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The art of building legendary brands | Arielle Jackson (Google, Square, First Round Capital)

What makes a great brand? After working at Google and Square, Arielle Jackson has spent the past eight years consulting startups on how to create powerful messaging that works. In this jam-packed episode, she shares how to pick a winning name for your company, create a brand purpose that excites your team and customers, and position your company and its products for success. You don’t want to miss this one! Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-art-of-building-legendary-brands — Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for making this episode possible: • Flatfile: https://www.flatfile.com/lenny • Unit: https://unit.co/lenny • Athletic Greens: https://athleticgreens.com/lenny — Where to find Arielle Jackson: • Twitter: https://twitter.com/hiiamarielle • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ariellerjackson/ • Maven: https://maven.com/arielle/startupbrandstrategy — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — Referenced: • Positioning Your Startup Is Vital—Here’s How to Nail It: https://review.firstround.com/Positioning-Your-Startup-is-Vital-Heres-How-to-Do-It-Right • Three Moves Every Startup Founder Must Make to Build a Brand That Matters: https://review.firstround.com/three-moves-every-startup-founder-must-make-to-build-a-brand-that-matters • What I Learned from Developing Branding for Airbnb, Dropbox, and Thumbtack: https://review.firstround.com/what-i-learned-from-developing-branding-for-airbnb-dropbox-and-thumbtack • Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind: https://www.amazon.com/Positioning-Battle-Your-Al-Ries/dp/0071373586 • Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life: https://www.amazon.com/Alchemy-Curious-Science-Creating-Business/dp/006238841X • The Vanishing Half: https://britbennett.com/the-vanishing-half • The Mothers: https://britbennett.com/the-mothers • Nik Sharma’s weekly newsletter: https://www.nik.co/subscribe • How I Built This: https://www.npr.org/series/490248027/how-i-built-this • In Depth: https://review.firstround.com/podcast • Unseen Unknown: https://unseen-unknown.simplecast.com/ • Luca: https://movies.disney.com/luca • Encanto: https://movies.disney.com/encanto • Old Enough!: https://www.netflix.com/title/81506279 • The Sociology of Business with Ana Andjelic: https://andjelicaaa.substack.com • David Ogilvy: https://www.oneclub.org/hall-of-fame/-bio/david-ogilvy • Rory Sutherland: https://twitter.com/rorysutherland • Seth Godin: https://seths.blog/ — In this episode, we cover: [00:00] About our guest Arielle Jackson [04:04] From making jewelry as a side hustle to launching products for Square: Arielle’s background [12:32] What makes a good name for a product or a startup [19:17] How to come up with a great name [24:59] How to run a naming brainstorm for the best results [31:09] Bad names and naming mistakes [34:17] Arielle’s brand development framework and when founders should implement it [36:02] How do you know when brand development is completed? [41:17] How long should branding take? [42:42] How to build a brand purpose that ignites excitement [48:51] Specific tactics for building your brand purpose [51:12] How to master your positioning [55:22] Why it’s important to stay niche when you’re mastering your positioning [59:15] The process of positioning and Arielle’s bar test [1:02:38] How to build a brand personality using the five big brand descriptions [1:07:39] Where to put brand and product positioning documents so they’ll actually get used [1:09:14] How startups can get PR [1:14:49] When should you hire a marketer? — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquires about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

Arielle JacksonguestLenny Rachitskyhost
Aug 17, 20221h 22mWatch on YouTube ↗

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

How to Name, Position, and Grow a Truly Legendary Startup Brand

  1. Arielle Jackson, former Google and Square marketer and now marketer-in-residence at First Round Capital, breaks down how early-stage startups should approach naming, brand strategy, and PR. She explains why names matter less than founders think, yet how a good one can meaningfully accelerate word-of-mouth. Arielle shares her three-part brand framework—purpose, positioning, and personality—and offers concrete processes to define each. She closes with tactical advice on when to hire marketing, how to secure press, and why clear, human language beats jargon every time.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Good naming helps, but it won’t save or kill your startup.

A strong, memorable name makes word-of-mouth easier and does some marketing work for you, but a mediocre name won’t doom a company with great strategy and execution—Disney and Volvo are now powerful brands despite being objectively weak names on paper.

Use a structured naming process with clear criteria and lots of bad ideas.

Start from a naming brief, brainstorm hundreds of options across a spectrum (descriptive to empty-vessel), then filter with criteria like trademark, distinctiveness, timelessness, pronunciation, emotional resonance, and domain flexibility—using red/yellow/green ratings to narrow to 3–5 finalists.

Define brand purpose as a single, memorable sentence: “We exist to…”.

Your purpose should describe the change you want to see in the world over a ~10-year horizon, independent of short-term financial gain; it aligns employees, attracts talent, and makes people root for you (e.g., Stripe’s “increase the GDP of the internet”).

Positioning must be specific, human, and consistent across your company.

You have a positioning problem if customers and employees give wildly different answers to “what do you do?”; defining your target audience, their current workaround, your category, benefit, and differentiation—then pressure-testing it with the “bar test”—ensures people can explain you in a single, natural-sounding sentence.

Brand personality makes your company feel like a real, relatable person.

Using frameworks like Jennifer Aaker’s five brand dimensions and “we are X but not Y” statements, you can define tensions (e.g., playful but not silly, savvy but approachable) that guide copy, design, and behavior—helping you avoid awkward, off-brand moves like a security company trying to sound “fun for summer.”

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

A good name is only gonna help you, but a bad name won't hurt a good company.

— Arielle Jackson

Your brand is who people think you are.

— Arielle Jackson

I'll never write a line of code without doing positioning first.

— Arielle Jackson (quoting a student in her course)

If you can’t explain what you do to me in a sentence, you have a positioning problem.

— Arielle Jackson

Brands need tension to be interesting.

— Arielle Jackson

How to create effective names for startups and productsThe spectrum of naming styles: descriptive, suggestive, evocative, empty-vesselA three-part brand strategy framework: purpose, positioning, personalityPractical positioning: target audience, problems, benefits, and the bar testDefining and using brand personality to guide voice and visualsTactics for getting meaningful PR as an early-stage startupWhen and how to hire your first marketing leader at a startup

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