Digital Street co-founder Zohare Haider recently did a thing! He sat down with Ditsa Karen from Website Planet to talk about the hard knocks and life lessons of building a brand online. Read on to learn what you can do as a business owner to make sure you have a digital-ready brand and what are the biggest trends to watch out for over the coming year.

Here’s an excerpt from his best tips for brands who want to be successful online:

If I had to create brand value from scratch, I’d first go back to the basic questions: what do I do, who do I it for, why do I do it, and how?

To be an effective communicator you have to really understand where is your market and how you create value.

As an example, let’s say I have a small grocery store where there is no competition. I have absolute market dominance and a strong, established business, so I have 2 choices: Either I provide good service and keep them coming back because in the future I might have competition, or I provide bad service because I have a monopoly and become complacent towards risk and competition.

Check out the full interview on Website Planet here.