The Brand Questionnaire

TALU

Prepared for Michelle Keefer, founder of TALU

Answer in your own words, and the brand run begins. Once your answers and materials are in hand, the run itself takes about two hours, and it ends with the brand whole: the claim, the evidence under it, the name, the voice, the identity, the book, and a launched site. There are no wrong answers here, and no wrong way to phrase them — your sentences, exactly as you'd say them, are the material the brand is built from.

How it works. Part One is seven questions — answer them first, in one sitting if you can. Part Two is sixteen more, in your own time; save and return as often as you need. Where a question asks what exists, send the thing itself where you can — a link, a file, a deck — not only a description of it.

Part One · The Opening — Part Two · The Intake

0 of 23 answered · your work saves as you go

Part One — The Opening

7 questions

1What are you building — in one sentence, as you'd say it to a stranger?

2What does it sell, and to whom?

The actual offer, the actual buyer.

3The problem, in your own sentences: what problem does it solve — who feels it, and what do they do about it today?

4Do you own the domain, or are you picking the name?

The moment you answer, the search starts. And the launch never waits on a name: if the domain isn't ready, a working address carries the brand live until it is.

I own the domain I'm picking the name

5What are you naming — a brand, a product, both? Do you have a name, or no name yet?

6What names are in play — and which do you love, which do you merely hold?

7What exists today — a site, materials, a record?

Everything you have, handed over: if a site, materials, or a deck exists, send the thing itself — link or file — with your answer.

Drop files here, or browse — decks, documents, images, anything that existsSend what you have now — you can add more later.

Part Two — The Intake

16 questions · in your own time

8Are you a formed company yet — or not?

Either answer is fine — it changes how the run proceeds, not whether it can.

Formed Not yet

9Who is it for, first — the first buyer, named as specifically as you can?

10Who is it NOT for?

11What do you refuse to sell, promise, or become?

The refusals — including the visual ones: colors, forms, or looks the brand must never wear.

12What words do you already use for it?

Your own language, unedited.

13What words do your customers use — for the problem, and for what they want instead?

Their language, as you've heard it.

14What must the name survive?

The markets, the languages, the collisions you know of.

15What does success look like at the first milestone — in numbers you choose?

16What is already decided — truly decided, not open?

17What is open — and whose call is it?

Including who else has a say — a partner, an investor, counsel.

18What would break this?

The thing that, if true, kills it.

19What is the money shape at the start — price, or price range, as you hold it today?

20What exists in public already — profiles, posts, listings, press?

Yours — where the brand already exists in public.

21Who should find this first — the rooms, lists, and people who matter at launch?

22When does it need to be live — and what date is real, versus hoped?

23What is the site's job at launch — in your words?

Credibility, capture, sales, or another job you name — the one thing the site must do first.

What happens next

Your answers start the run. Twelve further questions are spoken, not typed — they are recognition questions, asked in a sitting, where you correct what we present rather than compose from a blank page. Twenty-two more we answer ourselves, from research, the registries, and the record; you'll see that evidence in the book, each item with its source or its honest label.

Nothing on this form was pre-filled — where we already know a fact about TALU, the run checks it against your words here, and any difference between the two is treated as a finding, not an error.

Saved as you go. Part Two can be finished in more than one sitting — come back whenever you're ready.

Part One — The Opening

Part Two — The Intake

Received — thank you.