Be Bold. Be Humble. CMO | CBO | Brand Strategy | Brand Building | @HustleFundVC #AngelSquad Investor | Passionate about the power of brands | Free Agent
Los Angeles
Joined March 2007
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In 1986, DoubleTree started leaving a cookie on hotel pillows. Today it hands out about 20 million warm cookies a year at check-in.
Nobody books a hotel for a cookie. Almost everyone remembers it.
That's a signature move. Here's what I mean by that, and how to find yours.
ALT Black card with the words: What Was the Move? Signature Moves, Deep Dives, Essay No. 05
Moves can break. TOMS built a brand on One for One, then retired it in 2019 under criticism and financial pressure.
A signature move has to be rooted in the economics as well as the values.
AI makes campaigns and content nearly free. It can't generate a warm cookie at check-in.
As execution gets cheaper, the moves are what people remember.
The full essay, with the method I use with clients to find one:
signaturemoves.substack.com/…
AI replaced the old starting point for junior strategists: transcribing notes, two weeks of 4Cs research. But I want more strategists, not fewer. Juniors can now start with judgment and a point of view from their own cohort. Mentoring changes too.
Founders spend months on a name. Customers rarely remember it exactly.
They remember whether it delivered, how it felt, maybe a color. The experience does most of the branding, planned or not.
A small one for the weekend.
When I was five my family trekked to Everest Base Camp. On the way, we stopped in a village and I got to hold what they told us was the skull of a yeti.
I didn't appreciate it then, but moving that much taught me the most useful skill I bring to work: walking into a room where I don't speak the language yet and figuring out what people actually care about.
That's most of brand strategy.
Last year I shared 50 early-stage startups worth watching.
This year it has a name and a standard: The Momentum 50, Class of 2026.
ALT The Momentum 50, Class of 2026 badge
The full essay, with what this class says about where things are going:
signaturemoves.substack.com/…
All 50 with sources: docs.google.com/spreadsheets…
Your call: which company in this class will have the most momentum by next October?
Reply with one name and why. I'll credit everyone who got it right.
Make a call or nominate for 2027: docs.google.com/forms/d/1U5G…
