Josh Lowman 💈

Brand is where money goes to die.

Because to have a brand that actually makes money, you need the kind of focus that hurts when you commit to it. Most companies won’t do this.

You must be able to say “We do X, we don’t do Y”

That focus is where resonance comes from - and resonance is why customers give you their money.

To help you lean into what actually makes you different, I mapped out 6 archetypes of focused brands.

It starts with three fundamental forces: Some companies win on technology. Some win on moving culture itself. Some win on customer obsession.

Some mix the forces to land on their archetype. Here are the great archetypes:

THE INVENTOR
Creates new platforms, architectures, workflows. Think Salesforce inventing the CRM platform.

THE MAVERICK
Changes how we live and work. Like Uber rewriting the rules of transportation.

THE PAIN KILLER 
Obliterates things we hate. Like Slack killed email hell (sort of).

THE ADVOCATE 
Champions unmet, deeply felt needs. Patagonia fighting for the planet while selling jackets.

THE CULT BRAND
Galvanizes people around a way of life. Harley-Davidson isn't selling motorcycles.

THE REBEL
Challenges norms with a contrarian POV. Dollar Shave Club took on Gillette with a middle finger and a viral video.

And one bad one:

THE WAFFLER
95% of companies try to play here. They want to be everything to anyone so they end up being nothing to no one.

Most founders end up in that murky place - they want to be the Inventor and the Advocate and the Maverick all at once.

So their brand feels confused. Forgettable. Generic.

But this can all be turned around in an instant. You can decide right now.

Do this: Identify which archetype best fits your company. Then double down on that position with everything you’ve got - and stop apologizing for not being the others.
 
(Only do this if you like money.)
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Last month at Gold Front, we used AI to cut project costs by 27%.

Here are the tools we use:

1. CLICKUP
AI requires the right data structure. We codify every workflow in ClickUp. Every deliverable, every client presentation, every task.

2. CLAUDE
Our go-to LLM. Strategy work? Claude. Legal questions? Claude. Shoulder to cry on? Claude.

It doesn’t get everything right by a long shot. So we think of AI outputs sort of like clay that then needs to be molded by human expertise. Doing it this way is very powerful.


3. MAKE
Automations that ClickUp can't handle go through automation super-app, Make.  It connects to thousands of apps and makes them work together automatically. Saves us hours every week.

4. GRANOLA
Best AI note-taker. It doesn't actually make recordings so there’s no creepy AI bot joining your calls.  But it listens in on everything, making transcripts and notes. 
We use it to go back to any past conversation or to read between the lines and generate valuable insights.


5. CHATGPT
We use it for things Claude doesn't do well - certain types of research, data analysis, or when we need a different perspective on a problem.

6. GOOGLE DRIVE
We keep all our LLM instructions and knowledge base docs in Google Drive folders. Never just inside Claude or ChatGPT. So when a better model comes out, we have the ability to switch over instantly.

No vendor lock-in. No rebuilding everything from scratch.


What AI tools are working for you?
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PS: I cribbed the exact structure for this carousel from the amazing Nick Broekema. You should follow him.