expo, which is the largest gathering of gaming events also hosts PlayStation products every year. Such events help Sony feature and advertise their products to the larger crowd and focus their products on the prospective buyers, i.e. gamers.

The impact of not following the DAC system

If you don’t follow the order of the DAC system, it could limit your business’s potential for future growth.

• Low conversion

Having a low conversion rate shows there is a low interest in your product and customers are not purchasing it. This is bad for the company because there is no source of income and no profit is being made and the company could face being closed down.

• High cost of acquisition

The cost of acquisition is defined by the expense a company makes in acquiring a new client or purchasing an asset. If a brand’s acquisition costs are too high, then they will struggle to buy any resources that they may need for the company in the future.

• High bounce rate

A high bounce rate is a cause for concern as it means that a customer has entered the site and left immediately without making a purchase. This is a problem because it shows that either your brand hasn’t been seen by your target audience, or there isn’t any interest in your brand.

• Attracting the wrong audience

By promoting your brand to the wrong audience your audience won’t see you, so you would lose customers and waste a lot of your marketing budget while also not making any profit from the products that come from your brand.

• Low community engagement

If your community were to lose trust in your brand, they may stop taking an interest, so you would lose customers and free promotion. As people stop talking about your product, sales could decrease till people stop buying your product, losing you profit.

• Poor brand valuation

Brand value is how much your brand is worth should you decide to sell your company. If your tech start-up had a poor brand valuation it could prevent the opportunity of merging with another company that would want to continue to use your brand.

Conclusion

Using the DAC system you should find it easier to build a brand strategy, brand identity, and marketing campaign focusing on how to scale your tech start-up and future business growth.

About us
3 Colours Rule is a branding and marketing agency specialising in growing tech companies and start-ups grow. Beyond our brand strategy, design and marketing services; we also have a podcast: Tech Brains Talk where our founder has conversations with experts and entrepreneurs in tech. We also have a branding and marketing academy to support marketers expand their skills and entrepreneurs too. We also run our non-profit organisation, TLA Black Women In Tech, one of the fastest-growing communities for black female professionals and entrepreneurs in tech.