Gregg Blanchard May 29, 2020
I've built a handful of apps over the years. And one of the dumbest mistakes I made with virtually all of my early projects was spending waaaay too much time designing logos and brands and landing pages instead of actually building the product.
When I built the first iteration of SendView, I vowed to not overthink it.
So I took our default font - Lato - and combined it with a generic icon - the now ubiquitous paper airplane - chose a nice little shade of red and that was it.
That quick design has served us really, really well.
But when you fast forward to 2020, you see a SendView that isn't the random side project it once was.
- Our users and revenue are growing steadily
- The app itself has gone from handy to really powerful
- Users have gone from random marketers to mainstream brands
- We're starting to catch the eye of more and more potential partners
We're still small and we're still a side-hustle, but our business and service is miles away from where it used to be. Yet our logo? Still the same generic text with a generic icon now used by dozens, if not hundreds, of other email-related services.
In other words, I felt it was time for a new, more polished look. It was time for something that was all our own.
In the end, this is a small change.
- It doesn't magically make our product any more awesome.
- It doesn't change our revenue.
- It doesn't increase our traffic.
- It doesn't instantly double our retention.
But it represents a milestone for us as a company and service. It means we have the awesomeness, the revenue, the traffic, and the retention worthy of a stronger brand.
It means we're in a place where we have enough of a reason to care about stuff like that.
And, man, that's a fun place to be.