Startup bio
NAME: Aquila.
TYPE: Energy tech.
FOUNDERS: Billy Jeremijenko and Nelson Smith.
THE PROBLEM THEY'RE TACKLING: Aquila has big plans to solve the complex problems of clean energy access globally, by completely changing the way energy works.
They’re starting with their Lightway product, which charges drones in the air by sending light beams from a transmitter on the ground to a special solar cell receiver on the drone.
From there, they’re planning to scale this game-changing technology to charge faster, higher electric vehicles, then satellites in space and ultimately, to build a wireless energy network of light with no wires and no limits, which can beam clean affordable power from renewable energy sources through space to anywhere on earth.
The marketing dilemma
After raising $3 million in seed funding in mid 2023, the Aquila team got stuck into the science and tech challenges in front of them.
But they also knew they faced a communications challenge.
With such a huge mission of completely changing the way energy works, they needed to begin building a brand and connecting with several very different audiences whose support they’ll need along the way. That includes their team, customers for their initial Lightway product, potential customers for future iterations of their technology as it scales, investors, governments and communities.
In other words, they needed to carefully craft messaging for many different audiences, with varying levels of technical knowledge, motivation and interest. Where would they start?
Looking for support, they reached out to us at Stella Startups and we were only too happy to dust off the science section of our brains and get stuck into our own favourite type of challenge.
The solution
After sitting down with the team, we agreed they needed an updated visual brand and new website. The visual brand needed to be strengthened to look professional and distinctive, reflecting Aquila’s place at, or even beyond, the leading edge of technology. The team also needed clear visual guidelines to apply colours, fonts and branding consistently – an essential element of brand building.
In keeping with an early-stage startup, Aquila’s previous website was light on information, leaving it unclear who their technology could help now and how that related to their bigger picture vision. It didn’t have a human face – info about the team – didn’t tell their story and needed more ways for various stakeholders to engage with them.
Behind the visual brand and website needs though, we needed to take a much closer look at Aquila’s marketing challenges and opportunities. We also needed to develop rock solid strategic messaging to build a strong brand from – messaging that anyone could understand.
Here’s how we got there together, along with our friends at Skale Studio for all things design and web development.
1. Marketing Audit
We took stock of Aquila’s marketing and messaging to see what was/wasn’t working and identify the main gaps and opportunities. One of the biggest gaps was strong strategic messaging to inspire and unify their team and tell their story simply across all audiences.
OUTPUT: Audit report with key insights and recommendations for next steps.
2. TELL service
We worked with Aquila’s founding team, as well as key customers/stakeholders, to develop their foundational messaging pack. This involved 5 interviews, synthesising findings, surfacing key themes and bringing it all together to workshop with the team before finessing their key messaging.
OUTPUT:
- Founder interviews
- Customer/stakeholder interviews
- Key messages for ideal customer profiles
- Strategic narrative
- Elevator pitch
- Tagline options + final selection (Let's soar)
3. Branding
We knew Joumana and the talented team at Skale Studio would be up for the challenge of creating an impactful visual identity for Aquila (spoiler alert: we were right! 😅). We shared our work from our Audit and Tell services to help inform their findings, and watched them make design magic.
OUTPUT:
- New logo
- Visual brand kit (including colour palette, fonts and guidelines)
- Collateral templates, including social media banners and presentation deck
4. Website
With the visual brand updated and strong strategic messaging in place, we could move onto the brand’s front door – a new website to replace a previously light-touch landing page.
OUTPUT:
- All new website design and build
- Ability to update new site easily via Webflow
The outcome
All up, we worked with the Aquila and Skale Studio teams for about 3 months – a speck of time in Aquila’s bigger picture – to set the team up with the foundations to build a brand that reflects their vision, and a website worthy of it.
Speaking of the site, as anyone who has worked on a new site knows, they can quickly become overly complicated projects with too many cooks and not enough chefs (aka experts). Thankfully this was not the case, thanks to the strategic messaging work we’d already done and Skale Studio’s water tight processes and experience in designing and building killer websites for startups.
Collectively, we’re proud of the outcome, not least because it conveys the transformative change Aquila is working towards and the endless positive possibilities they see while at the same time outlines what they’re doing now, how and with whom.
We can’t wait to see the Aquila team soar into the future.
In their words 🦅
“It’s not easy maintaining excellence in communications when you operate beyond what most people realise is possible. That’s why the Stella Startups and Skale Studio teams’ work on this is even more impressive.”
Aquila co-founder and CEO, Billy Jeremijenko.
“Stella Startups set the foundations for a stellar rebrand. Meticulous, detail-oriented and deeply caring – they know how to take you from zero to hero. If you’re on the fence, do your team a favour - book in with Stella.”
Skale Studio Founder, Joumana Elomar
“Not only were we able to achieve a seamless and simple narrative for a technology so novel that it can almost seem sci-fi to the un-inducted, Skale and Stella Startups were able to provide an operation watertight, and laser-focused enough to be completed in the blink of an eye.”
Aquila Head of Operations, Ruby Jones
Keen for more?
You can find out more about Aquila (and see their new brand in full) on their site, and follow them on LinkedIn to stay across their progress.
✨ And if you're keen for more startup marketing stories, read about Butter Insurance's ingenious outdoor ad campaign. ✨
