Paraiba: How do you launch a brand if you’ve never launched

Name some problems that all startups face – funding? Direction? Lack of time? Too many decisions to make? Yes. All of the above.

Charles and David, the Founders of Paraiba, had been grappling with all of these challenges for over a year.  To bring their business to life, they knew they needed the one thing that would help them with everything else – the story. The story they told investors and the story they would tell potential customers, and most importantly, the story they would keep telling each other to remind themselves of their vision.

Visuals attract. Verbals Engage.

Both Charles and David were ‘visual’ people. They had agreed on a set of images that felt right for the brand, and designs for the beachwear. But these images weren’t helping them make other decisions around distribution channels, hiring, and marketing.

Getting to the fundamentals. Listen hard.

We knew that just because Charles and David couldn’t describe what they were doing as a story, it didn’t mean there wasn’t a brand story there.  We just had to listen to them and look at what they’d chosen already: where the shots were taken, what sort of people were in them, what they were doing, and the cultures that the designs referenced.

From these, we drew out recurring themes and used these themes to inspire the brand’s values. From there, everything flowed, in a very relaxed, Paraiba-like way.

Better than we can say it

It completely changed my views on how to evaluate ‘what feels right’ for our brand. Listening to your thoughts gave us excellent clarity.

David Jenkins, Founder, Paraiba.