Brand Tools is a website that helps small businesses with their branding. Branding is important as it gives people a first impression of the business. What Brand Tools does is to automatically analyse a company’s logo and based on that, it creates different branding tools such as email signatures and social media graphics.
How did you get the idea for Brand Tools?
I used to work in graphic design and I noticed that a lot of small businesses end up doing their own branding. I could tell that many of them were not done by a graphic designer so I came up with the idea of creating a website where people could get professional branding for their business, simply by uploading their logo. The website will analyse it and create a series of tools based on a number of templates.
And in order to get support for your business venture you enrolled in the ilab program, at the University of Queensland. How does the program help you exactly?
Ilab is a program for current and former students at the University of Queensland. As part of the program you get $20,000 and six months of office space to help you set up your business. You also have the opportunity to meet and get mentoring from experienced people. I think it has helped me as I want Brand Tools to get big. To become a global business so I can help more people.
After getting in the program it only took you a few days to get your first customer. How did that make you feel?
It felt really good knowing that there are people out there interested in my product. In the program we are encouraged to approach potential customers and that is what I did. My first customer was from America, but now I also have a few in Australia.
What does the future hold for Brand Tools?
At the moment I am focused on growing the business and improving the service. Right now I’m doing everything by myself. It’s hard but it’s something I really enjoy. Another goal is to attract customers from all over the world so I can turn Brand Tools into a truly global business.
What advice would you give to people who aspire to start their own business?
Those who want to start their own business can have a look at programs like ilab as they are really helpful. If you want to start a business, go out there and try and do it, because the best thing you can do is try and start.
