Branding in Public: The Power of Clarity for Early-Stage Founders
By Camino5 | LA Tech Week Edition
How a Live Workshop at LA Tech Week Turned a $3.5M Startup into a $10M Brand in the Making
At the intersection of growth and grit, most startup founders face a rarely spoken but widely felt challenge: you have a brand, whether you designed it or not. During LA Tech Week, Camino5 and Expert Dojo turned that reality into a rallying cry by hosting a live brand strategy session for founders ready to scale with intention, not just hustle.
The session spotlighted Matchbook AI, a $3.5M ARR startup, as the live case study. With 90% of its growth coming from referrals and a 94% retention rate, Matchbook didn’t have a growth problem. It had a clarity problem. The workshop wasn’t about marketing hacks or viral tactics. It focused on helping the company and the room see what was already working, and how to amplify it with brand clarity.
The Brand Gap Most Founders Overlook
Many startups operate in what investors call the “no man’s land” between Seed and Series A. Capital is tight. Momentum is critical. The go-to answer, more marketing, often misses the mark. What most founders actually need isn’t more noise. It’s more clarity.
Matchbook AI’s challenge was textbook for this stage: known by partners but invisible to the broader market. The founders were surrounded by signal, strong product, high retention, clear use case, but lacked a narrative that aligned story, strategy, and sales.
Camino5’s approach reframed that reality: clarity before scale, story before spend.
5 Brand Lessons Every Early-Stage Founder Should Know
1. Brand is the glue, not the funnel.
The old funnel is dead. No one moves through marketing stages in order. Today, brand is what ties together disjointed touchpoints from email intros to investor decks to your sales rep’s follow-up.
2. Clarity beats creativity.
People don’t buy features. They buy outcomes. Matchbook’s transformation began with one shift: from “accurate data for decisions” to “prevent chaos in your supply chain.” When clarity increases, conversion does too.
3. ICP is not “everyone.”
Matchbook’s ideal buyer isn’t “supply chain leaders.” It’s Supply Chain Managers at $50M+ companies who need visibility and control over risk. Precision drives relevance.
4. Availability equals brand strength.
If people can’t find you or don’t understand what you do, you might as well not exist.
5. Alignment accelerates everything.
When your story, sales pitch, website, and investor narrative all say the same thing, growth compounds. Confusion costs. Alignment pays.
The Real Takeaway: Most Founders Don’t Have a Marketing Problem
They have a messaging problem. And when brand, message, and market align, every channel starts working harder. As Camino5 put it during the session, “A third of brand is knowing who your ideal customer is. The rest is learning how to speak to them.”
What To Do Next: Tools to Build Brand Clarity
For founders ready to apply these lessons, Camino5 created a Brand Clarity Workbook. It’s the same framework used in the live session, now structured for self-guided clarity. Inside, you’ll find:
Say Who You Are → One-sentence clarity exercise
Define Your ICP → Drill down into your real buyer
Name It Without Naming It → Find evocative, emotional language
Brand Promise + RTB → Make a promise and prove it
Hero Statement → Write the one line your homepage needs
You can also use ChatGPT as a brand co-pilot. Prompt ideas, test phrasing, rewrite jargon, and challenge assumptions. Use AI the way you'd use a strategy room: for insight, not shortcuts.
Final Word: This Wasn’t a Panel. It Was a Live Brand Lab.
LA Tech Week’s session with Expert Dojo and Camino5 wasn’t about hearing advice. It was about watching a company shift in real-time. That’s the power of branding in public. And the real invitation is to do the same in your own business.
Brand clarity isn’t a one-time event. It’s a loop:
Workbook → Workshop → Market → Iterate → Clarity Compounds.
Keep branding in public.
Ryan Edwards, CAMINO5 | Co-Founder
Ryan Edwards is the Co-Founder and Head of Strategy at CAMINO5, a consultancy focused on digital strategy and consumer journey design. With over 25 years of experience across brand, tech, and marketing innovation, he’s led initiatives for Fortune 500s including Oracle, NBCUniversal, Sony, Disney, and Kaiser Permanente.
Ryan’s work spans brand repositioning, AI-integrated workflows, and full-funnel strategy. He helps companies cut through complexity, regain clarity, and build for what’s next.
Connect on LinkedIn: ryanedwards2