In a crowded digital music landscape where products often blend into one another, brand identity has become the defining edge. Yet many music tech startups mistakenly treat branding as a cosmetic afterthought, something to be “designed” after the product is built. This episode of the Sound Connections podcast challenges that thinking head-on.

Host Jakob Wredstrøm speaks with Erik Herrström, former Nike and Spotify brand creative and now founder of Studio Hstörm, about why branding is more than just design, it’s the emotional blueprint that communicates trust, unlocks partnerships, and ultimately drives adoption. From his experience helping global giants and niche music tech firms alike, Herrström shares practical, tested strategies for building brands that resonate.

This article distills the conversation into an expanded guide, focusing on how to build a music tech brand identity that not only stands out but sustains relevance as you scale. Whether you're preparing for your first investor pitch or refining your platform's presence, this breakdown offers long-term strategic guidance.

Branding Strategy for Music Technology Startups

One of the most persistent missteps in the music technology space is how branding is misunderstood and deprioritized by early-stage founders. Many assume that branding is merely about color palettes or a sleek website, only to discover, too late, that a lack of clear brand strategy undermines both traction and trust.

As Erik Herrström points out in this episode, branding strategy for music technology startups must begin with understanding what makes the company fundamentally different. Yet instead of articulating their own mission and emotional value, founders often replicate what dominant players like Spotify or Apple Music are doing visually. “They try to look like the big players,” Erik says, “and that’s not the way to truly connect and tell something unique”.

This copycat branding approach leads to two problems:

1. It erases the startup’s potential for authentic connection with a niche audience.

2. It reinforces sameness in a space where differentiation is essential to survival.

A study published in the Harvard Business Review reinforces this point: brands that emphasize uniqueness in their market narrative outperform competitors, particularly in saturated tech categories.

Herrström’s studio has worked with both emerging startups and global tech companies, and the pattern is clear: early-stage teams who neglect branding delay credibility. Investors and users don’t just want a good idea, they want to understand who you are, why you exist, and why your perspective matters now. If that’s missing, even strong tech gets ignored.

In music tech, where platforms often promise similar features, playlists, discovery tools, and monetization, it’s the emotional and cultural positioning that cuts through the noise. Branding, when done well, clarifies who the product is for, why it matters, and what emotional role it plays.

And most importantly, a founder’s internal sense that their branding “looks good” is not enough. One of Erik’s repeated cautions is that teams need to test their branding in the wild, among real users and future partners. Without that reality check, founders risk designing for themselves, not their audience.

This aligns with product-market fit principles outlined in First Round Review, which emphasize user resonance as the foundation of early traction.

In short, effective branding strategy for music technology startups doesn’t come after your pitch deck, it lays the groundwork for it.

How to Build a Music Tech Brand Identity That Resonates with Investors

For early-stage companies in the music tech space, a clear and confident brand identity can make or break an investor conversation. Inconsistent messaging, fragmented visuals, or a generic tone don’t just confuse, they signal immaturity. According to Erik Herrström, one of the most common issues is when music tech startups fail to integrate brand thinking into their pitch narrative. 

A strong brand identity isn’t just about visual polish; it’s about emotional and strategic alignment. So many founders pitch amazing tech but neglect how their brand feels, Erik notes. The visuals, the story, the tone, they’re often disconnected.

To build a music tech brand identity that resonates with investors, founders must ensure:

• The visual system and the pitch deck tell the same story

• The tone of voice is confident, distinct, and culturally aware

• There’s a clear link between the brand’s identity and its mission

Herrström emphasizes that successful pitch conversations hinge on brand coherence: “It’s hard for investors to believe in you when your visuals say one thing, your copy says another, and your product implies something else.”

A coherent brand identity:

• Accelerates trust and lowers perceived risk

• Communicates market clarity

• Shows you understand your users, not just your product

To build a music tech brand identity that resonates with investors, founders must think beyond design. They must understand their emotional value proposition and communicate it consistently, from the landing page to the product demo to the deck.

How to Use Storytelling to Attract Music Tech Partnerships That Last

While features may initiate interest, it's storytelling that forges emotional connection, and emotional connection is what drives enduring partnerships. In the podcast, Erik Herrström repeatedly highlights how startup founders miss this: they present features but fail to communicate why their story matters to the ecosystem.

Herrström’s branding studio works with founders to reverse this mistake by leading with narrative: “When the story is grounded in who you are and why you exist, it becomes magnetic. People remember that. They don’t remember dashboards,” he says.

To use storytelling to attract music tech partnerships that last, you need to:

• Articulate a founder-led mission and cultural context

• Frame your company’s role in shaping music or creator culture

• Build brand stories around values, not vanity metrics
  
  
  

emotionally resonant storytelling not only improves morale but leads to 7× more profitable campaigns compared to rational ones reinforcing why it builds lasting B2B relationships.

One example Erik shares is from his work with Spotify’s editorial brands. To build trust across regions like Japan and Colombia, the team prioritized cultural storytelling. “We didn’t lead with UI. We asked: what story would make this feel local, trustworthy, and exciting?”

This approach works for startups too. If you're entering a saturated space like music distribution, your unique narrative, not just your tech stack, makes you stand out.

And according to HubSpot's data,  personalized, story-led content correlates with 20% better sales outcomes, while 66% of qualified leads come from existing customers, highlighting retention and loyalty benefits from storytelling

To use storytelling to attract music tech partnerships that last:

• Make your mission feel personal, not corporate

• Tie your story to real cultural shifts or artist needs

• Be consistent across decks, websites, and social tone

If you tell the same honest story everywhere, people believe you. They come back.

Cultural Nuance in Music Tech Branding

One of the most overlooked dimensions in branding is cultural nuance. For music tech startups aiming to grow beyond their home market, cultural understanding isn’t optional,  it’s fundamental. As Erik explains throughout the episode, a brand that works in Sweden or the U.S. might fail to resonate in Japan or Colombia unless it's intentionally adapted to local values, aesthetics, and communication styles.

Herrström’s experience with Spotify’s editorial teams across multiple countries makes the point clear. He recalls working with both the Japanese and Colombian teams and observing that the same product required completely different expressions in order to feel right. In Japan, calmness and structure were essential, while in Colombia, vibrancy and rhythm had to lead the brand voice.

What’s important here is that cultural nuance in music tech branding doesn’t mean changing who you are,  it means communicating your essence in a way that feels native to each audience. Herrström’s process starts by asking local collaborators:

• What values matter here?

• What other brands do people trust?

• What aesthetics feel emotionally aligned with our product?

This isn’t surface-level localization. It’s brand empathy. And the result isn’t just better aesthetics,  it’s genuine emotional connection with the users you’re trying to reach. Without it, even great products can feel distant, irrelevant, or confusing.

Startups that internalize this idea build flexible brand systems: visual identities, tone of voice, and storytelling frameworks that allow global growth without compromising core values. According to Herrström, that modularity,  staying true while adapting smartly,  is what separates global-ready startups from regional players.

For founders, cultural nuance in music tech branding isn’t a side project. It’s an active design choice, one that directly influences user adoption, partnership resonance, and brand longevity.

AI Tools and Branding in Music Startups

Artificial intelligence has introduced enormous speed and convenience into startup branding, but it hasn’t replaced the human need for meaning, emotion, or authenticity. According to Erik Herrström, music tech founders should embrace AI as a creative tool, not a shortcut to brand clarity.

In the episode, Herrström makes a clear distinction: AI can help generate ideas faster, but it cannot define who you are or create emotional connection with users. That responsibility, he emphasizes, still belongs to the founder.

This reflects a broader tension many early-stage companies face: the temptation to use AI to finalize a brand, rather than prototype it. Founders might lean on automated logo makers, tagline generators, or AI-enhanced web builders, and while these tools are useful for iteration, they cannot define identity or vision.

The value of AI tools and branding in music startups lies in acceleration, not authorship. AI can:

• Offer early sketches to unblock creative inertia

• Speed up testing across visual, tonal, and layout variants

• Help teams visualize ideas before budget is spent
  
  
  

But what AI cannot do is craft a brand that feels honest, context-aware, or emotionally resonant. Erik explains that a brand is ultimately a feeling, and feeling is something AI is incapable of producing.

He reinforces that the emotional architecture of a brand,  tone, story, purpose,  must come from human insight. In his own work at Studio Hstörm, even when using automation for efficiency, the direction still comes from real conversations, real audience empathy, and human decisions.

This is especially critical in music tech, where connection and creativity are core to the product itself. Users aren’t just buying features,  they’re buying alignment with an experience, a story, and a culture. Founders who rely solely on automation miss that depth.

In summary, AI tools and branding in music startups can coexist successfully,  but only if humans stay in control of meaning and message. AI makes branding faster, not smarter.

Founder-Led Branding in Music Tech

Branding in music tech often fails when it becomes a design exercise disconnected from the founder’s voice. As Erik Herrström emphasizes throughout the episode, the most powerful brand strategies start with the founder, not the design team.

This is the core of founder-led branding in music tech: the brand becomes an extension of the founder’s beliefs, tone, and way of connecting with users. Instead of outsourcing voice or mimicking competitors, founder-led brands clarify what the company truly stands for, and who it’s really for.

Herrström advises founders to shift from imposter syndrome to authentic storytelling. Early in his studio’s journey, he found that clarity emerged not from trying to sound like others, but from speaking honestly about how his team worked, what they believed, and who they best served.

A founder-led brand also improves alignment across team and product. When the messaging, tone, and visuals stem from lived perspective, not trend decks, the brand resonates with more intention. And that makes pitches, products, and partnerships more believable.

In short, founder-led branding in music tech isn’t about personal branding. It’s about shaping a company identity that’s rooted in real beliefs, and letting that identity guide everything from visual design to business strategy.

Emotional Resonance in Branding

Branding isn’t a logo. It’s a feeling. A brand is how it makes people feel… like a person, it’s how you speak, how you sound, and what people emotionally connect with.

Emotional resonance in branding isn’t just about style, it’s about trust, memory, and differentiation. When a user sees your interface or reads your copy, what do they feel? Curiosity? Comfort? Confidence? Or nothing at all?

For music tech startups, this is especially critical. Users often choose platforms not just because of features, but because of cultural and emotional alignment. Erik Herrström explains that if you’re trying to disrupt the music industry, you must understand who you're talking to and how they feel when they encounter your brand.

To build emotional resonance in branding:

• Start by understanding your audience’s emotional profile.

• Align tone and design with those emotions.

• Stay consistent across every brand touchpoint.

As reported by Lucidpress, consistent branding that resonates emotionally can increase revenue by up to 23%.

When you design with emotional clarity, you move beyond trend-chasing and into brand durability. That’s how users stay, remember, and refer.

Branding Mistakes in Music Tech

Herrström has seen hundreds of music tech startups fall into the same traps. “So many brands in this space look the same,” he says. “They don’t tell their own story. They try to look like the big players. And that’s not how you connect”.

The most common branding mistakes in music tech include:

• Copying the visual identity of industry leaders like Spotify.

• Using default design trends like duotone effects or UI cutouts.

• Ignoring audience testing and relying only on internal feedback.

The result? Brands that are visually polished but emotionally bland. Herrström explains that he often sees founders pitching with great-looking slides, but the tone and visuals don’t align, and that kind of disconnection ultimately kills trust.

These branding mistakes often stem from speed and fear. Founders want to appear legitimate, so they mimic what seems to work. But what actually builds traction is clarity, not mimicry. A mismatched brand may look safe, but it’s forgettable.

To avoid these pitfalls, founders must build from their own voice, test with real users, and prioritize coherence over polish.

Tone of Voice for Music Tech Startups

Tone of voice is more than word choice, it’s the emotional fingerprint of your company. And in music tech, where creativity and trust matter, tone becomes strategy.

Herrström explains that even small tone shifts impact user trust and perception. “.. the tone of voice is your brand. That's the way you speak, the way that you feel most true. And you would probably hate for it to sound like the AI generated text that's not you …”.

To get tone of voice right:

• Keep it aligned with your mission and values.

• Make it feel conversational, not robotic.

• Adapt it based on context, sales decks, websites, support messages.

In one example, Herrström mentions that even his own team uses different tone settings in tools depending on the goal: “If I write in one tool with the wrong tone setting, I hate it. It doesn’t sound like us”.

Founders must own their tone of voice, not delegate it to marketing teams or AI tools. It must come from how you naturally speak, framed for how your users want to hear it.

Startups with a strong tone build credibility before features are even discussed. In short, tone of voice for music tech startups is part of the product experience.

Brand Differentiation for Early-Stage Music SaaS Companies

In SaaS, features converge quickly. What doesn’t is brand. This is especially true in music SaaS, where new tools launch constantly but few leave a lasting impression.

Herrström warns that startups often look “safe” by copying what already works. But that visual sameness is exactly what dulls differentiation.He points out that too many companies default to trends, referencing cutout UI and duotones, which looked great for Spotify in 2015, but are now overused across the space.

To build effective music SaaS brand differentiation, founders must:

• Express a point of view that’s culturally specific

• Use visuals and tone that don’t mirror market leaders

• Highlight the problem they solve in a way that feels personal and emotional

Herrström draws a parallel to Grace Jones, Lady Gaga, and artists who break out by being unmistakably different. Startups, he suggests, need the same mindset: If you look like everyone else, you disappear. If you sound like everyone else, you’re ignored.

A McKinsey study shows that distinctive brand experiences lead to greater long-term customer loyalty, especially in B2B SaaS categories.

Your brand is your filter. It tells the right users that this is for them. That’s what drives real traction, and that’s how music SaaS brand differentiation becomes a growth asset.

Conclusion: Branding Isn’t Decoration,  It’s Strategy

In today’s hyper-saturated music tech landscape, branding is no longer just a finishing touch, it’s the foundation of how startups earn trust, build emotional resonance, and unlock long-term growth. As Erik Herrström emphasized throughout this conversation, your brand is how people feel about you before they use your product, and how they remember you after.

From building emotional resonance in branding to founder-led storytelling, each insight in this episode points to one central truth: your brand is your voice, your filter, and your first impression. It shapes how investors perceive your maturity, how partners align with your vision, and how users decide whether to come back, or bounce.

Branding is your strategic asset. When done right, it becomes your most defensible advantage, one that grows with you, speaks for you, and makes every feature, pitch, and product release land with more impact.

Don’t wait to define who you are. Start now, start honestly. Because in music tech, products may get copied. But a brand that truly connects? That’s impossible to replicate.