One of the biggest challenges start-ups encounter is establishing themselves within the market. A widely recognized contributing factor to increasing chances of outrunning competition, is the implementation of a branding strategy with the purpose of creating a strong brand identity. Whether investing in developing a brand identity is profitable, depends on the brand relevance of a company. Brand relevance is the level of the overall role of brands in customers’ decision-making. Business-to-business start-ups have access to limited resources, hence it is important to them to only invest in creating a brand identity, when their level of brand relevance shows that this would be profitable.

The current exploratory research combined a desk research and a qualitative panel study to gain insight into the presence of an association between the two, as well as which factors are considerd to be of influence to the perceived brand identity.
Using a desk research, the level of brand relevance for a total of 30 start-ups related to the Delft Technical University was determined. Next, a focus group was hosted to gain insight into which factors are considered to be important to the perceived brand identity of B2B start-ups. Four overarching aspects were indicated: brand personality, corporate visual identity, clarity of the product/service and its relevance, and clarity of the competitive advantage. Furthermore, the current research aimed to investigate whether an association between the level of brand relevance of B2B technology-based start-ups and perceived brand identity was present. The results of the focus group were used to test whether this association was present. In the scope of this research however, no association was found.

The research provides start-up entrepreneurs with hands-on tips on which factors influence their perceived brand identity which makes it managerial relevant. The academical relevance can mainly be found in recommendation for future research, since this should show whether the absence of an indicated association between brand relevance and brand identity, can be explained by the absence of awareness among B2B technology-based start-ups.