Where Startups are designed not discovered: Inside Jung von matt’s creative engine for founders Part 2

written by Kai Lentering

edited by Carlotta Cardinale

June 23, 2025

In conversation with Kai Lentering, Strategy Director at Jung Von Matt START,

an agency that helps early-stage startups shape their identity, craft powerful

stories, and launch with impact.

In a chaotic first meeting with a founder—no product yet, no pitch that really sticks—what signals help you decide whether there's actually something worth building?

For us, as a brand and creative consultancy and agency dedicated to startups, involvement in business and product development is rather an edge case;from time to time, we conduct market research to support product development, but usually, there is at least already a product idea or a product in development.

But of course, the lines between business, product, and brand strategy are blurry, and all have to work together to achieve the best results. So we try to reciprocally build on the business and product strategy, but also infuse those with perspectives from a brand point of view.

Though the described types of meetings rarely occur for us as an agency, from my experience in the VC space, I can say that nowadays no VC firm would invest in a startup with just an undefined idea. VCs don’t even sign NDAs. They usually invest in good teams that have a product with early, promising market traction and the potential to scale. So I guess these kinds of startup founders are dying out, as the founder scene has become more mature—also in Europe and the UK—and there are a lot of accelerator programs and such to support first-time entrepreneurs.

Many early founders are obsessed with being “seen”, but when you’re bringing a startup to market from zero, what’s the first visibility decision you never leave to chance?

It totally depends on the business model, product, and market—especially product complexity and novelty, as well as market maturity, which play important roles here. When focusing on a product launch in general, the approach depends on the budget, but there are three types of media to consider in the channel mix: owned, earned, and paid media. Usually, you create dedicated landing pages and product pages on your website, take care of SEO, try to get relevant press coverage with a newsworthy story, and put some paid budget into SEA and, usually, some social channels. As an agency, we often try to achieve high organic/earned reach through a press stunt at the core of the launch communication and amplify it with paid media, although this is not possible in all cases. If a startup has higher budgets, moretraditional channels like OOH or even TV or radio can also make sense. Also, audiovisual media are increasingly digital in their infrastructure, with CTV, numerous OLV options, streaming platforms, and even radio now enabling increasingly precise targeting. And, of course, there are also differences depending on the business model and category.

For instance, FMCG products might have to consider POS marketing in the mix if they (also) launch in retail rather than as purely digital D2C brands. In all these cases, besides channel and format selection, personnel and production costs should be weighed against allocating more budget to formats cheaper in production, which are often more suitable for a launch from scratch. What should also be considered is that building organic reachinvolves far more continuous effort compared to paid ad alternatives, makingthe latter the better (if not the only) choice for a launch—especially if you needto gain traction fast from scratch. After the initial launch, it means continuous testing, learning, and scaling as you go. But “being seen” often begins even

before an official launch. Especially for startups in the very early stages, building and leveraging their network is a key factor for most businesses.

You’re advising a startup that could appeal to three distinctaudiences, but none are guaranteed early adopters. Do you prioritise ease of acquisition, virality, or long-term alignment—and how do you avoid choosing wrong?

If “early adopters” implies that you have a new, innovative product or technology, there are two scenarios:

● You either disrupt a market by providing an innovative and more high-performing solution to an existing problem/task, skimming existing demand

while having to convince people to switch (with switching costs involving various dimensions).

● Or you offer a product/technology that creates a new market with its own demand, where people are not even problem-aware and where demand has to be created through awareness and education.

In general, it’s a common and viable approach to start with a GTM strategy that focuses on an engaged niche audience, prioritizing ease of acquisition— ideally choosing the most promising of the three audiences in your scenario based on testing, potentially supported by market research and the resulting data insights. But businesses and brands have to have a proper growth strategy in place to avoid getting stuck in the niche. So, start with the low- hanging fruit, but have a clear strategy for expanding into broader audiences, looking at long-term alignment. A good brand will be flexible enough to accomplish this; and if the delta between the niche you start in and the long- term goal is too big, a rebranding at some point can be a valid way to scale, though, of course, this comes with risks as well.

On virality: it is hard to plan. But buzz can definitely be generated through earned media, be it via social or press stunts. The precondition is a high level of creativity in concept and execution, driving momentum. As mentioned above, strategically planned, creative press buzz is often a smart way, but I would not bet on virality in good faith.

What’s your internal framework for selecting a startup’s entrychannel, especially when founder assumptions (“we need to beon TikTok”) clash with timing, product readiness, or marketlogic? And when deciding not to launch on certain channels, what criteria guide that exclusion?

The channel mix should be based on audience data and their preferences. If no historic marketing data is available yet to make informed decisions and you’re truly starting from scratch, insights on channel preferences can be derived through market research—either from publishers or tool vendors offering third-party data or, if the audience is very narrow, through dedicated surveys or interviews (for instance, in the case of many B2B software startups). Regarding the resources, internal production costs, personnel effort, and paid media budget must be weighed against each other—as mentioned, it’s usually easier and more cost-efficient to run paid ads initially than build an organic follower base from scratch, though there are exceptions.

Deciding on an entry channel mix should consider both audience preferences and cost efficiency. A common mistake we see is that brands run too many channels just for the sake of it, without a clear strategy for testing and scaling measures. Getting one channel at a time working is a viable way to move forward, especially if you build up in-house teams, for instance, for organic social. But even initially, you will have to cover the basics across a mix of channels if you want to achieve the best results. In most cases (depending

on the internal expertise), startup founders are best advised to hire an agency and/or a freelancer setup that fits their needs, considering owned, paid, and earned media.

Do you believe every startup needs a public “launch moment”? If not, how do you build momentum and legitimacy without the atrics, and what are smarter alternatives?

For us at Jung von Matt, momentum is at the core of our thinking. Using specific occasions or events to amplify your brand’s GTM is definitely recommended if timing allows. Smart launch moments are moments when your audience’s mental availability and the public discourse fit your brand’s story—whether you use trends, special events, or current affairs to develop a creative idea that resonates with your audience. And also here, combining free earned reach with paid amplification makes sense. While for most products a “launch moment” is preferable, one of the few exceptions is products (often tech-focused applications) that initially grow organically in their user base, where classical paid marketing might actually harm growth. Here, a product- led growth strategy might be more suitable, growing the user base through community management and word of mouth, at least initially. Also, some products (often market makers in B2B SaaS) benefit more from direct (network) sales before moving to marketing and communication.

What’s one go-to-market decision you’ve deliberately delayed, not because the team wasn’t ready, but because the market wasn’t? What changed when you waited?

If the market is not ready, you try to make it. It’s a longer shot since you haveto create demand first—educating people that they need your product, asmentioned. But looking at venture, the majority of investors are hesitant about investing in certain industries or business models due to unclear regulations, for instance. VCs need to project when their investments into startups start bringing returns. So in some highly regulated areas, like HealthTech or GovTech, deliberately delaying a product launch might be reasonable. Though I’ve not been in the

position to delay a launch myself, I’ve advised clients to use the time until contexts change to build exposure in the public discourse on the topic relevant to their product. You can build reach (especially, but not only, as a personal brand) before launching a product—and this is very beneficial when you do launch.

What’s the most difficult type of founder to advise from a strategy perspective, and how do you navigate the gap between their energy and the market’s reality?

Founders need to understand the business value of branding and its rather long-term effects, which build up over time, compared to pure performance sales. And they need

to drive brand strategy top-down in their business and align it with their business and product strategy. If founders don’t see the real business value of a strong brand and mistake it for merely a logo or a website design, that is probably where the most education is needed. But I wouldn’t say this is difficult; I rather enjoy showing what brand work can do for businesses and their products. But if founders treat branding as an irrelevant “creative” side project from the outset and with persistence, it might become a bit unproductive for both sides.

What’s the most difficult part of making a startup believable—not just known—especially when it knows what it wants to say but hasn’t yet earned the right to say it?

Awareness per se won’t do the job, that’s correct. To shape the brand image in people’s minds, communication and marketing need to convey a resonating brand story, with messaging and personality that are aligned with the brand’s positioning and narrative, creating a “salient memory” of the right brand image. But the brand speaks at every touchpoint, so it should do so consistently and, beyond marketing and communication,also take into account experiences with the product as well as in sales, CRM, and support in order to strengthen its image. One important aspect here is that certain values might be explicitly definable internally, but standing for them as a brand credibly must be earned actively and more subtly through the brand's behavior. Trust is a good example here:

think of Kaa, the snake from

The Jungle Book, whispering “Trussssst in me...”, which, for a not-too-naive audience, will likely have the opposite effect.

Even more important is that your brand can live up to its values and promises. If it cannot, this is also referred to as the “brand experience gap.” If you fly too high, you will probably fall mid- to long-term. If you cannot live up to your promises as a brand, customers won’t use or buy your product again after the first purchase or free registration, ultimately also harming acquisition through negative discourse. Inmore severe cases, reputational damage can be difficult to recover from—for instance, due to a really bad product or service experience, pushy sales strategies, or bad press such as greenwashing.