Optimal performance vs brands that people love

Bandit Running has a feature on its e-commerce site that feels almost wrong in 2026. It takes up prime space but isn’t about optimisation. It doesn’t smooth the path to checkout. It simply makes you want to hang out and have fun: a playful counter in the top-right corner that tracks the kilometres you scroll as you browse, and links to a colourful ‘leaderboard’.

 

It flies in the face of the advice that web-native founders swap in communities and ecommerce circles: to ship fast, copy what converts and strip out anything that ‘distracts’. On paper, this advice feels right. In the short term, almost everything on a site can be optimised to drive conversion.

 

But Bandit’s founders recognise that brand is just as important as optimisation. In our work with the business to refresh its brand, details such as the scroll tracker are signals of identity and community. They make the experience feel like Bandit, not like an interchangeable template. That balance between performance and brand is a big part of the business’s cult-like popularity and ongoing success.

 

It’s a lesson that’s increasingly hard for a new generation of web-native founders to hear. Nineties-born, self-taught, who learnt coding in their bedrooms, they’re brilliant at building and iterating, and now AI makes it even easier to produce polished pages at speed. The risk is that, in a world where everyone can execute, founders end up chasing whatever ‘works’ this week and under-investing in what makes a company emotionally distinct. The winners will be the ones who can balance their performance instincts and skills with those needed to build a brand that people actually want to belong to.

 

 

Why brand matters (and why it’s not “nice to have”)

Brand is not decoration layered onto a business. It’s the operating logic behind how a company behaves, communicates and differentiates. Brand signals to consumers if a product is for them; it supports pricing power, increases repeat purchase and turns customers into advocates. If used correctly, it does so much more than supporting the aesthetics of your brand – it supports growth. For example, figures show that people pay significantly more for brands that are ‘meaningfully different’ from competitors.

 

This is why merely relying on the optimisation mindset can be self-defeating. While conversion tactics work for short-term impact, they also broadcast what kind of company you are. A discount wheel can make a premium brand feel cheap. For a loyal customer, relentless urgency emails can turn a positive purchase into a transactional relationship. There’s growing evidence that short-term conversion tactics can weaken long-term brand value. Studies show that over-messaging drives unsubscribes, scarcity tactics often underperform online, and manipulative UX patterns can reduce trust. When you chase shortcuts or ever-changing trends, you dilute your brand narrative.

 

For web-native founders, this realisation is hard because the skills that help you ship are the skills that can tempt you into sameness. If you grew up mastering performance techniques, templates and growth loops, you’ve been rewarded for speed, iteration and measurable uplift. Brand-building, by contrast, can feel slow, subjective and hard to attribute.

 

AI supercharges the problem. It lowers the cost of producing a good baseline of design, copy and code, which means the internet fills up with competent, polished, lookalike brands. In that environment, judgment becomes more important than ever: knowing what to keep, what to refuse, and which details are worth defending even if they don’t map neatly to a short-term metric.

 

 

Use your skills to strengthen your brand

The good news is that web-native founders are also wired to use brand in the right way. They think in systems – and the best brands are systems. They are coherent sets of principles and constraints that govern how you build and communicate: what you optimise for, how you sound and what “on brand” means for you. 

 

If you’ve written code, you already understand the idea: a good system defines interfaces, defaults and guardrails so new features can be added without breaking everything else. Brand works the same way. It isn’t about being precious; it’s about making sure speed doesn’t turn into chaos. Systems create consistency – and that in turn builds trust.

 

Getting it right is about understanding that a good system isn’t rigid; it creates structure so creativity can evolve without turning chaotic. Look at fashion or music. There are only so many silhouettes, textures and chord progressions, yet every year we still get work that feels fresh. The difference isn’t novelty. It’s interpretation, sequencing, taste and confident constraints. When it comes to your brand, start with identifying the markers that govern your brand, what you believe and who you’re for.  

 

Once you have established this, use AI for exploration and execution but keep judgment human. Treat AI as a generator of options, not an authority. The question isn’t “What’s the latest hack?” but “Does this amplify what we stand for?” Bandit’s scroll leaderboard is a useful mental model: it’s a choice to prioritise participation and culture alongside conversion. AI can propose many ‘best practice’ widgets; brand judgment decides which ones you’re willing to adopt.

 

Then, make sure you design for emotional participation, not just transactional efficiency. Look for moments that invite the human in: playful interactions, community language, rituals, surprises and references your customers recognise. These details give people a reason to return and to talk about you – and they’re harder for competitors to copy.  

 

The danger for founders looking to grow isn’t the use of AI. It’s what makes the easy choices even easier. When everyone can ship quickly, differentiation comes from the choices you defend: the constraints you set, the point of view you express and the experience you build for your community. If you treat brand like a system not decoration, if you use the rules to guide you, you will build something that can scale in the right way.

 

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Jen Yuan is Co-Founder of View Source

 

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com and Cunaplus_M.Faba