
Founder ┃ Product ┃ Creative Direction ┃ Marketing ┃ Fundraising
Summary
I founded NewGlue in 2017. As a design enthusiast and a strong believer in the power of brands, I was driven by an idea to democratize professional branding by allowing any business, no matter their financial conditions, to afford a brand that matched their dreams and aspiration. As an online Design- and MarTech platform, NewGlue helped small businesses all over the world with professionally designed content through a groundbreaking automated process and Smart Design tools. In 2022, NewGlue was acquired by the Scandinavian stock-listed company Eniro.
Approach
In terms of quality, NewGlue was a global market leader of online branding services. Unlike any competitor, including Canva, the brands we generated on our platform were only sold once. By using unsold vector icons, designed by professional designers, we created unique and fully “trademarkable” logos.
With detailed “design data” machine learning, we created top-quality brands in minutes with perfectly assembled color palettes, font selections and industry-matching brand imagery. Additionally, the system automatically generated a “Brand hub” for users with extensive brand assets and on-brand marketing materials, including stationery, social media posts and even a website.
which were used in our system to automatically design logos, and thousands of small businesses from across the world subscribed to our platform on a monthly basis.
Built automated
Designer Hub allowed designers
To begin, users built their own brand via a smooth and user-friendly design experience that would boost their creativity and sense of self completion. In the first step, users were asked a series of simple and fun questions about their company and brand. Based on that brief, the system presented a few suggested logo icons. Once the icons was chosen, the tool would automatically create several logos with different formats, and quality fonts and color variations.
To manage their brand, customers were given access to their personal Brand Hub on NewGlue - an advanced Digital Assets Management platform with structured brand assets - and automatically branded marketing templates for print and social media. The Hub also included a pre-made website, in which the customer could build upon in our simple web builder tool. Additionally, customers could order hundreds of auto-branded merchandise with immediate shipping.
With ‘deep pocket’ competitors like Canva, we had to rely on other strategies than just paid ads, retargeting and content marketing to find leads and drive conversions.
For SEO, we took an e-commerce approach and targeted product specific search terms like “sun logos” or “C logos”, and created hundreds of landing pages for each individual keyword, attracting organic and high-intent traffic.
Go-to-market
With ‘deep pocket’ competitors like Canva, we had to rely on other strategies than just paid ads, retargeting and content marketing to find leads and drive conversions.
For organic search, we took an e-commerce approach and targeted for more product specific search terms like “sun logos” or “C logos”, and creating hundreds of landing pages for each individual keyword. These terms had fewer monthly searches, but were highly effective.
All 700+ professional designers on our platform got their own “stores”. Using an affiliate strategy, designers were given a bonus if a customer came in via their store, making designers actively pushing their store links on social channels and their own portfolio sites. To further embrace the community feeling, designers were also given a bonus if a customer came in via their store but ended up buying another designer’s icon on NewGlue. This program was highly appreciated by our designers and created a deep loyalty to the brand.
We built extensive email nurturing sequences with repeating reminders, notifying users that other people were now interested in the same logo icon (i.e. only sold once). Additionally, we sent emails with recommendations of other, automatically designed, logo suggestions - as well as notifications when new, similar logo icons were uploaded to the platform.
Results
Attracted a community of 700 professional designers, with hundreds of thousands of additional applications.
Designers uploaded over 100k logo icons to out system.
Reached 30% MoM MRR growth
Reached 40% MoM customer growth
Raised over $3m USD from prominent tech investors including Luminar Ventures, Provider Investment and UK VC Truesight.
Awarded in Venture Cup
Selected for SEB Innovation Forum
Selected for StartUp Grind in Silicon Valley
Selected for prestigious incubator SSE Business Lab (Stockholm School of Economics) that has also housed startups like Klarna and Voi.
Acquired by Nordic stock-listed company Eniro in November 2022.
Selected work
Afterglow for Philips
Robin by Eniro
Skippo