Context
Braintrust is the first and largest user-owned decentralized professional marketplace. By eliminating fees for talent and minimizing them for organizations, Braintrust realigns incentives for both sides of the market. Braintrust’s equity model also allows talent to have a stake in the business via their BTRST token.
As artificial intelligence, automation, and remote work become more prevalent, traditional job roles and organizational structures are being redefined, fundamentally altering the nature of work itself. Companies can now tap into a global talent pool, and a shift towards automation is creating new categories of jobs and skills. In response to these changes, new models of work and talent management are emerging.
As a new startup looking to break into the market, Braintrust was in need of research, branding and marketing solutions, and a go-to-market strategy to introduce their new global talent marketplace into a multi-trillion dollar market. Together, we focused on the following objectives.
Understanding the Market
Establish a deep understanding of customer needs and market dynamics, validating founder intuition and unlock key insights to inform product strategy and positioning.
Foundational Brand and Identity
Develop a resonant brand system from early concept to full expression, capable of differentiating in a crowded field and communicating a complex model with clarity and trust.
Go-to-Market Playbook
Translate research and brand into a full go-to-market strategy spanning messaging, channels, content, and acquisition, that delivered an actionable path to launch and early growth.
Solutions
We led user and market research, brand development, and developed a 100+ page go-to-market strategy to help Braintrust launch confidently and grow with focus.
Braintrust’s early promise hinged on proving a bold new model: a user-owned professional network. To unlock traction, they needed deep research to validate assumptions, understand market appetite, and define their niche.
Our research workstream was designed to validate key assumptions, reveal unmet needs, and illuminate the landscape that Braintrust would enter. This included stakeholder and expert interviews, user surveys, moderated testing, persona development, journey mapping, competitive audits, and value proposition testing.
We delivered deep user understanding and market clarity that translated directly into GTM and product strategy—from personas and behavioral patterns, to validated opportunities, positioning insights, and channel recommendations.
Insights
01
Map the entire landscape
We interviewed over 50 users—talent and organizations—across 10 segments to validate the model and identify core behavioral patterns.
02
Put the founder’s vision to the test
Research helped refine and validate Braintrust’s core thesis, revealing where founder intuition aligned with actual user needs, and where it didn’t.
03
Test, iterate, and systematize
From messaging frameworks to channel strategy, we ran tests that enabled real-time learning and built a data-driven foundation for future growth.
As a new startup in a sea of incumbents, Braintrust needed to strengthen its creative direction, developing a distinctive visual language, redesigning its early identity concept, creating memorable brand moments, and building a foundational design language reflecting its unique market positioning.
Braintrust needed a brand identity that conveyed its unique model—user-owned, decentralized, and expert-driven. We began with foundational interviews and competitive audits, then collaborated with the client and partners to build a clear, modern brand system.
Using learnings from our research and market analysis, we created a set of brand guidelines and visual identity centered around the key concept of talent coming together to form an indispensable global network.
Insights
01
Let the values shape the system
The brand system emerged directly from Braintrust’s mission and structure. Ownership, transparency, and access were central themes in both visual identity and voice.
02
Differentiate with purpose
Against a backdrop of transactional job platforms, we focused on elegance, clarity, and cohesion to express Braintrust’s premium and future-forward positioning.
03
Operationalize the plan
We created guidelines, templates, and toolkits to ensure the brand was easy to implement across sales, marketing, and product touchpoints.
With a clear understanding of their market and a strong brand foundation, the next step was to help Braintrust reach and resonate with the right audiences. We worked across product marketing, content, and sales enablement to build a comprehensive go-to-market strategy.
This included the development of a 100-page GTM plan that outlined segment strategies, pricing and channel recommendations, landing page frameworks, messaging playbooks, and a content roadmap across the first 18 months of the business.
Our go-to-market strategy turned early research into action, giving Braintrust tools to prioritize high-value opportunities, measure impact, and adapt.
Insights
01
Turn insight into impact
We translated research into messaging frameworks, landing pages, and campaign structures that directly informed customer acquisition and retention
02
Let the market surprise you
The GTM plan was designed as a living system, complete with feedback loops, learning milestones, and a modular structure for growth-stage shifts
03
Invest in the ecosystem
Beyond just launch, we delivered collateral, deck templates, sales tools, and a full content strategy to support internal teams and long-term marketing.
Outcomes
Braintrust succeeded in a powerful launch into the market, quickly attaining profitability, strategic growth funding, and clients across the Fortune 1000.
Braintrust entered a saturated market with a bold new model, and needed systems, clarity, and credibility to succeed. Our work helped them launch not just a product, but a platform, with a clear position and message tailored to both talent and enterprise clients.
From foundational research and brand strategy to detailed GTM planning and marketing collateral, we built the core infrastructure Braintrust used to operationalize and communicate their vision. The resulting systems equipped the team to adapt quickly, experiment with confidence, and establish early traction.
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