Monica, one of my clients, spent 47 hours choosing a shade of blue.
Not designing her brand. Not building her business. Just blue.
She had 14 tabs open with color palette generators. A Pinterest board with 200 pins. A Notion doc comparing hex codes.
And she was miserable.
"I just want to get this right," she said on our call. "Once I pick the perfect blue, everything else will fall into place."
That's when I realized she wasn't stuck on blue.
She was stuck because she had infinite options and zero criteria for deciding.
Here's what I see happen to smart founders like you: You know branding matters. You've read the articles. You've saved the Instagram posts. You understand good brands make more money.
So you start researching.
And researching.
And researching.
Three months later, you still haven't made a single decision about your brand. Not because you're lazy. Not because you don't care.
Because you're trying to make perfect decisions without a framework for deciding.
Let me show you what I mean.
Most people think branding is a creativity problem. They think if they just look at enough inspiration, the perfect brand will reveal itself.
It won't.
Branding isn't a creativity problem. It's a decision problem.
You don't need more inspiration. You need criteria.
She didn't need to see more shades of blue. She needed to know what her blue needed to communicate.
So I asked her three questions:
Who are you serving? Burned-out teachers transitioning to corporate jobs.
What do they need to feel? Hopeful but professional.
What colors make people feel hopeful but professional? Not bright blue (too playful). Not navy (too corporate). Somewhere in between.
She picked a color in 5 minutes because she finally had criteria for deciding.
Here's what changes when you have a decision framework:
Color choice goes from 47 hours to 5 minutes. Logo design goes from 14 iterations to 2. Font selection goes from endless scrolling to "this one matches my criteria."
The decisions don't get easier because the options shrink. They get easier because you know what you're deciding FOR.
Most branding advice gives you inspiration. I'm going to give you a framework.
On November 7th, I'm launching the Brand Foundation Sprint. It's a 7-day email course that teaches you how to make confident brand decisions fast.
Not by showing you pretty brands. By giving you the exact criteria to decide on yours.
Each day for 7 days, you get one framework that kills one type of paralysis:
Day 1: Why you're stuck (and how to unstick yourself)
Day 2: The positioning framework (decide who you serve in 30 minutes)
Day 3: The validation scorecard (know if your idea is strong enough)
Day 4: The design decision tree (choose colors and fonts with criteria)
Day 5: The priority list (what to brand first, what to ignore)
Day 6: The testing framework (know if it's working before revenue)
Day 7: Go TEST it with real humans (not just theory, actual validation)
Every email has one framework and one 20-minute exercise.
No inspiration p*rn.
The course costs $19. Less than a month of ChatGPT. Less than two chai lattes. Less than another week of being stuck.
It launches November 10th.
Between now and then, I'm sending you 3 emails that teach you pieces of the framework. You'll get value whether you buy the course or not.
But if you're like Monica and you're tired of researching and ready to decide, this is for you.
More tomorrow.
— Shashank