Today, Microsoft generates $212 billion and is involved in far more than computers. It generates billions of dollars annually through federal cloud contracts alone, and has significant other revenue in everything from its Bing search engine to video games and AI.

It’s difficult to remember that Microsoft once was only known for personal computers, or that its first revenue came from providing software to IBM. That’s because Microsoft founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen achieved their brand vision – to make personal computers accessible to everyone – and matured the Microsoft story right along with the company’s growth.

Every successful company tells a story. Smart modern start-ups do this quite well, especially with marketing tools dropping barriers to access almost to zero and the popularity of “thought leadership” and “influencer marketing.” But where many start-ups fail is:

• Understanding that their most powerful story is not (just) the founder’s. It is the company’s mission and its leaders’ vision that create change and scalable growth, much like Bill Gates’ powerful personal story about dropping out of college and building computers in garages was a distant second to the Gates-Allen vision.

• Maturing the brand story as the company grows. A PC software firm wouldn’t have invented the XBox or invested billions into OpenAI. But Microsoft did.

Many one- and two-person companies believe it’s enough to turn on the lights and say “we have a business.” And they’re right, if they want to remain small. Companies that want to gross $20 million, $50 million, $100 million in annual revenue, however, have to tell customers not just what it does but why – in a way that customers will care, even as the brand itself matures and changes.

Here’s how to think about your brand story, from before the first sale to when you lead your market.

Brand strategy before the first sale

Businesses that don’t effectively communicate brand value to investors or customers typically go out of business. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that only a third of small businesses survive more than ten years.

A lot of the reason for that is many start-ups fail to think about their brand story long before the first dollar is earned. You can call yourself an IT company – but there are about a million of those around. Is your specialty the customer service experience or the technical side of things? Are you focusing on cybersecurity or a different part of the IT world? And are you servicing government entities, enterprise-scale businesses, or small businesses?

Also, where does the founder want the company to go? Are you looking to sell fast, become a public company, stay in one industry or expand to many?

Each of these considerations requires its own strategic thought process to establish the right logo, name, tagline, URL, website design, initial customer base, and initial marketing tests. Otherwise, you’ll only stand out because you’ll be #OpenToWork on LinkedIn.

Building to takeoff speed

Like Microsoft, Apple had a history of a plucky start-up founded by geeks in garages who would one day dominate the business world. However, while Microsoft’s Windows platform made it a market leader with everyday users, Apple remained a niche brand for nerds and graphic designers for decades.

That’s not to say Apple wasn’t a major brand either – nearly $10 billion in revenue in 1996 is nothing to sneeze at. But it wasn’t until the company rehired founder Steve Jobs, who led the development of iOS, that Apple realized hockey stick growth and became one of the most powerful brands in the world.

What Apple didn’t do was compete with Windows for desktop or laptop revenue. The iOS operating software allowed it to reimagine how a phone could be reimagined to become an integral life accessory for nearly every waking (and resting, and working) minute of the day. This would transform the smartphone concept from a piece of business hardware ubiquitous with the Blackberry brand to a personal assistant device that leaving home without would become unthinkable.

And while the iPhone accounts for nearly half of Apple’s current revenues, the device and the iOS platform are drivers for the rest of the company’s offerings. Think about the iMac, iPad, and iWatch – then consider the seamless bridge for all of these devices through the iCloud. The concert of connectivity induces consumers to immerse themselves under one brand umbrella thereby encouraging long term brand loyalty and sustained growth as new products emerge. That’s why Apple’s latest annual revenues topped $390 billion – an exponential increase from what the company generated in the decades before iOS.

Maturation and expansion

The strongest brands aren’t stagnant – they evolve to meet customer expectations and adjust to market demands. For example, Chick-fil-A used to differentiate from the burger-oriented fast-food industry with cows encouraging you to “eat mor chickin” and by closing on Sundays. But as it sought nationwide expansion both geographically and beyond its Christian customer base – as well as to overcome controversy associated with its President’s political leanings – the company navigated brand maturation in a way that broadens its appeal to new audiences while maintaining the wholesomeness valued by its core customers.

In 2018, the company launched an award-winning ad campaign – The Little Things – highlighting stories of heart-warming interactions between customers and employees that capitalize on the company’s customer-friendly reputation. This came on top of the company’s continual Top 5 wins for most polite and favorite fast-food chain lists, and its industry-leading profit-per-restaurant.

As one commentator put it, Chick-fil-A has prioritized eliminating pain points, building an effective team, and maximizing the customer experience. Yes, the company has the industry’s longest drive-thru lines, but customers keep returning anyway.

Chick-fil-A stuck in a single industry providing the same services as it expanded. Amazon, on the other hand, has become possibly the world’s most diverse company. And as it has expanded, its brand story has changed right along with its size. The origin story was Jeff Bezos dreaming up the company concept on a sales trip, selling books to get Amazon’s foot into the door of online retail, and then achieving global penetration as an online shopping platform.

And that would be great if Amazon was just a company that delivers things. However, Amazon is a delivery company that funnels new customers into its service ecosystem through diverse touch points. In 2017, Amazon acquired brick-and-mortar Whole Foods and integrated the premium grocer into its ecommerce platform, allowing a new customer base to take advantage of the company’s delivery network and skip in-person trips. Amazon also acquired MGM Studios to take ownership of the massive entertainment archive and provide a greater value offering for Prime members. The result is two new audience segments that Amazon can now touch for marketing its bread and butter online retail business.

And that’s just Amazon’s retail businesses. Its cloud computing subsidiary, AWS, has over 2 million business customers and controls 50% of the cloud computing market share.

None of this happened by accident. Bezos always wanted Amazon to provide everything. It just took time to get there. Today, if you remember Amazon was just books only 20 years ago – you’re rare. Most people think Amazon is Big Tech.

Market dominance

Brand maturation, or lack thereof, is intertwined with a brand’s narrative arc. Enterprises unable to further develop their brand often stagnate or go out of business, while more robust and mature brands are a value add for profitable sale of the business when the time comes.

But, occasionally, a brand makes the leap to become a true market leader.

Take the National Football League, for example, which practically owns a day of the week, 18 weeks a year. Over 100 million people tune in to watch a single game each February and the league’s revenue is 50% above that of the nearest U.S. sport. Its brand power has allowed the league to shrug off major crises and controversies such as accusations of covering up the effects of head injuries and player-led protests that became political lightning rods.

That’s because the NFL’s business model has become more than just selling tickets and games on TV. The league has aggressively pursued new markets scheduling annual games in London, UK and games in Germany, Spain, Mexico, and Brazil. In 2022, the NFL launched the International Home Marketing Areas initiative to develop fanbases for each franchise in international cities. The league has also partnered with the sports betting industry and promoted the fantasy football cultural phenomenon to generate wider appeal with casual audiences.

From start-up to dominance: what’s your brand story?

When Bill Gates started Microsoft, it was all about software for PCs. Amazon started out as an online book delivery company, and Chick-fil-A was just a burger joint that didn’t sell burgers.

Each of them became a behemoth on the back of leadership’s brand vision and mission. And as they grew and changed, their brand story also matured – but the vision only changed once it was achieved.

This piece was originally published at TabbFORUM by Dustin Siggins and Renee Frojo. 

While the rest of the world was doing inefficient straddle hops, Fosbury saw a better way to get over the bar. By 1980, no world record was set without The Fosbury Flop. Today, 52 years later, Fosbury’s revolutionary method is still the sport’s mainstay.

Don’t try to take your enemy’s lunch – create a new one

If Dick Fosbury had kept doing straddle hops, nobody would know who he is. He had to be different to beat the dominant high jump method of the times.

The American Revolutionaries did the same thing. In the 18^th century, much of the world’s warfare was done according to British standards – opposing armies lining up across from each other, firing, then fixing bayonets and charging. British discipline was key to their many victories around the world.

The Continental Army and their allied militia had a different idea. They fought from behind trees and stone walls, confounding the British on the battlefields. They also engaged in a sophisticated public opinion campaign domestically and in Britain that guerrilla warfare historian Max Boot described as having revolutionized insurgent combat.

George Washington wasn’t the first leader to refuse to play on the enemy’s turf or by the enemy’s rules. Sun Tzu’s Art of War laid out similar principles for success. Small business owners should follow their lead.

First, know thyself

Dick Fosbury had trouble coordinating a straddle hop; George Washington’s military was less supplied and not as well trained as the British soldiers. Knowing these facts were the first steps on the road to success.

The same is true in business. Is your company well-armed with an established target market and branding plan, strong finances, and a desired product or service? Can your supply chain keep up with demand? What are weak areas you need to shore up, and how will you do it?

Microsoft’s success is built upon knowing what it wanted to offer the world. Bill Gates and Paul Allen developed an operating system that wasn’t fancy – but worked. They didn’t sell IBM the rights to use the system – they licensed it, thereby creating long-term revenue and keeping ownership. A few years later, they developed a marketing campaign around their upcoming Windows program which kept customers from switching to Apple’s Macintosh program.

Allen and Gates knew their strategy: Build mediocre technology around the revolutionary goal of putting a computer in every home. And it worked.

Second, know your enemy

Small businesses have several inherent weaknesses when going against larger, better-established competitors:

• They have better purchasing power.
• They may have the inside track on the next-generation products that make their purchases even cheaper for the same value, or new office space that puts them in a better geographical location for your competitive target markets.
• They’re better-known. Your ideas, services, products, and prices may be better – but you’re trying to break into an established market against a reputable and connected competitor.

Uber faced these challenges when it first launched. Taxis had owned the everyday person’s vehicle-for-hire market for decades. They had the inside track on business relationships, public brand recognition, and even preferential government policies.

Uber’s advantages were that it was agile and based upon new ways to use technology. You didn’t have to call for an Uber; you just had to press a few buttons. Wait times were shorter, payments were faster and more secure, and the company’s costs were lower because drivers owned their cars. Like Microsoft, Uber knew what it wanted to do and how to do it, and their strengths were built on the taxi industry’s weaknesses.

By targeting young people with cell phones, appealing to them through technology, and saving billions through avoiding car purchases, Uber created a simple and effective transportation process. Drivers and passengers are all linked to the same system, passenger credit card information is pre-processed, and the customer is just a click away from a ride at any time of the day.

By knowing its enemy, Uber blossomed across the country and the world, birthing the “gig economy.”

Create a new lunch

George Washington, Microsoft, and Uber literally changed the world. Dick Fosbury changed one event in track-and-field. But the principles of creating a new lunch – instead of fighting to get to the front of the same line everyone else is in – are the same, and they are how Chick-fil-A has taken the fast-food industry by storm. Unlike the other companies profiled here, however, it literally created a new lunch and delivered it with the oldest, most basic form of communication – words.

In 2016, QSR Magazine ranked Chick-fil-A the most polite drive-thru chain in America. This key differentiator led to Chick-fil-A 2,500 franchises averaging over $4.5 million in sales, according to QSR in August 2020 – about $1.6 million more per year per franchise than McDonald’s. It is the third-largest fast-food franchise in total sales, up from #8 in 2018.

Chick-fil-A does other things well – starting a franchise costs just $10,000, compared to competitors who require anywhere from $200,000 to several million dollars. In 2018, it accepted just .15 percent of franchise applicants – allowing it to pick the cream of the crop. But its core competency is providing you chicken with a strong side of good manners.

Your lunch is your brand

Almost 240 years after the American Revolution ended, “independent” still defines the American brand. Microsoft is a technological leader, Uber is a verb, Chick-fil-A has a cult following, and “The Fosbury Flop” is the way high-jumpers conduct their sport.

Your lunch is your brand. Taking somebody else’s lunch requires overcoming their strengths by cutting in line, shoving them aside, and risking direct confrontation. Maybe you’ll beat them head-to-head, or maybe you’ll just lose because they’re bigger, stronger, and in a better strategic position. Inventing a unique lunch nobody sees means getting in while nobody’s looking. This strategic method creates new markets, adds new value in existing markets, and implements new ways to provide old value in existing markets.

And, suddenly, your lunch is a powerful brand nobody saw coming.