Startups Must Ditch the Branded Hoodies…
Let’s address the elephant in the room – or rather, the hoodie in the boardroom. B2B tech startups are all about that casual, laid-back vibe and challenging the status quo, at least until you need to be taken seriously by corporate society. When it comes to selling tech solutions to companies, people tend to buy from like-minded individuals, so the more the buyer can relate to the seller, the better. This means you must speak the buyer’s language and wear similar business attire. If you arrive at an enterprise sales meeting in trainers, tatty jeans and a branded company t-shirt, you are disrespecting your audience and don’t deserve to win the deal. Even if your solution is so good that the technical buyer is willing to overlook your lack of empathy, the board will not be so forgiving and may not give their sign-off. It might be time to trade in that hoodie for something a little more… grown-up.
Stop Buying Branded Cr@p!
Running Apple’s website alone probably costs more than all the bootstrapped startups in the world have available to spend on marketing in their first year of existence. Just imagine how many branded coffee mugs you could buy with Apple’s budget! Well, still not enough to turn your unknown startup brand into something meaningful and of value. There are far more important uses for your limited resources to focus on than kitting your employees out in company-branded clothing. Ok, I get it, your team of software developers loves a branded hoodie. The tech industry has adopted this apparel as a professional uniform, but the fact is, you can’t afford it and even the more expensive versions still look terrible.
The Definition of Insanity
More importantly, why would a startup with any ambition divert available funds away from generating and converting leads? Will you be wearing your branded hoodie when you go to see the bank manager to re-mortgage your house because you haven’t made any sales? Perhaps you need to focus more on funding your marketing activity rather than gracing employees with branded crap. Please stop wasting your money on poor-quality, meaningless catalogue items. It won’t build your brand and certainly won’t help you find the leads you need to win that next important client. I sum this insane practice up by drawing a comparison to those with a drug dependency. Yes, you heard that right, company-branded clothing is the crack cocaine addiction of the entire tech industry… and it needs to stop, NOW!
Ego Over Substance
Company-branded clothing for tech startups is usually nothing more than a founder inflating their own ego and wasting good money on t-shirts, hoodies and other pointless merchandise. That money could be spent on revenue generation, like investing in finding and winning customers to fund the next round of growth. If you exhibit at events, dress smartly like normal businesspeople and give provide meaningful information such as case studies, ‘how to’ and ‘buyer’s’ guides, so prospects can take you seriously. Nobody needs your branded pen or military grade LED flashlight. If your tech startup is unnecessarily spending money on any branded tosh that are guaranteed to end up in landfill, before you reach $10M ARR, I am not your friend. And even then, I will still look at you weirdly.
How Much Branded Landfill Do Tech Companies Create Each Year?
Estimating the amount of landfill waste generated by promotional merchandise from tech companies is not easy. There is only limited data to call on, but by applying a few assumptions, we can at least arrive at a plausible number. For the purposes of this exercise, we will exclude the electronic waste component and focus only on branded merch (e.g., t-shirts, pens, notebooks, the dreaded hoodie and other silly giveaway items).
Estimation Approach for Non-Electronic Branded Items:
- Promotional Products Industry Data
According to the Promotional Products Association International (PPAI), the promotional products industry in the U.S. alone generates billions of dollars annually in sales. A significant portion of this includes non-electronic items.
- Proportion of Waste
Assume a certain percentage of these products end up as waste. Since precise data on the lifespan and disposal of these items is scarce, we can make some educated assumptions.
Calculation:
- Industry Size
The promotional products industry in the U.S. alone was valued at around $25 billion in 2019. Assuming a similar scale globally, we might estimate a global industry size of around $100 billion per year.
- Tech Company Share
If we assume tech companies contribute to around 10% of this market, that gives us $10 billion worth of promotional products annually… I literally just spat my coffee out!
- Waste Proportion
If we then assume that 50% of these products eventually (immediately in most cases) end up in landfills, we can calculate the weight of this waste.
Let’s assume an average weight for a unit of promotional product is around 0.5 kg (considering items like t-shirts, mugs, pens, hoodies, etc.).
How Much Trash?
Based on these estimations, company-branded items from tech companies might be responsible for approximately 500,000 metric tons of landfill waste annually. This rough estimate can vary significantly with more precise data and different assumptions about the market share, product weight and disposal rates. The very thought of that much branded trash and marketing money being wasted each year induces an immediate and involuntary gag reflex in my throat.
Carbon Branded Waste
Just for fun, although not laugh-out loud-funny, I’ve applied an estimate for how much carbon this wasteful endeavour generates. Based on a rough average, manufacturing $10 billion worth of branded merchandise each year could generate approximately 3 million metric tons of CO2. If any of what is produced was useful, then this in and of itself may not be so bad. I would argue that almost all of this is cheap, unwanted trash.
However, in addition to the CO2 generated from the production process, there is more that comes from landfill waste when these items are disposed of. The estimated CO2 equivalent emissions from the landfill waste generated by tech company-branded items globally are approximately 25,000 metric tons of CO2 annually.
These estimates serve as a general guideline, and actual CO2 emissions may vary widely based on detailed lifecycle assessments, data on specific products, waste compositions and landfill management practices.
A Pandemic of Trash and Missed Growth Opportunity
To all my learned marketing colleagues out there in tech land, especially those who market the sustainability credentials of their employers, please stop this expensive and wasteful bad habit. It was never a good idea in the first place and tech startups especially, cannot afford to waste their limited resources. I have calculated that if all the energy, innovation and money that’s wasted on branded merchandise had instead been spent on growth initiatives for the last 10 years, the tech industry would be $311 billion bigger than it is today. I call this ‘sacrificed growth’ in exchange for branding insanity.
Tech Marketers Make a Stand
From now on, whenever a founder asks you to spend company money on branded merch that will go into a landfill, say no. Push back and tell them you need that money for marketing promotions that will generate leads to help drive sales. Revenue growth will positively impact the company’s valuation and, therefore, the founder’s own personal net worth; a new hoodie won’t. Failing that, you could flush the money directly down the drain; the result will be the same. Your developers will have to, dare I say it, dress themselves and procure their own untrendy uniform. Everyone else seems capable of dressing themselves, so why can’t the techies?
You may want to read: “Why B2B Tech Startups Must Invest in Marketing.”
