Behind the Thrifty Titans Rebranding

This week, I crossed the finish line on a month-long effort to rename our podcast & newsletter. Our show (formerly named You Inc.) is now named Thrifty Titans.

Let me make that CRYSTAL clear...

• Old name:?You Inc.
• New name:?Thrifty Titans

Rebrands are hard. Really hard.

Why I renamed the pod

The You Inc.?Podcast was originally launched on April 27th 2022.

I had just been picked for the LinkedIn's inaugural Creator Accelerator Program in India, but I hadn't?really?begun to use the word "content creator" in introductions. At the time, I knew I wanted to "help people build enduring brands." (vague, I know!)

At the time, I was also posting on LinkedIn four times a week for my #BackYouInc series. It was (primarily) on near zero-cost brand-building, around how anybody can start creating relevant professional content that acts as a catalyst for sales & influence.

As I started getting into podcasting and wanted to serve that entreprenuer-curious, early stage founder & self-starter audience on audio.

So...the You Inc. Podcast was born.

To be honest, I don't remember an "aha" moment that led to the 'You Inc.' name. While thinking of a name for my LinkedIn content series for the Creator Accelerator Program, I remember thinking...

"What if I could get people to start thinking of themselves and their side hustles with the same breath as big ass brands?"

That was the inspiration for the "Inc." part of You Inc. Honestly, still a pretty good idea.

Come 2023, and I decided it was the year of doing the RIGHT things (even when they're annoying, scary, or hard). Earlier this year, I considered rebranding my newsletter to #ThriftyTitans . The idea for that rebrand got so many people excited.

That started a flywheel – it inspired me to take my creative work more seriously and better work just fueled this momentum. And since we had started taking YouTube seriously, I considered rebranding the channel as 'Thrifty Titans', and it would feature more than the pod, but also tool comparisons, tips, tricks & hacks that early founders, marketers & content creators would appreciate.

Let's talk about why this is the right move.

Simplification

I'm on a mission to simplify my creative side this year. I've come to really appreciate the value and elegance of simplicity – and every new "name" I introduce creates complexity.

That's true for products, frameworks, and especially for projects.

So almost like a digital spring cleaning, I'm trying to?reduce?clutter in my digital identity more than I'm adding to it.

One of the best ways to simplify the business is to consolidate the distinct "brands" into one. I firmly believe that people struggle to associate multiple things with their concept of YOU. We just don't care about others?enough to keep it all straight.

I've also become increasingly enamored with creators who identify with one major project/media company:

• Dan Runcie is the founder of?Trapital
• Tori Dunlap is the creator of?Her First $100K
• Kat Norton is?Miss Excel
• Andrew Huberman and?Huberman Lab

I didn't want to be "Saikat Pyne, the host of the You Inc. Podcast, and writer of the Thrifty Titans Newsletter"

I just want to be "Saikat Pyne, the founder of Thrifty Titans."

Thrifty Titans has a newsletter, a podcast, a blog, and a YouTube channel – it’s one mission, all under the same name.

As a rookie creator, one of the biggest mistakes I made was misunderstanding how to make my work discoverable. Discoverability really comes from social media, YouTube, and search. I was investing so little energy into them for most of my creator journey. I believe you can deflect the attention you receive personally toward your media brand...but I don't think you can deflect it in?two?directions. It was very challenging to draw attention from @saikatpyne on LinkedIn to BOTH theyouinc.co AND the thriftytitans.co.

So, while I'm investing time and energy in being a public loudmouth on these discovery platforms, I wanted to improve my ability to direct that attention toward one, consolidated direction.

Topic Alignment

I've come to realize that the name "You Inc." didn't clearly align with the most important part of the show – empowering early founders with actionable insights.

In the beginning, when I wasn't using the term "founder" as much, I thought "You Inc." gave me a broader appeal to people who identified as self-starters. Making the name of the show more immediately aligned with founders will help with listener growth.?

Thrifty Titans makes the venture's ambitions clear and precise - we want to help aspiring & current founders, marketers & content creators with business and audience growth insights & hacks that you can implement without losing their mind or breaking the bank.

Rebranding Aftermath

This week, I finally made the transition to the new name:?Thrifty Titans.

I’m proud of how smoothly the transition has gone thus far, but I wish I could have avoided a rebrand entirely – it’s a huge pain! Not only that, but this is the second rebrand in the last one year.

The initial transition from the visual look of the show to the current visual grammar wasn’t a small effort either – and in the 9 months since that change, I’ve built some equity and name recognition behind the?You Inc.?name.

But, all things considered, this became more and more obviously the right move for me, despite the headaches it would cause in execution. So to hopefully save you the same pain and give you a little look behind the scenes, I wanted to share how I came to this conclusion and executed the rebrand.

Still to come

I think I’ve only done about 20-30% of the effort necessary to socialize this rebrand. It's not only about getting the new name out there – it's actually about socializing to my?existing?audience that this change has occurred.

Even your biggest supporters often need to be told something several times before they notice or understand it.

Part of the reason I wrote this post was to reinforce the fact that the brand has changed. And in order to get people to pay attention to this announcement, I decided to focus on framing this as a useful article for a future brand or rebrand launch that YOU may deal with.

But now that this is live and everything has been switched over, I can stop limiting the amount of outreach I'm doing. I can put more focus into sourcing collaborations.

This is the time when I feel like I can?really?focus on leveling up and growth.

Hope to see you inside!