HOW TO LAUNCH A COMPANY: ACCORDING TO RICHARD BRANSON

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Right, now onto my slightly unhealthy addiction with studying Richard Branson. I want to show you one of my favourite clips ever recorded of Branson. In it, he explains exactly how he’d market a company if he had to start from 0 today. I’m going to share my thoughts on it + some examples of companies that have taken his advice!

Let’s get into it!

The Essay

In 2014, a networking group called ‘Genius Network’ hosted a mastermind on Necker Island with Richard Branson. As part of the trip, the group got the chance to sit down with Branson, interview him and film it.

A few years later, it made its way to YouTube, and it’s one of my favourite videos to rewatch.

The interview quickly picks up pace, and the group starts firing more and more specific questions at Branson. They ask him how he’d handle different situations, his approach to business, and how he’d solve certain problems. With each new question, Branson doesn't flinch. He just gives honest, straight-up answers. I remember watching it for the first time in disbelief at how genuine his answers were.

(None of that polished, scripted nonsense you get from most CEOs nowadays.)

Then, about 7 minutes into the interview, a woman from the group turns to Branson and asks him…

“Richard, when you go to launch a new company, how do you think about the marketing campaign to launch it? How do you go about that whole process?”

Branson takes a short breath and then gives some of the best insights for marketing a company I’ve heard from any entrepreneur in the last few decades.

What he says isn’t groundbreaking or revolutionary, but he lays out the entire 5-step framework he used to make Virgin a global brand.

Here’s his exact answer ⤵️

If you don’t want to watch the video, Branson explains there are 5 key things he focuses:

1. Make a product worthy of people's attention

2. Use yourself to get on the map

3. Get on the front page of the papers

4. Be ready to make a fool of yourself

5. Use ideas that make people smile

I find it almost hilarious that most companies today do almost the complete opposite when trying to launch their company.

When a company tries to make a "splash" with their launch nowadays, they think the best approach is to pay for some expensive animations and tell people how much equity they've given away.

Like this one I saw on Twitter just the other day…

I wish I could sit with Richard Branson as he giggles at how silly this looks.

Imagine starting your big promotional video by stating how much money you’d raised, rather than talking about your product. Then end the video by offering to give away a growth playbook on how you got your first 100 customers - WHEN THEY’RE AN AI RISK MANAGEMENT COMPANY.

Branson would be bashing these two guys’ heads together, no matter how successful they are.

But I don’t want to write an essay bashing terrible marketing. So instead, I spent the last few hours finding examples of entrepreneurs who took Branson’s advice and have built huge companies because of it.

Take the AirUp water bottle as a prime example.

It’s a perfect showcase of Branson's first principle, to ‘Make a product worthy of people's attention’. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an advert for AirUp, yet I’ve heard about the product from so many different people.

It’s literally a water bottle that gives plain water a taste through scented caps. Does it work? Who knows. But the product markets itself. It’s a product people hear about and talk to their friends about - because it’s worthy of people’s attention.

This is something Branson himself knew so well. In the 90s, he introduced "In-flight Beauty Therapists" who gave neck and shoulder massages to Upper Class passengers on his Virgin Atlantic flights. He then removed the Upper Class cabin to install a stand-up bar so there was a social club on flights.

Imagine getting off an 8-hour flight to America after being able to mingle with passengers at the bar and getting a shoulder massage. You couldn’t not tell your friends about it.

That’s because it’s a product worthy of attention. A product worth talking about and a product that markets itself.

Ryan Reynolds is another great example of someone following directly in Branson’s footsteps with what he did with Mint Mobile.

In 2019, Reynolds bought a 20% stake in Mint Mobile for around $7.5M.

He then took every leaf out of the Richard Branson playbook and put himself in every single Mint ad he could to put Mint Mobile on the map. Even making skits with Rick Moranis that got 3.9M views alone.

Mint Mobile quickly had quote on quote “Astronomical growth”, and T-Mobile acquired the company in 2023 with Ryan getting about $337.5 million from the sale.

Talk about a win!

But the whole play is the perfect embodiment of Branson’s principle, “Use yourself to get on the map”.

When Branson was launching his own mobile network - Virgin Mobile - the entire launch campaign revolved around him. In this case, him being completely naked with a small Virgin phone to cover him up…

Safe to say Reynolds didn’t go quite that far, but he did follow in Branson’s footsteps.

No one cares about some random mobile network company, but they do care about Reynolds. So like Branson, he used himself to get them on the map.

Then the last example I have of a brand that has truly followed in Branson’s footsteps is RyanAir.

When Branson launched Virgin Brides in ____ he infamously dressed up as a bride himself and make front page news.

This wasn’t the first or last time that Branson made a fool of himself in the name of marketing.

Now, RyanAir’s CEO definitely isn’t crossdressing to sell airline tickets. But their whole viral growth over the last few years has primarily been driven by their ability to make a fool of themselves.

Since 2021, they’ve gained 5.8 million followers across their social channels from posts that poke fun at themselves…

Today, they’re the most followed airline on TikTok and the biggest airline in the whole of Europe. All from being comfortable laughing at themselves.

Branson would be proud.

It’s ironic that 2 of these examples I gave are in industries that Branson aboslutely dominated (airline & mobile network) and I’d be curious to know if either company truly did mirror Branson’s methods purposefully.

Either way, Branson is an incredible marketer and there’s certainly a lot we can learn from him.

Hopefully you enjoyed the video as much as I did and hopefully you learned something from this too!

That’s all I’ve got for you this week, I’m off to eat an M&S pizza (highly underrated by the way).

Until next Sunday,

— Niall

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