The best part of my job is that I get to meet so many wonderful people, but I don’t always remember the exact moment we met. But I definitely remember meeting Bob van Luijt, CEO of Weaviate.*

When I introduced myself to Bob, he reacted with contagious enthusiasm. He was warm and engaged in our conversation. At one point, he pulled out his phone to show me pictures of Weaviate’s new billboard with Intel, clearly excited and proud to show me one of his team’s recent wins. After the event, he followed me on Twitter/X (a generous move on his part, given that I had fewer than 250 followers at the time).

Bob’s warmth and zeal stuck with me. Whenever I see Weaviate’s content in my social media feed, I think about that first meeting. Isn’t that what ‘brand’ is all about? It’s how people remember you. More than just the product or service you offer, brand is how people feel when they interact with your company, whether it’s a passing mention in conversation, a billboard, a booth at a conference or a post on LinkedIn. While a product is valued primarily for its function, a brand offers something deeper: an emotional experience that leaves a lasting impression.

Weaviate’s brand is vibrant, fun and approachable—a stark contrast to the dry, technical stuff many in the B2B space opt for (or feel forced to implement). Yet, Weaviate itself is deeply technical. As their LinkedIn company description explains, “Weaviate is a cloud-native, real-time vector database that allows you to bring your machine-learning models to scale. There are extensions for specific use cases, such as semantic search, plugins to integrate Weaviate in any application of your choice and a console to visualize your data.”

But the Weaviate approach to brand isn’t just about the technology: It’s about people connecting with people. And that’s why it’s so effective.

Brand is an Experience, Not a Commodity

Humans make decisions based on emotions and perceived value, not just rational cost-benefit analyses. For fans of data-driven marketing insights, many of whom work in the software industry, I’m sure human irrationality can be frustrating or dissatisfying… but it’s not entirely unpredictable, or even really that complicated. You don’t need a convoluted lead qualification process and a bloated marketing tech stack to figure out what people want. Starbucks learned this the hard way: removing in-store seating and over-rotating on mobile orders and complex custom drinks when many of its customers just wanted to get a quick cup of coffee and sit down.

When a company associates positive emotions, like belonging, prestige and pride, with its brand, it becomes something people—employees, customers and investors—want to be part of. And those emotions can override what looks, from an outside perspective, like obvious choices. I even see it in my own behavior: I’ll walk an additional three or four blocks from my apartment to buy coffee from the shop where the barista remembers my name. Even if it’s raining!

Software companies must appreciate that it’s not enough to simply say you can help people do their jobs better, faster or cheaper. When we say better, faster and cheaper, we must ask – for whom is it better? What makes it better? If it’s ambiguously ‘better’ for the business, an incremental improvement of net present value, I am confident no one will care. It’s more compelling (and stickier) to be beloved instead of just ‘better.’

Every interaction, from the aesthetic of the product to your social media feed to how you engage customers before and after a sale, is an opportunity to be beloved. That’s why your product must be memorable, not just functional, as our General Partner Dharmesh Thakker has written. Product aside, humanizing your company’s brand (even if you’re selling into other businesses) is also essential. When you put the people behind your company front and center, it reminds people that your brand isn’t simply offering a technical service—it’s built by humans to help other humans.

Marketing to people, the real consumers of software (at least, until AI takes over the world), requires finding where they spend time and speaking like you yourself are human. In practice, this means investing heavily in social media – which is where many of us, even if we don’t want to admit it, spend most of our time. You can be playful, kind and approachable on social media, too, even as a B2B brand. And you should! That’s what sticks with people.

When Bob asks customers why they buy from Weaviate, they often cite three factors: the company’s content, the onboarding process and the company’s walkthrough videos, each of which features an actual human. This reaffirms the strengths of Weaviate’s marketing approach – the faces behind the company are front and center to its brand.

Another important part of selling to humans is to recognize that they want to feel important, heard and valued, a philosophy that Bob and the Weaviate team refer to as “customer centricity.” We’ve heard it before: the customer is always right. But beyond recognition, customers also want a smooth onboarding process, responsiveness and, of course, to stand out in front of their boss and among their colleagues. If you can support your customers in the ways they desire, it should be easier to attract new ones and maintain the ones you already have.

Brand-Building Starts at the Top

Experiential marketing is most powerful when championed by the founder or CEO, whose vision and energy shape the brand. When the face of the company is visible, he or she can humanize the business and build rapport with customers. Like many effective startup founders, Bob is actively public-facing and has been for some time. Bob and the Weaviate team are active on social channels, regularly attend conferences and are covered frequently in media.

Visibility, while important, is not enough to sustain a brand on its own. As a leader, Bob is approachable, customer-obsessed, creative and, like Weaviate users, highly technical. He personally wrote the company’s mission statement, which is short and unembellished:

We believe that the best way to empower AI developers is through a vibrant community and accessible technology in an open-source ecosystem. We believe in building together.

You’ll note that while the words ‘vector databases’ do not appear in the company’s mission statement, the word “developers” does, reflective of the ‘customer-centricity’ approach endemic to Weaviate’s culture, something Bob and his leadership team continually reinforce. Who your product is for is more important than what it is. Ask yourself: Who is using it? How does it change their lives? How does it make them feel?

Another important tenet of the Weaviate brand is to ignore competitors, an occasionally unpopular approach in the AI space, which is replete with leaderboards and quadrants. But for Bob, focusing on the Weaviate product and its customers is not only a better use of time, but the only way to spend time. Bob, and other prominent AI leaders, recognize that it’s a fruitless task to rely on marketing claims of being 10% better, faster or cheaper than the other guy, when customer apathy is the real competition.

While this approach may seem novel for the B2B software industry, it’s old news for many consumer brands. Take Nike, for example. You can buy sneakers anywhere, but people line up for hours to buy Jordans. Nike transformed itself by shifting its marketing focus from simply selling footwear to ‘inspiring athletes.’ People don’t just want sneakers; they want to feel like Michael Jordan. Forget a LLM leaderboard, how can your brand give people the “AI experience”? That’s what Weaviate offers you. Many people who want “to do AI” are venturing into unfamiliar territory. How do you gain their trust?

In Conclusion…

Every B2B transaction is inherently B2C, because behind every business deal is a person. People buy from those they like and trust. If you’re easy to work with and treat people well, they’re more likely to buy and less likely to churn.

I remember when people are kind to me, just like I remember when Bob made me laugh and was warm and engaged. And I’m not even a Weaviate customer! If you treat customers like people, not like data points or transactions, in your marketing, your customer support and your organizational approach, and center the humanity of your organization in your marketing efforts, it will only help you succeed.