Thanks for the feedback everyone

So, we got 22 folks (out of 25 or so) giving us detailed feedback on the shave cream label (see post below). Overall, very helpful. Thanks everyone!

Now we have to figure out which advice to take and which to ignore :) One of our informal advisers summed it up like this:

"... you have to sift through all the "mother-in-law" feedback and ultimately trust your gut as an experienced marketer to know what is best for your brand given the marketplace.  That's the art, the hard part, and the fun of what you guys are trying to create!"

Trust your gut. Yes, that's what Ursa Major's all about!

So, here's where we ended up (the colors look much better printed... also, the ingredient call-outs are not final). If anyone has any final comments, please use the Comment section here on this blog, or just send us an email.

In the meantime, we're working hard on our web site, collateral, products, packaging, etc, in preparation for our launch this fall... & trying to get outside for a bike or hike in the afternoons to keep it real!

Btw, we plan to move this blog to our new web site in June - stay tuned for the switch.

Peek at label design for Ursa Major Shave Cream

So it's been a while coming but here's a look at the shave cream label we have in development. Now if there was ever a time to comment on this blog, this is it! We would love to hear from you. What do you think? Do you love it? Hate it? Indifferent? Let it fly!

In the meantime, we're off for a bike ride before hitting the pub for well-earned Trapp's lager!

What's your reverse elevator pitch?

We've been "pitching" quite a bit lately so this video clip re: the "reverse elevator" pitch is interesting... worth 30 seconds. She's talking about the insurance industry but I think it works for any sector:

 
Maria Umbach - The Reverse Elevator Speech from Maddock Douglas, Inc. on Vimeo.

So, what's your reverse elevator pitch? What do folks say about you/your brand when you walk out the door?

It seems to us the goal is to close the gap between the elevator pitch (the desired outcome) and the reverse elevator pitch, between what you want your brand to be and what it actually is.

Right now, our elevator pitch is: the spirited natural alternative to toxic men's personal care
Our reverse elevator pitch, if we get things right, might be: effective natural skin care for men

Time will tell...

Our elusive branding effort

Not quite sure why, but we're channeling bears and mountains today. Might have something to do with our ongoing, elusive branding effort! Hoping to share more details here v. soon...

Ursa Major brand mood board

We're pretty excited about the progress we've made recently on our 'brand ID system', which is really just a framework for translating our vision and strategy into written and visual language that hopefully resonates with our 'target market' (people who love the outdoors).

As part of this exercise, we've been pulling images from various sources over the past few months (see above). We've been using these 'mood-boards' to explore different packaging ideas for Ursa Major and we're hoping they serve as a good visual cue for our creative partner.

Is this about what you expected? Would love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to email us any images (or links to images) you feel represent what Ursa Major is all about in your mind. Maybe we'll post some of your submissions here!

That's it for today. Well, almost - one more phone call and then we're off to the pub for another well-deserved Friday pint! Thanks for tuning in... Oh, btw, next and hopefully final prototypes are due from our R&D lab in two weeks. Let us know if you want to be in our tester group.

Making the most of our weekly trip to Burlington

About once a week we head into Burlington to meet with our creative team (Dave and Steve at Place, above), do some market research or customer development, have lunch with an investor, stock up on groceries at City Market or Healthy Living, etc.

Often, if we have enough time, we'll try to hit one of our favorite places for a bite to eat (or a cold beer!): Stone Soup, Open Arms Cafe or American Flatbread. Sometimes, in the summer, we'll even get in a walk or run at Shelburne Farms, one of our favorite places anywhere.

On today's weekly visit to BTV we kicked off Round 2 of our creative work with Place (Round 1 centered on logo development). Now the focus turns to how we bring our brand to life in a powerful, authentic manner out in the 'marketplace' (packaging, merchandising, web site, collateral, etc).

It's exciting to finally be exploring a "visual vocabulary" for our brand in earnest and we'll be sure to share the highlights here. Hopefully some of you will weigh in as we go!

After our session at Place, we dipped into Healthy Living and EMS as part of our 'customer development' effort. The idea here is to talking to customers to introduce Ursa Major (well before we launch), learn more about the market, get feedback on what we're doing, test our key assumptions, etc.

We've now hit about 10 stores in the local area over the past week and we're encouraged by the response we're getting from local retailers. There seems to be interest in a natural, sustainable personal care brand for people who love the outdoors (oh, by the way, that's a riff on our updated mission!).

Fleshing out the Ursa Major brand...

While we're on the branding track, here's a slide we just pulled together to prep for some brand strategy meetings this/next week in Vermont and NYC. What do you think?

Honing in on a brand identity

So far there's been very little on this blog about how our branding is shaping up so we think it's time for an update on that front.

We've chosen Place Creative Company in Burlington, Vermont as our creative partner and we've spent 3-4 months exploring various brand directions with them.

Along the way we've been making liberal use of a growing informal group of friends and testers who've been weighing in as well (SurveyMonkey has been an effective tool for these quick surveys).

Below are some of the designs we've considered, in chronological order, to give you a sense of how things have evolved (try to focus on the designs, not the colors):

Crazy Three-Headed Bear Design
This is one of the first designs we received from Place. We liked it a lot for many reasons but ultimately set it aside because we felt it was a little too 'aggro' for what we're trying to achieve.

Stacked Logo
We liked the simplicity and clean look of this take but ultimately felt the border to be a little constricting. We don't want to fence in our bear!

Star Map
We were really into this idea for a while - tapping into the 'stellar' side of the Ursa Major name. But ultimately we felt the direction was a little too obscure and subtle for the vibe we're aiming for.

Latest Iteration.
Here's where things stand today. We like this version because it feels bold, spirited, earnest, inspired by nature, refined, inviting and a tiny bit 'campy' (this is a Vermont company after all!).

We'll be firming up our brand 'look'n feel' over the coming 30 days, so please let us know if you have any final thoughts! Thanks.

Keeping the genesis of a brand alive

When starting a business one inevitably gets tugged this way and that in a long series of compromises. Things can erode pretty quick into a washed out mess without a clear vision and the gumption to stick with it. Plus the all-important ability to listen to the right folks along the way and adjust things as needed. Often easier said than done!

Having a clear, compelling vision in place to anchor the business from day 1 is critical. "Vision" is a much-used and often poorly understood term. We like Jim Collin's version best. We've had a 'place-holder vision' in place for the past six months but sense it needs some additional massaging before we unleash it on the unsuspecting universe, so hang in there for the final version, coming soon!

In the meantime, I'm going to share a little trick I've developed when advising founders of small companies over the years. Inevitably, at some point in the evolution of any business, the founder arrives at a place when they feel completely and irreversibly lost (thank God we're not there yet, but being proactive never hurts). To illustrate, a snippet from Dante's Divine Comedy:

In the middle of the road of my life
I awoke in the dark wood
where the true way was wholly lost

What then? What to do? How to find the way again?

I like to go back to a company's genesis, back to the source, so to speak, so I ask entrepreneurs: take me back to the beginning. How did things evolve from the very first inkling that this might be more than a passing idea in your noggin'? What were you feeling at the time? Walk me through the series of events, experiences, feelings, etc. that led you to actually set off and start this business.

Often, after a period of reflection, the entrepreneur's eyes begin to sparkle as he (or she) begins to reminisce viscerally about why they started their business, what problem they were trying to solve and what they love doing. Inevitably, the mood brightens and the entrepreneur's spirit quickens as he/she gets reacquainted with the genesis of what has probably since become their life's work.

 This line of inquiry is one path to the passion and purpose that got things going in the first place. A good place to start when the way is "wholly lost". Our hope is to avoid that fate by making sure we anchor our vision in an authentic, purposeful beginning (or genesis, or narrative), and the first step in doing that is to write it down. But wait, it's time for lunch, so I guess we'll have to cover that in our next a subsequent post!

Photo: Oliver

FAQ: Why "URSA MAJOR"? What does it mean?

We get this question a lot. 'Ursa Major' means 'great bear' in Latin and refers to the northern hemisphere constellation which contains the Big Dipper and points to the North Star. While that's a leap for some ("what's the connection to men's grooming?"), we like it because it feels strong, masculine, stellar, reliable and natural! It's also more intriguing than, let's say, Oliver's Naturals. And we like a bit of intrigue in our brands...

And for culture and history buffs, there are some fun tie-ins: various tribes around the world over the millennia have noticed a bear up there in the skies and have used it to navigate. The slaves apparently used the Big Dipper to find their way north. Great writers (Homer, Shakespeare, Tennyson...) refer to Ursa Major in their master works. Van Gogh painted it... For more, see what Wikipedia has to say.