Starting a Millennial Brand from Scratch

Your preparation for the real world is not in the answers you’ve learned, but in the questions you’ve learned how to ask yourself.

— Bill Watterson

Marketing is more ubiquitous now than it was a decade ago. From the sponsored Instagram or Snap Story catching us unawares to prestigious news outlets resorting to clickbait to keep up with the frenzy, we are constantly swamped with a myriad of gimmicks lulling us into consumption. The plethora of notification drawers we carry around with us may as well be flashy bull’s-eyes for content distributors. Yet, amongst the heavyweights of mass media, certain brands achieve more with less by empathizing with the quintessential consumer, ultimately creating a streamlined and sublime experience.

Apple, Nike, Patagonia, TOMS, Starbucks, Shake Shack, and their likes have adopted marketing campaigns which complement the current tastes and preferences of the growing millennial population. Dabbling in minimalism, environmentalism, altruism, and big data-driven analytics has given these companies an edge over their counterparts. In a nutshell, simplicity and functionality are the most sought after qualities in a good, service, or interface.

A strategy for starting

Now imagine trying to wade through the sea of established companies and digital marketing gurus as a rookie, clamoring for attention, or claps. Truth be said, without the right connections and exposure, this would only get buried under preexisting platforms. This is where strategy plays a key role. Like snagging an internship during your freshman year at college or seeking seed capital for a newborn startup, getting recognized as a legitimate contributor will require you to scrutinize the competition, network plentifully, and assess the following components of building a brand.

1. Market Research and Niche Vetting
2. Interface and Platform Modelling
3. Growing Your Social Media Presence
4. Adopting a Digital Dogma

Creating the publication

The past few months I’ve been exploring a myriad of creative venues, experimenting with mobile development in AngularJS and React Native, consuming popular business titles to quench my insatiable thirst for greenbacks, and creating peer-to-peer networks in my spare time. But as I progressed, I only realized how little knowledge and intellectual property I could claim to be of my own creation.

The next question fumbling around in my mind was how I could translate my skills and experience into something of value for both the server and the clients. After much thought, I decided that instead of waiting another four months to release pristine content, why not tap into the market of aspiring entrepreneurs and growth hackers hesitant like me to take the initial plunge into content creation?

And so we’re here. I know you have a lot of questions. So do I.

But I believe those four aforementioned goals will take us very far indeed in our pursuits. I’ll be delving more into them in future posts, so keep all six of your senses perked up.

As for the Rorschach Fireplace, think of it as a temporary conduit for yet-to-be exclusive content from Cercova Studios. We, or I as of right now, aim to feed curious minds with enough intellectual fodder to send them across the globe as newly minted grinders and hustlers to challenge the likes of Tai Lopez and Elon Musk. All right, I concede that Musk might have been a stretch. But you get the gist. To jumpstart this venture, Cercova Studios will be curating the first couple of introductory posts in this series. Soon, Rorschach Fireplace will be back in action, serving all of you looking for a quick 2 a.m. Reddit-esque fix with my psychological shortcomings.

So let’s beat on, hoverboards against steps, autonomous cars against human traffic, ceaselessly into the future while bolstering our personal brands and creating value.