Building a brand filter

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Over the years, I’ve had hundreds of ideas that I have wanted to put into the world.

I get an idea for a concept, framework, business, etc.
I get excited.
Start planning.
“Oh this is going to be sweet”
“What should I call it?”
“How should I frame it?”
“Should I publish under my name or a project name?”
“What is the branding going to be?”

Each unanswered question created enough space for doubt to creep into the inspirations to delay its creation. Every question I would ask myself allowed me to believe in the idea less. “this is pointless, it’s not going to work”

This held me back tremendously.

1,000 little decisions prevented me from turning inspiration into reality. My precious ideas left to collect dust in a notebook.

This concept has been one of my biggest unlocks.

Building a brand filter.

What is a brand filter?

A brand filter is a consistent place, voice, and look to filter your ideas through. The process filters ideas through to formalize concepts to find what resonates, turning ideas into concrete concepts.

The filter is simple. Your ideas pass through a consistent brand.

Brand filter outcomes:
1. Attract Like-minded people
2. Build a reputation
3. Build equity

Brand Filter vs Personal Brand

It is a kin to a ‘personal brand’ and can be viewed this way, if you’d like. There is a key difference though (where a lot of the value lives). Your personal brand is detached from the brand filter.

If successful, your brand filter will become bigger (and different) than your personal brand. Audience can resonate with the brand filter without your name being attached to it. Your personal brand can evolve with you.

It’s best to think of a brand filter adjacent to your personal brand. Almost like an outer shell. People buy into people more than faceless brands. Leverage your face to grow the project.

Benefits of a brand filter:

Your brand filter can be an extension of you and can create more optionality in the long-run. It can house multiple projects, evolve outside of your personal interests, capture a more significant audience, and most importantly, build enterprise value.

It comes down to the consistency and ability to produce ideas that people enjoy consuming time and time again. This attracts like-minds, builds reputations, and creates equity.

The best part: your brand filter will grow your personal brand in parallel.

How to build your brand filter:

Ask yourself these 3 questions:

1. Niche - what is your goal for doing this? Who is the target audience? What do you want them to achieve?

2. Brand - Pick consistent colors, brand, voice, and name. This matters a lot. Your audience needs to resonate with it.

3. Long-term ethos - This is your place to publish. It needs to have staying power, evolve with you and a brand that can house multiple projects as it grows and evolves.

There is no exact prescription for how to build a brand filter. It will vary case by case with nuances for your situation. The goal is to create a consistent home for you to publish and test your ideas.

Here’s how I built mine.

Dowithin as a brand filter

Dowithin is my brand filter. The very idea you are reading is passing through the filter. Meta, right?

Dowithin was created after I built my last company. An agency that gave me no agency. I wanted to work with cool people on cool stuff in dope places. I have a ton of interest and hobbies. When I would publish ideas, there was no through line, no consistency. It was a bunch of puzzle pieces that didn’t fit together.

The consistency brand filter was missing.

Dowithin is broad enough to encompass many of those, while focused enough on adding value to others.

People don’t care about what you can do. They care about what you can do for them.

How Dowithin came to life:

Let’s go behind the creation of the brand.

The name:
I had tons of name ideas. Imaginary walls, noticed nauce, out of office… none of those conveyed what the ideas I wanted to explore. I kept returning to do cool stuff with cool people. So I smashed the words together to create Dowithin.

A good name creates immense value. Spend time on a name that can store equity.

The brand:
I studied Mechanical Engineering. Through founding 2 companies, I thought I was engineering my life for optionality and freedom. I wasn’t… I wanted to bend reality and engineer my life.

Pulling from my background, the colors and design elements come from engineering paper.

The logo:
Through several iterations, the logo came out beautifully and had unintentional embedded meaning. I wanted an icon that fit the word. I am thrilled with the outcome.

I had a friend ask “What's the reason you want a brand name? Why not purely your personal name as a brand?”

My answer:
If successful, Dowithin will transcend me as a personal brand and we will evolve separately as time goes on.

Jordan’s interests: 
→ Connecting with others on their passions
→ Family & Friends
→ Business
→ Basketball
→ Sneakers
→ Art
→ Living life on your own terms

Dowithin:
→ Insights to use your skills to create optionality online.

I can sprinkle in my personality into Dowithin, but personal brands are about you. Brand filters are about what you can do for others.

You want to create a recognizable brand that is attached to your project. Audience starts to resonate and recognize the brand in the wild.

As mentioned earlier, a brand filter will help you grow your project and personal brand simultaneously. Audience can opt out of you, but likely will not opt out of your project brand.

I am speaking from my personal experience from using this concept. I am seeing the most consistent traction I’ve ever seen.

I made a few decisions that eliminate 1,000 decisions each time I go to publish an idea. I no longer need to create a name, brand, social accounts, etc. Dowithin is there as a filter to force ideas through.

It’s incredibly freeing.

You won’t regret it.

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