A brand's true value is derived from the personal meaning a consumer attributes to it. This is distinct from its 'worth,' which is merely the transactional price the market will bear. The goal is to build meaning, which in turn drives up perceived value and justifies market worth.

A rebrand should be viewed as building the fundamental foundation of a business. Without it, growth attempts are superficial and temporary. With a solid brand, the company has a stable base that can support significant scaling and prevent the business from hitting a growth ceiling.

Don't rebrand for the sake of it. A successful rebrand should be a deliberate move to signal a fundamental shift in your business, such as an expansion, a new mission, or a deeper commitment to core values like sustainability. It's an external reflection of an internal change.

Meta's rebrand from Facebook, much like Google's to Alphabet, was not just a name change. It was a strategic move to signal to both employees and the market that the company's ambitions extend beyond its original core product, creating the space and permission to build entirely new business lines.

Preparing a company for acquisition can lead founders to make short-term decisions that please the acquirer but undermine the brand's core agility, setting it up for failure post-sale. The focus shifts from longevity to a transaction.

The ultimate PLG companies are consumer brands like shampoo, which sell on brand affinity, not commoditized features. As software becomes more commoditized, B2B companies must similarly build a strong brand theme that inspires users to associate with them, creating a more durable moat than features alone.

Palo Alto Networks insisted on calling its product a "next-gen firewall" despite sales team fears. This forced conversations about replacing incumbents, preventing them from being relegated to a secondary "helper" category and ensuring long-term market leadership.

Coca-Cola failed with ZICO not by changing its core quality, but by stripping away its ability to adapt. Large corporate systems, built for consistency at scale, enforce rigid processes that stifle the very nimbleness that made a challenger brand successful.

The "conquering hero" approach of forcing an acquired company to adopt your processes is the cardinal sin of M&A. Omar Tawakol's experience at Oracle showed that protecting an acquisition's unique workflows and incentives leads to growth, while rapid, forced integration destroys value.