N Northbound

Issue №07 Tallinn, Estonia Est. 2019

We build brands that take themselves seriously — without taking themselves too seriously.

Northbound is a brand strategy consultancy of four. We work with a small number of founders each year — the ones who are building something they actually plan to be doing in ten years.

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0 Engagements completed
0 Countries we've worked in
0 Years sharpening the craft
0 People on the team
Brand strategy · Naming · Verbal identity · Positioning · Messaging frameworks · Workshops · Brand strategy · Naming · Verbal identity · Positioning
Chapter One

How we work.

01

We listen first.
A lot.

Every engagement starts with a week of structured interviews — with you, your team, your earliest customers, and the people who almost became your customers and didn't. We're not designers who guess. We're researchers who happen to write well.

02

We tell you
uncomfortable things.

A brand strategy that doesn't make at least one person at the company push back is a strategy that won't survive contact with the market. Our job is to find the sharp truth about what you actually are, then help you say it without flinching.

03

We leave you
with something usable.

You don't get a 200-page deck. You get a brand book that fits on twelve pages, a set of messaging frameworks your team will actually open, and a Notion workspace we hand off so your next hire can get up to speed in an afternoon.

A note from the founder

"Most brand consultancies sell a process. We sell a point of view. If you're looking for someone to validate decisions you've already made, we are the wrong firm. If you're looking for someone who'll tell you the thing nobody else will, you're in the right place. Either way — coffee's on us."

Liis Mägi Founder & Strategy Director
Chapter Two

Selected engagements,
2023 — 2026.

2026

A Series B fintech, Berlin.

Repositioned away from "neobank for freelancers" toward a sharper, more defensible category. Six months later, the conversion rate on their landing page had tripled.

Repositioning · Messaging
2025

A heritage hospitality group, Helsinki.

Took a 90-year-old family business that was losing relevance with younger travelers and rewrote the entire verbal identity, top to bottom. They're now booked out twelve months ahead.

Verbal identity · Brand book
2025

A bootstrapped SaaS company, Vilnius.

Named the product, named the company, and built the messaging framework that the founders used to close their first €1M in ARR. Total engagement: eleven days.

Naming · Strategy sprint
2024

A B2B logistics startup, Stockholm.

Their pitch deck was technically correct and emotionally dead. We didn't change the data — we changed the story around it. They raised €4.2M three months later.

Narrative · Pitch positioning
Chapter Three

We take on roughly
six new clients a year.

If you're considering working with us, the first step is a 30-minute conversation. No deck, no pitch, no follow-up emails for six months. We'll either be the right firm for what you're building, or we'll tell you who is.

Write to us hello@northbound.studio→ Find us Lai 12, 10133 Tallinn→