The Benefits of Having a Consumer Brand for Hard Science

The opinions expressed by entrepreneurs contributors are their own.

Back in the early days of The Supplant Company, when we were just sketching out the details of the concept of "fiber-derived sugars", we really had no idea what the right route to market would be.

Bringing new ingredients to market is not SaaS, and there is no set playbook. And while there have been some successes now, there is still no consensus in the industry. There is also no consensus from investors. Over the years we have received many different and conflicting comments on the best path to take from idea to store shelf.

As an ingredients company, whether or not to have a brand has always been a major bone of contention. At one extreme, some investors told us, "We don't care how you go to market, as long as you do it with a brand." Conversely, others told us, "If you're going to invest in building a brand, tell us how much you're going to spend, because we want to know how much we're going to waste."

Divergent indeed! We spent the last few years figuring out for ourselves what made the most sense to us. Here are some of the learnings that have led us to the position that is a huge asset to us in marketing ingredients, not an unnecessary distraction.

Related: These 7 Entrepreneurs Tell You the Secret to Creating a Consumer Brand

It makes things easier by eliminating the heavy weight of the heavy drill

In some ways, the skepticism is understandable. Hard is hard. Building great brands is also difficult. Doing both at the same time is the most difficult of all. Also, the types of people who are good at the hard sciences are often not the types of people who are good or experienced in brand building. So why make it even harder for yourself? Stick to what you know, right?

The reason I think this logic fails is that even when you're good at hard science, the hard parts are still very hard. Some problems inevitably require a lot of time, effort and capital to solve. And even those that are, in principle, easier to solve are often not as malleable as you would like to adapt to perceived market orthodoxies. This is especially the case with hard science problems.

The best way forward is not to let the business lean heavily on the parts of the business whose challenges are the slowest to resolve. Having a brand can relieve the pressure to address these issues and gives the consumer the immediate ability to present things the right way.

Related: 5 Strategies You Need to Grow Your Brand

That means we don't have to go into the status quo

Adjusting to perceived market orthodoxies is a prime example. New innovations don't usually fit neatly into status quo perceptions of what's good – that's certainly the case for us. Does this seem strange to you? I can see how it could. After all, we're doing exactly what the food industry wants to do: we're replacing cane sugar in food. So it's a no-brainer, isn't it?

In some ways, yes. But in other ways, we're breaking the mold of what defines success on this issue, at least on a narrow reading of it. An obvious example is that we replace sugar — but replacing it with a new mixture of sugars. They are lower in calories, lower in glycemic and prebiotic, but they are still labeled (at least in part) as sugars.

Being able to communicate how the ingredient is made and why and how it has the nutritional benefits it provides is extremely helpful in preventing the rest of the company from having to conform to the often arbitrary nature of the status quo. Branding is the main tool that allows this.

Related: The Keys to Building a Brand: Innovation, Integration and Identity

It allows us to tell more of our story

Not only do groundbreaking innovations often not fit neatly into the purpose of the current status quo, there is often much more to be said than a non-branded approach could allow for. This is true for both what we do here at The Supplant Company and why we do...