Brand isn't meant to start the fire — it's the accelerant. And you can't accelerate something that isn't already moving.
By the time Giga came to Focus Lab, the fire was already burning. They had traction, product-market fit, and a proven model. What they didn't have was a way to package, position, and communicate what they'd built.
In this episode of The Debrief, Focus Lab CEO Bill Kenney sits down with Sam Burns, Head of Marketing at Giga Energy, to relive the rebrand that helped a fast-moving manufacturing company build trust, attract top-tier talent, and scale into new markets — all without losing who they are.
Tune in to hear:
- Why founder buy-in means more than just signing off on a logo
- The case for slowing down — and why it's the hardest sell at a fast moving company
- The downstream business impact of getting your brand right
- How to build a brand system that scales across your organization
If you're a founder or B2B marketing leader trying to figure out when (and how) to invest in brand, this one's for you.
Episode Resources:
Full Transcript:
[Sam Burns]
A rebrand is a business decision disguised as a creative one. And I think marketers, to their credit, sometimes get too caught up in the creative side of the rebrand, and I think they don't spend enough time having an honest conversation with CEO, founder, whatever, one, two, three.
Yes, everyone says, "Get the buy-in," but what does the buy-in actually mean, right? The buy-in means you've gotten the business to a point where without a rebrand, you will not realize its full potential, right? And when you can start talking potential in terms of upside revenue with your CEO, yes, whether it's green-lighting that spend or just green-lighting the involvement and the buy-in of the CEO becomes so much easier. But if the fire is not started, the rebrand, which is just gas, will do nothing. It will just make you a gassy mess on the ground, right?
[Bill Kenney]
Hey, everyone. This is Bill Kenney, CEO and co-founder of Focus Lab, a global B2B branding agency. I'm back with another episode of "The Debrief." A series where we sit down with past Focus Lab partners, and we pull back the curtain on what it's truly like to go on these types of branding journeys. In today's episode, I'm sitting down with Sam Burns, a two-time client now. Sam is the head of marketing at Giga Energy, and we relive Sam's project. I'm really excited about this one. Sam does a masterful job at sharing his perspectives on what he thinks were the most valuable aspects of the project, on how he set up the project for success. Another wonderful episode. Hope you all enjoy it.
[Bill Kenney]
All right, Mr. Sam, Mr. Burns. Excited to chat. I pinged you and you jumped on the opportunity. When did the Giga brand go live? How long has it been now?
[Sam Burns]
So it was April of a year and a half. So almost a year and a half ago, I think April or May of 2025. Yeah.
[Bill Kenney]
Y'all been on a rocket ship and I've been watching, and I looped back around and I'm like, "We should talk 'cause you're gonna have a lot of good perspectives." But before we get there, you wanna introduce yourself? Tell people who you are and what you do.
[Sam Burns]
Yeah, no problem. My name's Sam. I lead the marketing team at Giga Energy. We're a vertically integrated AI data center developer. Our whole wedge is that we manufacture and build everything from grid to chip, and we do it faster than anyone else of the incumbents. So that's our wedge. And I've been there now, what, almost two years.
And before that I was in the software world. Went seed to Series B with an AI customer service startup, also working with Bill and team at Focus Lab. And I live in the great state of Wisconsin in the Midwest. I like all things beer, cheese, and sausages. Born and raised in Wisconsin. But yeah, excited to chat today. Thanks for having me, Bill.
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah. Hell yeah. And dude, congrats. What a journey. So you've been there two years. You said the brand has been live almost a year and a half, so that's investing in brand pretty early and a serious trajectory. I know that is not just us. I think it is well-timed. The market and the appetite for what you all are doing is probably perfectly timed. So walking all the way backwards, how did you know that you should take brand so seriously in Giga's trajectory so early?
[Sam Burns]
Yeah, and I would love to say, hey, like it was all my idea, but I have to give kudos, and I think this is one of the learnings, is one of the early founders Scott who brought me on, he had started early conversations with you guys. I think he was one of the first ones too, who said "Hey I think brand is gonna be the next thing that fuels our next step at Giga," right?
And then, while I joined, we kicked it off with you guys, right? And I think that to me made it so much easier to be like, hey, yeah, brand is the move because the founders see it. Any CMO out there, right, it's like, hey, like you can want to brand all you want. You can convince a rebrand, but unless the founders are living and breathing the why of why you look, sound, feel differently it'll fall flat I think, right?
[Bill Kenney]
Yes.
[Sam Burns]
That initially — there was an initial handshake between me and Scott, Matt, CEO, all understood the why of "Hey, we need something new here." But then I think where, sure, at any point I could've been like, "Hey, this is way too early." What showed me right away that we were ready for it is they had gotten their hands dirty.
And what I mean by that is, I think one of the slogans you guys helped us with was like, by operators, for operators. There was that operator ethos to everything we were doing. And it's like they had already built something. They had an early product market fit, right? What they didn't have is a way to package, position, communicate and inspire their ICP, right?
So to me it was like that's the way to do it with brand. It's the accelerant to the fire that started. And you guys are so adept at that, and it's, and it's — sometimes it's like you, you can get to a certain point, and I think they had scaled to, like I think 30 or 40 mil a year at that point, selling Bitcoin infrastructure during that boom and starting to get in transformers and some electrical infrastructure.
And it was like, hey, like how do we actually build trust and take that next step? It was like, yeah, we could keep grinding, but like we already know what works. Now we need to throw accelerant on the fire versus using brand to start a fire. And I think that's the biggest thing I knew of you gotta — it's gotta be the accelerant, otherwise you're falling on your face because no customer — the customer why is always gonna be underneath that brand.
Doesn't matter how good you look, sound or feel you gotta start with the reps being put in and they for sure did that on the founder level in the early days.
[Bill Kenney]
A huge plus one to the yes, when the founders/CEO understands the idea that brand can be an accelerant. They don't have to believe in it as their holy grail like I believe and have to believe as a branding agency, but they have to understand that there is value we're tapping into there. It makes the whole thing easier from, yes, from getting initiated, but actually going through that journey, going on that journey, and then carrying that after, right? It's not a little simple marketing exercise you just check a box and walk away from and say yes, we did that thing.
[Sam Burns]
Yeah.
[Bill Kenney]
It actually becomes an embedded aspect of the acceleration.
[Sam Burns]
And I think the big thing that I heard, I remember in those early days, is that when they sent me some of the initial ideas or initial conversations, it wasn't look at the logo, it was look at the full picture, right? And I think that's a huge thing too. I think some CEOs or founders I've worked with will be like, "What's the logo? I want the logo to work. I want the logo to work."
Or they have one part of a full brand that they think is the brand, but really the brand is the whole story, right? It's like being willing to talk to you guys upfront and develop the story as much as what does it look like. So I think there's levels of buy-in from a founder and I think you gotta get past the, "Oh, it looks pretty." It's the why, the true guts of it is I think even before that important.
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah. Yeah. What a great setup for you, sir. Not everybody is so lucky, right?
[Sam Burns]
I agree.
[Bill Kenney]
We literally see almost equal amounts of both people set up like yourself and then other people that are, like, trying to basically convince, "We need this. We need this," right? And there's more of a pull there.
[Sam Burns]
Yep.
[Bill Kenney]
It can still be successful. Definitely is harder in, in all the ways.
[Sam Burns]
And you make a good point. I've definitely understood I'm spoiled with Matt, Brent, Shiv, and Scott there. But I think there also is some healthy friction, and you need some friction in a rebrand, I think. And we experienced our fair share of it. They had not ever sat down and talked to someone else about their baby, and I think that friction was like whoa, Brent, Matt, you're saying way different things here, right?
But also you both said the word operator like 700 times, right? Like that level of the just like, forced therapy, maybe that's actually what you guys are, right? Forced therapy to say it and then be like, "Okay what does that actually mean?" And from like a common denominator, obviously at the closest point.
I do think you need the friction because if the rebrand's too easy, I think it also equally won't get bought in and take it, right? If it's just like, "Well, yeah they ran a three-week sprint. It looks good. We can change the social avatars, great." I've seen that too where it then it just stops but it never actually lives and breathes through events the way you talk, the swag. There's no living of the brand. It's just a quick little paint job.
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah, I can't overemphasize the value of that forced conversation, and I say forced because once you sign a contract and you have put dollars forward, you feel heavily accountable to this thing, which is this rebrand journey, and in our process, meeting every week, right? Now you have to show up every week, you have to talk, and sometimes talking I suspect, same as going to a therapist, you're kinda like, "I don't wanna talk about the thing anymore."
[Sam Burns]
Yeah, that's right. That's right.
[Bill Kenney]
But there is forced need to talk about it, it does uncover those misalignments and these other aspects where, in a general setting, myself included as a business owner, you're busy running around doing like the, quote-unquote, "The work," right?
[Sam Burns]
That's right.
[Bill Kenney]
You don't wanna spend the time to sit down and talk, until you've finally found the nugget of a thing. It feels like it's not the priority.
[Sam Burns]
It's really interesting, like one of our value props at Giga is speed, right? Everything we do is speed for our customers, but internally, right? So speed and ownership, and I think oddly enough that, let's say that one to three weeks of the beginning of the rebrand is the one time where we had to slow down.
So it's actually totally against this whole personality of Giga and those founders who all they've done for, since whatever, 2016, 2017, was just go, fast, build, try, break things, go, right? From a CMO perspective, it's to get your founders to be like, "This is the one time I need you to slow down so we can go fast again, but at a higher rate," that's a tricky conversation, right?
But I think the more you can show that why and the full story that one to three weeks set us up, retrospectively for two years of exponential growth now.
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah. Sure doesn't feel like that in the moment, right? Going slow, for most businesses, at this point feels very uncomfortable, and it can feel like things are taking forever. What do you mean this project is gonna take that many weeks?
[Sam Burns]
That's right.
[Bill Kenney]
What do you meant I have to wait four weeks before I start to see the first thing?
[Sam Burns]
Yep.
[Bill Kenney]
That's an uncomfortable stage in the process.
[Sam Burns]
Yep. I agree with you. And there's expectation management from a marketing leader to do that, right? But also I think you need founders who understand that some good things, the most human things, the most customer personal intimate things, not just a one-shot prompt for a new brand kit, right?
Those take time, and I think that delta is getting wider and wider in a really good way for those who care about what they put in front of their customer and their story and their heart versus those who are willing to slap a bumper sticker and go.
[Bill Kenney]
Looking for an agency, I suspect, I'm on the other side of it, can be very hard because there's a gajillion different paths you can go.
You can go for the all-in-one shops. You can go for big shops. You can go for little boutique-y shops. You could go solopreneur. You can go freelancer. You've got budgets, plus the board that are being shared from our side, agency side, right? Costs are all over the place.
[Sam Burns]
Yep. Yep.
[Bill Kenney]
How, not how did you determine you wanted to work with us, but what were you looking for? What was gonna be important in that partnership?
[Sam Burns]
Yeah, I think we wanted a — and I'm using some of Scott's words here as some of the early thoughts that we had. He definitely prioritized an agency that had experience working with high growth, but also the software industry, right? And someone who can say, "Hey we've seen like the traditional SaaS unicorns go," right?
And I think we knew we wanted that, not just another infrastructure rebrand, but something that had a different perspective for us, and I think that was super important to have someone who had experience with high growth companies, who had been in the weeds, who had seen zero to 100 and the brands had kicked it off.
I think that was important from like a resume perspective, one. I think two, the ability to, to your... You said earlier of not just promise a week, it was actually a cycle. There was some thought. There we had embedded partners, right? There was a designer, there was someone who project managed.
There was a, there was, I think even you were involved in some of those early kickoffs and really going deeper, right? And I think that's important, but at the same time, there wasn't the perception of bloat, right? I think we've all worked with agencies where it's oh, there's 12 people that show up, two run the account, seven, bill me, and it's whoa, okay.
There was this clarity that like, this is my team, this is my embedded team. Even I worked with now I think Andy twice in the post-brand like execution, right? So even to me, it was important.
So I think you guys do a really good job of saying "Hey, if you want an embedded partner for a run, we're here, and it's not gonna feel bloaty. It's also not gonna feel cheap and quick." And I think that's a nice middle ground that was important for us to do. But also, I had the experience of working with you guys before, so that familiarity, maybe I — if you interviewed me, let's say three years ago, I might not say the same thing, right?
There might have been more of a "I don't know, let me figure this out." So now I have that clarity of understanding what the second go-around was and what I needed.
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah. Yeah, thanks for sharing the words from the founder's perspective too.
[Sam Burns]
Yeah.
[Bill Kenney]
Somebody that understands what we're about to go through. And I think the thing that we touched on it earlier, founders don't realize in that same exact ask of understanding our industry is actually understanding them and the things we just talked about, their need for speed, our ability to slow them down, to create a room where we can create trust and deep thinking, but we understand they wanna move fast, and we can.
We've lived in that so many times that we're really good in, in that friction, right? So that is also a part of understanding the industry, is understanding how to work with the people that are in the room making those decisions on brand.
[Sam Burns]
That's right.
[Bill Kenney]
That’s a beast in and of itself, and that is not what ChatGPT is going to be able to do, right?
[Sam Burns]
No, not at all. Not at all. And I think, yeah, like the outcome of a brand, a rebrand is a very human, intimate battle, let's say, right? But when you're regurgitating what you know to an AI model, you're gonna get back a diluted version, maybe let's say a slightly improved version of what you saw in your brain, right?
Because it's just you. It's a one v one, one v zero really, right? And I think something you guys did well with that embedded partnership over two, three, four, five, six weeks, right? I think when we did some of the final work as well there is that friction, but it's a human one v one, two v two, three v one, and I think that the best things come from a good old-fashioned bout when you're trying to create something and, not to say "Oh, we hated you guys, and you made us better for it." But it was like, "Hey you challenged the founders to slow down. You challenged me to think about a new industry that I only knew SaaS," right?
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah, it's more of a mirror, right? It's just holding up a mirror, which is not all that helpful.
[Sam Burns]
No.
[Bill Kenney]
That’s a great lead into the next part of the question that I ask, which is in the project. Okay, so we're in the project. What do you think, either for yourself or the founders, was the most challenging aspect of the project?
[Sam Burns]
Yeah, I think the initial days where it was like slow down, we already touched on that, but like really being willing to slow down 10% of your day in that call, right? I think was like, okay, everyone's on board. I think consensus is definitely a challenge especially when you have two co-founders but four true stakeholders at that point in that kind of the founder circle for me, plus myself, of saying, "Hey, like what do we like? What is this? Where do we wanna go?"
There was also the challenge of the responsibility of the sprint. And what I mean by that is I think everyone knew because we put the work in that the exponential curve was ahead of us. It was just how exponential. And I think everyone agreed that the brand, we had to get it right.
So there was almost like this perfectionism kind of a trap that we were put in, right? Where there was like, oh analysis paralysis. We saw four different logo iterations. "Ah, we don't like any of them 'cause they're not perfect yet," right? So there's like that, like it has to be perfect, it has to be perfect.
So there's just like that permission to be dirty in those first couple weeks of getting through. I almost wish you could almost be like start on iteration two, because it's like you gotta just get stuff on paper first and then go to the next one, and then go to the next one, right?
So that was a challenge where you saw first or second iterations, it's "It's not it. It's not the billion-dollar company. It's not..." So there's the kind of analysis paralysis in the face of perfectionism at that point. Which is a privilege, right? The founders built something pretty, pretty kickass. It's now the brand needs to encapsulate the work to be done, versus the flip side, the brand needs to encapsulate an idea, but we haven't put any cycles in with customers. It almost can be more of like a fluffy moonshot type of, "Eh, let's see," "'cause we don't really know.It could be anything. It could look nice," right?
And I think it's a better version to lead that with what we did, and it's also a privilege because not every company finds that traction or the product market fit. But I do think that created some healthy tension to find something perfect as we went through the cycles.
I think also being in the infrastructure space, we knew we were taking a little bit of a risk, so I think that was like a little bit of a challenge for us where we're like, "Hey, we're bringing in like a SaaS." Not to say all you guys have worked on a SaaS, but that's where I knew you from, right?
A lot of your resume was that, right?
So it's like SaaS, Unicorn, Silicon Valley. Is our ICP gonna care about this? Is our ICP gonna rebut this like crazy? What wow, you guys look way too nice for this 100-year-old electrical infrastructure industry at the time, right? So there was that line of like how do we retain our identity while still putting on some makeup per se, right?
Like, how do we retain our identity while improving the aesthetics? So there was that responsibility of taking a risk and knowing, could it fall flat with our customer base? It sure could if we over course correct to look like everything else in Silicon Valley, per se.
[Bill Kenney]
Sure. Yeah. Too shiny, too sexy. The brand has to fit business. No different than clothes have to fit the human, right? I would look strange if I walked around with a tux every day. It's just not my — it's not even my energy, right?
[Sam Burns]
That's right.
[Bill Kenney]
Tuxes are nice and they have a place but it's not for me, right? And brands are very much the same. We see some companies coming in that the founders actually want to look Apple-esque. I was in a meeting in the city one time and we were doing actually the attributes exercise where we pick out the three adjectives that really encompass kind of what the company's kind of energy is and how you wanna be perceived and the founder kept picking words that the CMO was saying, "But it's just not us." Okay, I could see why we would want to be perceived as that but we're just not that company.
[Sam Burns]
Yeah.
[Bill Kenney]
And that strategy would be valuable, but can we uphold it or will we look like a fraud because it's just generally not how we show up. Let's call it a strong POV type of leader versus a more reserved leader. You know the value of having that strong POV but are you gonna go out there every day and be that person? If you're not, do not pick that word, right? You're gonna have to strategically go a different direction. So yeah I think that's wise what you're saying right wanna look like we belong in our industry still but we don't actually want that to be the cage that we die in either.
[Sam Burns]
That's right. That's right.
[Bill Kenney]
That's the other side of the trap and that's why these journeys cause you're trying to walk a line and you don't wanna stay right in the middle, right? You don't wanna be vanilla but you gotta over index one way or the other.
[Sam Burns]
Yeah.
[Bill Kenney]
Trying to figure out where to over index is not easy.
[Sam Burns]
No, it reminds me even of some of those early conversations again, where we all knew we needed to build trust through the rebrand and or maybe even more cement trust in our early customers. But we were breaking into a new space selling transformers, switchboards as the new kids on the block. In an industry where being the new kids, the shiny kids, is not a positive, right?
Anyone who's been buying equipment, which is, realistically, you know, whatever large purchase price long lead times, they've been buying from Eaton, Schneider, ABB forever, right? All the names that average citizens even know just because they've just heard about them forever, right?
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah.
[Sam Burns]
But the industry had long just been stakes and handshakes, right? It was like no, "I buy from my second brother's cousin who works at this distributor." And we said "Hey what if that wasn't the way," right?
It was very much like a Tesla approach. And we're saying, "Hey, we know we like how Tesla upended the electric car industry," for example, right? We know that there is not really an emphasis here on customer experience in the digital space for sure, let alone how you show up and how you feel about the company you're buying your electrical infrastructure from, right?
And that's really actually, I’m excited to talk about the downstream effects of the rebrand too, because, since two years ago, as any good startup, we've not only pivoted, but we've doubled down into AI data center space, which is a lot more Silicon Valley ICP. There's a lot more of the AI data center.
We're much more adjacent to Anthropic, OpenAI and and Fluid Stack as Neo clouds and hyperscalers than we are distributors that maybe we were focused on when we first talked to you guys, right?
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah.
[Sam Burns]
I’m excited to kinda talk about the longevity of the foundation because the Tesla vision hasn't changed. It's just, it actually has cemented our direction further through the rebrand we did two years ago, I think.
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah going back to that over index point, right? Like strategic risk. If we over index in this direction and certain narratives play out, will that actually be — we'll be one step ahead, two steps ahead. Before we jump to that what was the most rewarding aspect of the project, say in the project sense? Not where you are now and the success of that but like in the project.
[Sam Burns]
Yeah I think it was seeing a professional's take on the brand for the first time. That was visually rewarding. Oh, okay, cool. This is a real company, right? Oh, we are not just figuring it out in the Bitcoin fields or the transformer shop anymore. We are a legitimate company, right?
So there was a visual reward for the first time a third party had a take on our brand. That was exciting, and I could reiterate that from the founders who had been in it obviously longer than I had at that point. I think I touched on it a little bit, but like the friction between founders of kumbaya, get it on paper.
Who are we? What do we think we are? It was a really good, day zero reset moment for all of us to say what we think the brand is, what it feels like, where we're going. I think there were some rewarding moments too where you guys had written something in the brand kit, and there were a few in the early iteration where CEO Matt, who loves brevity, his big thing is brevity, right? He was like, "This is too long. This is too many words. This is too fluffy." And it was good. It was like, okay, cool, like you don't wanna sound like anything that you unabashedly are not, right?
Giga is three words, right? Giga is two things, right?
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah.
[Sam Burns]
Like that actually provided some really good rewarding clarity for me as a marketer, where like I did not have to create some fluffy brand anthem about the future of electrical infrastructure in the field, right? Or even like over, overdo the USA forever, baby, right?
It was actually like the privilege and the rewarding privilege to be like CEO thinks very sharply, very cleanly, very like from a brevity standpoint. And I think that allowed us to work with you guys to be like that upfront is now very indexed on like the operator mindset, very indexed on like we do three things really well.
And it actually, through working with you guys, provided a really good kickoff to a product marketing exercise for us over the last two years around what are our value props tied to our future benefits tied to what we do really well. So that was really rewarding for me. It's like it served as not only a visual foundation, but like a product marketing foundation over the last two years too.
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah. Love that. These are the reasons that we enjoy doing what we do, right? We know that there is a challenge and there are unknowns going into these journeys but. You talked about the curve. Sometimes that curve goes like this and it's a hockey stick, right? Where you're like not there, oh shit we're there. Up.
[Sam Burns]
Yep. Yep.
[Bill Kenney]
Or it is more of a gradual burn, right? Till you get your kind of full speed it's always different. That shape is different for everybody but you eventually get there through trial.
[Sam Burns]
That's right.
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah. Awesome. All right so let's get to the back end of the questions which is really like how is it performing? Now when I'm speaking with most people I'm not this far out of the project so this is great.
[Sam Burns]
Cool.
[Bill Kenney]
You've had a lot of runway now with this. Speak freely about what it's doing that you didn't expect, the things that you knew to expect and it is doing or it isn't doing. I would just love to hear how the brand is cooking for you all.
[Sam Burns]
Yeah. I think initially going back in the timeline after the rebrand, we were able to jump right into a website reskin and refresh using the brand as the foundation, which was super helpful for us because the website had not been carrying the load aside from maybe a few static pages at that point, right?
So we were able to actually take the Tesla inspiration, the disruptor that you can trust inspiration that we created with you guys and say "Okay, great. What if the website was actually more of an e-commerce approach where you could build a quote like you're building a Tesla for electrical infrastructure, right?
So that immediately fueled a new customer experience, a digital front-end customer experience for us that would not have been possible unless we did the work upfront, right? So that was super exciting for us. But at the same time, that was maybe like Sam, the SaaS marketer "Let's build the website so it converts better."
Okay. Oh, great. That was great. It helped us. But then it was really cool because then we got to go say actually trade shows and events are our number one pipeline channel by far in this industry. Shaking hands, building trust, demoing, bringing products to show floor. It's just the way the industry buys, right?
It — I always joke, it's like a big farmer's market at these trade shows, right? "I need 40 transformers." "Okay, where are the transformers?" But then there's a bunch of those, everyone's selling squash at the same time, right? So that's where the differentiator comes in. The really interesting thing for us is then we got to take the brand kit and say, "How does it show up in real life, in a physical environment," right?
Large format prints the repeating electrical line elements you guys gave us. Some of the repeating logo types for each product line, right? So all of a sudden those started showing up in the physical space, and that was a really, another next step for us where our booth went from, very white, just the old Giga logo with a few stock images that people are like, "Ah, that looks like you don't do what you say you do," right?
To, "Hey, all of a sudden, like I'm experiencing your product." Our photography direction took a step right after that too, to match the brand, right? We all of a sudden, we started to invest in like photo real assets beyond just the renders. It actually challenged us to match the photo real element of a photo video.
I made hires on that team and built out a... That was actually my first hire right after that was photo and video because we knew we needed to match the flat lay brand style that you guys gave us. And I said "Well, if we continue to show up with only renders, only illustrations, only color, we're also eroding trust, oddly enough, if we don't match that with photo real assets," right?
So I think the rebrand challenged me to immediately say, "Actually, my first hire is not paid ads, it's actually the photo real assets to build trust and tell a visual story." And the last less qualitative thing I'll say, I do evergreen goal planning with my team every year.
It's like the four things that if we're not doing one of these four things, we shouldn't be doing it on marketing, right? And the big thing I always put as number one is we show we don't tell at Giga to build trust, right? By the numbers, I think every year since, even, we were on a pretty healthy track, but we've compounded revenue where we beat last year in the first two quarters of the previous year.
So we're on a pretty healthy two X-ing muscle right now which is fantastic. Obviously in large part to the AI data center boom that we're now at the precipice of, which is exciting and we don’t take that for granted. It's not like, uh, enough uh, brand and paid ads, change the whole market climate.
But I will say we really rethought the brand as we pivoted from early Bitcoin operating and site build-outs and electrical infrastructure to all of a sudden "Hey, our model works really well for the AI data center build." We already were a manufacturer, we already had powered land, we had already built sites for Bitcoin and we said "Hey what if we just go, apply that model to the AI data center?" And what I will say back to the brand though is we didn't ever tell you guys, "Hey, we're gonna be an AI data center developer in two years."
That... I don't think those words probably came out in our chats two years ago, right? What I think has been really refreshing is very specifically the logo mark you guys created for us, so just the Giga. I always joke it carries so much weight for us, right? It is such a strong piece where we don't have a… I think we have a G smaller stamp logo that goes too, but just the full Giga, the name, with the slight design and the power and the impact you guys designed it with, we use it everywhere and it's scaled with us, right? And I think that's something that I challenge other founders to think about is like startups never are on a linear positioned path on exponential growth, right?
You're positioning, you're pivoting constantly to become the company you want to be. So part of the rebrand, while you want to be very specific and think about it, there is that like future-proofing aspect that I think you guys do a really good job of, we all felt confident that what you had put in front of us could scale with us.
And even if we need to maybe add new elements here or rethink this logo type, those are small brand refreshes you always go through and add on to to grow with. But the core essence of the Giga brand and that Giga logo carries so much weight for us now and has really positioned us at or above a lot of the incumbents, which we're a much more savvy, branded and more Silicon Valley-esque as we've come into that space really quickly.
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah. I love that for you all. I think that's a great highlight on really the idea that when you think about visual identity and logos and these types of things, the narrative can change but try not to be so literal in the design execution. Don't. You're a Bitcoin mining company, the logo doesn't have to literally be a Bitcoin miner fan with like the Bitcoin B symbol, right?
[Sam Burns]
That's right.
[Bill Kenney]
Because yeah you want something that you can grow and adapt and that's where I've really the challenging part becomes kind of simplicity, right? This idea of it's too simple which is generally the biggest kind of like founder conundrum of "But it doesn't mean anything." No, your business means something. This is just an identifier, it will carry the business is meant to be and mean and that's what your words and the language and the values of the organization and how you show up and the experience you put on the site. Like all these things become the ecosystem. The logo is not meant to mean all that much really.
[Sam Burns]
Yeah.
[Bill Kenney]
But there's so much energy on it, right? So that's it's always an interesting conversation to have.
[Sam Burns]
Energy is a really good word too. I went through a huge hiring spree where I hired marketing team I think is now eight or, eight or nine, right? And when I was, when I did work with you guys, it was one, one person.
But we've also hired a full engineering team. We now have two factories. I think I mentioned we — I think I was maybe employee 30 or 40. We're gonna be like 200, 225, 250 by the end of the year, realistically, right? So that hiring is only possible, especially we're taking talent from Meta, Tesla, AWS you know, so many of the tier one blue chip logos that are leaving their incumbent.
Like obviously our value prop, they see it, but I think the amount of times I've watched recordings or even in my own interview cycle where they're like, "Yeah, I saw you guys did a rebrand." Or like, "Oh yeah, I really, I see the brand everywhere."
Even if you're not a designer, even if you're not a marketer, there is the perceived energy that a rebrand of this magnitude, but also the simplicity that it carries, where obviously we'd have a hard time poaching our CTO, Angad came from Tesla and Google.
He was building data centers there and said, "Hey, like this model makes sense," right? Sure, he was sold on the manufacturing model, but I think there was obviously a trust built as he was window shopping. There was a trust built as he met people and that brand permeates the whole hiring cycle.
[Bill Kenney]
Yes.
[Sam Burns]
If you're privileged and lucky enough to go on an exponential run as a business, that hiring is as important as the revenue if you're gonna continue to do that. So I think the rebrand is also a recruitment and an energy defining flag in the sand to show as a founder you take the business and the culture and energy you're building pretty seriously too.
[Bill Kenney]
You literally couldn't have said a better word for exactly where I'm going with this and I only remembered it and the word was they take this business seriously.
[Sam Burns]
Yeah.
[Bill Kenney]
I was doing this same interview with Bob Moore from Crossbeam. Are you familiar with Crossbeam?
[Sam Burns]
Yeah. Yeah, I am.
[Bill Kenney]
Bob Moore we worked with him twice and when we, when I did this interview with Bob after the Crossbeam launch and Bob is very much a builder, right? He's a technical SaaS builder, right? So brand for him back in the day was actually a waste of time and money.
What he said in that interview was "You know what people go through a rebrand everybody somehow will then understand they are taking the business seriously" and that's literally the word he used. You become a serious player. You're not haphazardly building a thing and you don't really give a shit about what it looks like cause you know it functions really well. It. You complete the story and therefore I think it becomes more of a serious player. You are just taken more seriously. It's just a fact.
[Sam Burns]
Yeah, well said. I think and we felt that hand over fist, and I, even if it's just oh, they spent money on a rebrand, they clearly are caring about themselves as a business and the way they show up. Sure, like there is like the be-all, end-all communication of spending and investment.
Everyone gets that, right? But also to work in a way where it's not just like, yeah they have a new logo versus they went through a rebrand or they rethought the way they show up so differently too, right? Like I think, again, I go back to swap out the colors or swap out the avatar on social media.
If the founder's posting about the way they show up versus the marketing team, swap the social cards, that's such a different approach because there's so many different flavors of the way you invest in yourself in the same way.
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah it's like that business is running the right playbook kind of energy. They're running the winning playbook, right? And brand is a part of that playbook. You said it and I 100% agree. You all are in a wonderful moment in time, right? So it is not the branding effort that is creating that 30 to 200 growth.
[Sam Burns]
Sure. Sure.
[Bill Kenney]
But the brand supports that. It supports that in hiring and people understanding that this is a serious business. They're really getting after it.
[Sam Burns]
That's right.
[Bill Kenney]
They’re doing the right moves. Okay cool.
[Sam Burns]
That's right. It's part of like the, uh, that initial like, "Hey, is this startup real?" And they Google you, they go on Claude, and then they look at the first visual storefront, right? Like, "Hey, do I actually wanna do business with these guys? Are these real?" It's that first initial check, but it's also the consistent reminder that they are still, they are still real.
They're still doing what you're gonna hopefully pay them to do. And I think there's that kind of embedded trust, not only on a storefront, but every time you pass that store, right? And I think that's an important kind of like top of mind, top of trust if you wanna call it, right?
Of consistently showing up the right way.
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah yeah I'm so pumped for you all. I love seeing our partners win. I love celebrating our partners and being more of a cheerleader frankly, right? Help doing a little bit of that work in the front, sending them off and being like "Wow, Crushing it" and, again, I feel that energy. I see you sharing on LinkedIn. I'm like, I have got to hit that man up.
[Sam Burns]
Yeah. I try not to share too much. It's a little bit, it's like hard to stay under the radar now, but it's fun. Hopefully we can talk again next year and the numbers are even more in the right direction, but it's been a fun, fun run so far.
[Bill Kenney]
2x year over year sounds like a pretty damn good direction.
[Sam Burns]
Yeah.
[Bill Kenney]
Last question. I'll cut you loose, go back to gigaing. If you were sitting down with a fellow marketer whether it's a new marketer, a CMO or even a founder and they were saying "Hey I think I'm about to go on a rebrand journey." What's the one thing I gotta do right? Of all the most important things in these projects, what would you tell them?
[Sam Burns]
I would say make sure — my metaphor is make sure there's a fire started first. And what I mean by that is a rebrand is a business decision disguised as a creative one. I fully believe that, right? And I think marketers, to their credit, sometimes get too caught up in the creative side of the rebrand, and I think they don't spend enough time having an honest conversation with CEO, founder, whatever, one, two, three.
Yes, everyone says, "Get the buy-in," but what does the buy-in actually mean, right? The buy-in means you've gotten the business to a point where without a rebrand, you will not realize its full potential, right? And when you can start talking potential in terms of upside revenue with your CEO, whether it's green-lighting that spend or just green-lighting the involvement and the buy-in of the CEO becomes so much easier.
And what I mean by that is I think if we tried to rebrand eight months earlier, right? That's a creative decision because we want to look different while we still build this business, right? Rebranding six months later, eight months later, when we actually did, it was almost out of necessity. It was out of pressure.
It was out of like, the industry needs to take us more seriously to validate what we're doing behind the scenes that they cannot see based on how we look on the front end, right? And that is a business decision through the lens of a creative take. And I think I am a full believer that I am the first one, if I change companies and you hit me up and say, "Hey, are you guys ready for a new rebrand?"
I would be so comfortable now saying, "Bill, give me six months. Give me six months." Our revenue is still compounding. We're still seeing early product market fit. But if the fire is not started, the rebrand, which is just gas, it will do nothing. It will just make you a gassy mess on the ground, right?
And you will do nothing with it, right? You can't start, you can't start a fire after that. So
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah.
[Sam Burns]
You gotta make a business decision before you actually realize it through a creative lens with a rebrand.
[Bill Kenney]
Fantastic answer. I can tell you got your sleep last night. You probably ate a good breakfast this morning.
[Sam Burns]
That's right.
[Bill Kenney]
You delivered wonderful nuggets throughout the interview and that was a great answer to the final question, sir. You did your job.
[Sam Burns]
Awesome.
[Bill Kenney]
Well done.
[Sam Burns]
I'm here to help, but also it was good to reflect and I went into the archives of old Slacks that I was sending around the rebrand and started to just try to put my brain back into that moment of talking to Scott, right? 'Cause that truly was, like, my first intro to Giga was like, "Hey here's the business, but we think we wanna rebrand."
And I'm like, "Okay let's talk about like, the why." And it forced me to challenge, 'cause I loved working with you guys the first time. I was like "if I was arguing against myself for doing this right now what would I say?" "Do you have this? Do you have this? Do you have this?" You know, "Do you feel this? Is Matt on board?" I almost got to reverse sell Focus Lab into Giga. I'm like, "What like, is this? Are you sure? Are you sure?" Right?
That was actually really helpful for me to reread some of those early texts and Slacks I sent to get in, to, to reflect on this. So it's, it was super, super rewarding for me, too to do this, so thank for, thank you for thinking of me.
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah, of course. It was. Again we just want to serve in the ways that we can serve and brand is the way that we serve and working with wonderful people like you all is why we enjoy doing that. Thank you to you and the team and the founders that went on that journey.
[Sam Burns]
Good stuff. Good stuff.
[Bill Kenney]
Awesome, sir. Thank you so much. It has been a pleasure working with you twice now. And just continuing to stay close to you and see how you all are doing.
[Sam Burns]
Yeah, we'll stay close on, on both of our trajectories, so appreciate the ask though for this.
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah. Hell yeah. All right.
