

Users First, Brands Second - bond
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/08/users-first-brands-second.html

======
jfruh
Ugggh, can someone please explain to me why the word "brand" here couldn't be
replaced by with "companies" or "partners" or something like that?

~~~
egiva
Yeah, reading this I thought he was talking about "build your user base first,
and your brand second", so it wasn't entirely clear from the title of the
article.

~~~
jfruh
Exactly. "Brand" is a bit of biz-marketing speak that always makes my hair
stand on end anyway, but I've sort of come to terms with it as it refers to
your company or organization's public face/perception. But if you're just
using it to refer to external corporate partners, it's confusing, to me
anyway.

~~~
egiva
Yeah, that's the challenge with biz-marketing speak in general - it's sales
driven (not specifics driven or always substantive) and that frustrates me
too!

------
sudonim
We've been on the brands first, users second path for a while now. We've been
trying to align the goal of the brands to be better for users. However, brands
are driven by vanity metrics. And focusing on vanity metrics drives you to
high churn, shallow engagements rather than deep and steady growth. I'm hoping
that at some point we can leverage our experience and the number of people in
our user base to help guide brands towards what's truly better for users.

