As a start-up ourselves, it’s fantastic to hear you believe buildabrand.com has the ability to “empower small businesses”. What you really highlighted was the growing need for accessible brand building amongst start-ups and entrepreneurs.

We learnt that 38% of you are start-up entrepreneurs, 22% are running micro-businesses, a staggering 52% are technology and web focused and 8% of you have a “revolutionary new idea” (we like that!).

Most of you were interested in buildabrand.com as a low cost way to build a brand. You felt that the site has made branding less challenging and more accessible, leaving you with time to focus on other business activities.

A staggering 87% of you plan to use your new buildabrand brand on a website, followed closely by 66% who would need business cards and stationery bits, whilst 63% of you would want to get your brand out on display and shared through Twitter and Facebook.

Your feedback has been invaluable in shaping up our product and strategy, we’ve been listening and implementing as much as we can in closed beta. Listening to everyone who uses the site is really important to us, its your product and we love hearing what you have to say.

A whopping 1023 wrote us personalised feedback in the survey, we are working our way through them and will contact everyone who has asked us questions. To give you an idea of what’s being said, we created a word cloud below using wordle.net

Some of our favourite words used to describe buildabrand.com were “outstanding”, “inspiring” and “revolutionary” and it’s fantastic you believe the service will “help a lot of people realise their dreams”.

A few of our favourite comments from the survey are highlighted below:

“Love the concept, love the clarity. Looks simple to use and it’s making it [branding] more accessible to more people. Also love the fact that you can do everything and come out with a finished product to do business with. Wish you every success with this.”

“Very good initiative. Reusable and easy-to-reach expertise in all commercial aspects is a big asset for all small size companies.”

“Buildabrand sounds like a great idea for entrepreneurs like me who have little money, but big ideas.”

“I offer business planning and marketing services to other entrepreneurs and small-to-midsize businesses – there is a HUGE need for products like yours. I’m tired of having to help them coordinate amongst web, printer and branding designers/agencies.”

“Your idea is brilliant, I’ve worked with logo designers already but I did not find a single One Stop Shop as you are. Brand building online is very difficult and you make it easy.”

Just when you thought it was all over…

We have a brand new survey (‘Brand’ new! Get it?) click here.

As an incentive to spending 2 minutes filling this out, anyone who takes part will be entered into a competition to win a brand and $150 worth of Amazon vouchers!

We’re look forward to hearing what you have to say next and don’t forget to get in touch!

(We don’t condone this sort of behaviour but love the outcome it creates!)

Our beta testers have been really impressed with the ease of use, functionality of the site and ability to create relevant brands. These are some of the brands that have been created so far… (let us know your favourite in the comments)

There have also been plenty of suggestions for the team to take on board and excellent feedback to help improve the branding experience; we are now working hard to make these last few tweaks!

Here’s a round up of our favourite feedback so far and we’re really looking forward to hearing more…!

- we LOVE @buildabrand – we made our brand in 30 mins flat! love it. thanks chaps @engagefirst

- Having so much fun with @buildabrand Beta that I am not getting any work done today. oh well, this is much more entertaining. LOVE IT!!! @McGrosheim

- @theycallmeShua: @iwearyourshirt oh and i got an @buildabrand invite today. its cooler than i expected i have to admit

- @TriFunk: thanks for the invite @buildabrand wow! just playing around in the site and I am blown away. this is going to change the world! love it

- Thanks a lot!! Just made my first logo. Really cool end easy at first glance. Looking forward to test it in full … andersbn

- jonlongoria: Davey, want to say ya’ll did a great job. Left a lot of constructive criticism in feedback, hope this takes off! @daveshanley @buildabrand

- @buildabrand Yes…I had so much fun…I’m wondering what to do with the last of it [credits] because we do other things here…so I’m saving them @TheMarciFactor

- thanks a lot for your email! I was really looking forward to it…Merry Christmas and thank you for the great gift - Aspiring Entrepreneur in Maritime Equipment and Services

- I starting playing around with the site and it is fantastic. Love the usability and design. Ariel Remer, Aspiring Entrepreneur in Clothing Line

- The whole process is really intuitive, I like it. – Benjamin Larralde, Apiring Entrepreneur in funding platform for individuals

- Thanks so much for the invite. Your team has built an impressive site – Dennis Lyandres, Early-stage non-profit organisation

- Simple and clean interface generally.  Good staged process – Philip Wilkinson, Founder & CEO at Crowdstorm

- I saw a few logos there that really inspired me, and that could become new the logo for our company! – Alicia Navarro, Company Founder and CEO of Skimlinks

- Worked really intuitively and easily – Kate Siddiqui, Marketing and Editorial Manager at start-up company – www.leaveitout.co.uk

We’ve appreciated the positive comments, but we’re also taking some of the constructive criticism seriously. Reading through the discussions online, it became clear to us that we ought to clarify a few things about the buildabrand service. So here’s a bit more information about how we work.

We’re a small team, based in Soho, London. We’re entrepreneurs ourselves, and what we set out to do with buildabrand was provide access to branding for other entrepreneurs: we want to make branding accessible.

Here are the questions that have been asked, and the comments that have been made, most frequently in the last 24 hours:

Are you trying to replace traditional branding agencies?

We don’t want to replace traditional agencies. We’re looking to open up an entirely new price point for branding and identity solutions. Traditional services aren’t really our competitors.

Buildabrand will allow entrepreneurs and freelancers to acquire branding as a cost, rather than an investment. It will allow them to take a punt on their idea much more easily.

We at buildabrand see ourselves as entrepreneurs, and we’ve built a service we’d like to use ourselves. We see it sitting comfortably alongside traditional design services.

There’s a lot more to branding than a logo.

We know that. But before a company gets to the big umbrella stage, it has to start somewhere. “Buildabrand” is as much a description of what the service will aim to deliver as it is a call to action to our prospective users. To inspire them and to help them build the foundation for a brand.

We are trying to lower the barriers to entry for startups by providing them with accessible and affordable tools. Eventually, we would like to provide branding knowledge and support as well as products.

We will not solve the complex branding problems a large enterprise might face.

Automation will never replace creative thinking.

Of course not. But our algorithm and the way it has been constructed is the result of years of branding experience and a lot of strategic research. All our designs are originated by designers, from the symbols to the colour palettes.

Our goal is to match business ambitions with brand suggestions.

How big is your catalogue?

We’ve done a lot of strategic research into startups and into creating brand symbols that will fulfil a startup’s needs. We’ll have 1,800 difference business / segment types to choose from in total. During beta tests, the number will be smaller, but we’re planning to grow organically.

We’re confident that we can keep feeding new designs into the database fast enough to cope with demand. We also have plans to open up our system as a marketplace for designers to sell their work.

We’d love to hear what you think about the product. Leave a comment below or contact us if you’d like to know more.

Given the level of interest in buildabrand, we’re increasing the number of beta invitations from the original 50 offered by TechCrunch to 200. They will still be dished out on a first come, first served basis. We’ll be in touch if you made the cut.