Welcome back to Mayhem & Masterplans, where Max, Simon, and Andreas finally do the thing they’ve been promising for weeks: talk about branding. But since this is Mayhem & Masterplans, the conversation takes a detour through cycling rituals, emotional guitars, VC decks, and the occasional German taxonomy lesson.

In this episode, we:

🔹 Start with a sports branding quiz – Augusta green jacket, Wimbledon whites, Paris–Roubaix cobblestones… Simon tests how much symbolism Max and Andreas can handle before breakfast.

🔹 Explore the difference between brand and branding – Is your logo your brand? Your deck? Or is it the vibe that sticks after someone interacts with your company? (Spoiler: it’s the vibe.)

🔹 Ask: what makes a good brand? – Andreas introduces his guitar obsession: Aristides. Great product, great storytelling, no marketing fluff—just real passion that speaks to a real audience.

🔹 Talk about why software brands suck – Why do most SaaS companies look and sound the same? Max argues it’s because they try too hard to appear “credible” instead of standing for something.

🔹 Break down Kevin Russell’s viral post “This is not a brand” – From positioning to purpose, we unpack why your pitch deck won’t save you—and what it really means to build emotional connection at scale.

🔹 Debate startup identity vs. team culture – Is your brand what your customers feel, or what your team lives every day? Andreas says it starts inside. Max says a vision isn’t a brand. Simon just wants his cycling kit to look good.

🔹 Reflect on culture, subcultures, and brand ownership – Who really builds a brand: the founders, the users, or the community around it? (Also: why cycling’s rise from outsider sport to hipster status symbol is a branding case study in slow-burn magic.)

🔹 Close with a branding rant for the ages – If your team doesn’t know what you stand for, no customer ever will.

And of course, we wrap with our musical therapy picks:

🎵 Trinity of Heresy – Cradle of Filth (Andreas, being Andreas)

🎵 LU (Mixed) – Pianika (Simon staying Juicy and Large)

🎵 Guerrilla Radio – Rage Against The Machine (Max, rebelling with rhythm)

🎧 Subscribe to Mayhem & Masterplans wherever you get your podcasts—and follow us for unruly branding debates, startup therapy, and questionable sports analogies:

📍 Max on LinkedIn

📍 Simon on LinkedIn

📍 Andreas on LinkedIn

🎙️ Produced by: Hypecast

#MayhemAndMasterplans #ThisIsNotABrand #EmotionalConnection #SaaSBoringAgain #CyclingCulture #AristidesVibes #StartupBranding #HypecastProductions

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Welcome to Mayhem & Masterplans, the podcast where Max, Simon, and Andreas test the boundaries of strategy, branding, and WiFi stability—sometimes all at once. This week, we explore how small tweaks in AI, branding, and sports fandom can spark big conversations… or at least derail them entirely.

In this episode, we:

🔹 Follow Andreas on a two-week sprint through Germany — conferences, meetings, tea, and a heroic battle against the sniffles. Spoiler: ginger didn’t win.

🔹 Break down the Mittelstand mindset — What’s the vibe in German SME-land? Andreas gives us the scoop from the "Zukunftstag" and we talk bureaucracy, jumbo depreciation (yes, it’s a thing), and why fax machines are apparently still living their best lives.

🔹 Debate vision vs. execution — Max argues startups should think more like companies. Andreas says companies should think more like startups. Simon just wants us all to think.

🔹 Get real about AI — From city government chatbots to hotel transfer disasters, we look at how AI isn’t always ChatGPT and robot overlords. Sometimes it’s just a smarter helpdesk or better audio cleanup.

🔹 Accidentally turn it into an AI episode (again) — Seriously, we tried not to. There was even a moment where Simon almost stopped us. Almost.

🔹 Tease a future episode on branding in sports — Monuments of cycling, the Masters, the Triple Crown… and why your startup’s brand is probably less iconic than Paris–Roubaix.

🔹 Discover Max’s secret to hacking the Instagram algorithm — Apparently it’s all about startup memes, SEO reels, and refusing to like anything your weird uncle posts.

🔹 End with what really matters — Music, of course. Because all good strategy sessions deserve a killer soundtrack.

🎵 The Four Horsemen – Metallica (Andreas going full thrash)

🎵 Gone Away – The Offspring (Max staying in his desert rock era)

🎵 Jetzt kommt die Osterzeit – Rolf Zuckowski (Simon’s playlist is still sponsored by fatherhood)

🎧 Subscribe to Mayhem & Masterplans wherever you get your podcasts—and follow us for unruly branding debates, startup therapy, and questionable sports analogies:

📍 Max on LinkedIn

📍 Simon on LinkedIn

📍 Andreas on LinkedIn

📰 Sign up for our newsletter: The Mic Drop

🎙️ Produced by: Hypecast

#MayhemAndMasterplans #AIBreakdowns #StartupMindset #SMEvsStartup #VisionMeetsReality #Zukunftstag #MittelstandMoves #ConferenceChaos #HypecastProductions

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to Mayhem & Masterplans, your weekly chaos therapy session on business, branding, and all the mayhem in between. In this episode, Max, Simon, and Andreas finally tackle the topic they teased last time: BRANDING.

But since this is Mayhem & Masterplans, we didn’t stop at theory—we went all the way from the Paris-Roubaix cobblestones to Nike’s brand crisis and the rise of hipster cycling subcultures.

Here’s what’s on the branding menu this week:

🔹 Sports, symbols & storytelling – Simon kicks off with a quiz on iconic sports branding. From Augusta’s green jacket to the Hell of the North—how symbols become cultural shortcuts.

🔹 Cycling’s underground glow-up – How cycling transformed from utility transport to street-style culture—and why this matters for brands in sports and beyond.

🔹 Bottom-up vs. top-down branding – The crew debates the difference between league-driven brands (NFL, F1) and community-rooted cultures (cycling, surfing, running). Andreas drops the theory: It’s all about people.

🔹 What is a brand anyway? – Max introduces Kevin Russell’s viral post "This is not a brand". Key takeaways? A logo is not a brand. A brand is the emotional connection you create—and the promise you actually keep.

🔹 Can corporate software have soul? – The trio debates why Microsoft Teams is meme-fodder, why Nike needs to rethink their digital brand experiences, and how small brands (like Andreas’ favorite guitar brand Aristides Guitars) can punch way above their weight with authenticity and excitement.

🔹 Culture vs. point of view – Why writing down values is worthless if your actions don’t follow—and why even small teams like Hypecast need a point of view, not just a branding guide.

And of course, we closed on our signature playlist:

🎵 Trinity of Heresy – Cradle of Filth (Andreas going full metal mode)

🎵 LU (Mixed) – Pianika (Simon fueling up with his Juicy Large playlist)

🎵 Guerrilla Radio – Rage Against The Machine (Max keeping the rage alive)

🎧 Subscribe to Mayhem & Masterplans wherever you get your podcasts—and follow us for unruly branding debates, startup therapy, and questionable sports analogies:

📍 Max on LinkedIn

📍 Simon on LinkedIn

📍 Andreas on LinkedIn

📰 Sign up for our newsletter: The Mic Drop

🎙️ Produced by: Hypecast

#MayhemAndMasterplans #BrandingMayhem #EmotionalConnection #CyclingCulture #HypecastProductions #CorporateBrandingDoneRight #GuerrillaMarketing #SubcultureBranding

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.