What I Learned From Rebranding a Company in 3 Months

I lead a creative team of two at a company that has grown from three co-founders to over 150 employees. We’ve acquired a company, expanded to multiple offices, and launched the world’s first end-to-end account-based marketing platform. I guess you could say we’ve grown up.

But one thing that hadn’t changed over the past five years — until recently — was the Terminus brand itself. It was like our favorite well-worn pair of shoes: familiar and comfortable, but it didn’t quite fit us, or our lifestyle the way it used to.

So in the fall of 2018, we knew that the time had come to make some changes. This is the story of how Terminus underwent a brand refresh in three months, using only internal resources, and what I learned from it all. No big agencies, no fancy consultants. In the process of defining who we are, how we work, and how we help our customers succeed — I also learned that a true branding process is much more than a logo.

Let’s go back to the very beginning. While still working a different (full-time) job, I started doing some freelance work for Terminus in the spring of 2015. Terminus was my introduction to the SaaS industry and startup world, and I was excited to offer visual support to an up-and-coming startup. I keenly remember watching a grainy video of the co-founder explaining the flipped…