The temptation is to open Pinterest and start collecting. Don't yet.
Images are easy to agree on and impossible to argue with precisely. You end up with a board everyone likes and nobody can act on, and you've made a decision without noticing you made one. If you can't describe the difference between two directions in words, there isn't a difference. There's two piles of images.
Pull three to five attributes from your positioning. Not aspirational ones. Ones true today. If you have to squint to believe it, it doesn't go on the list.
Pressure-test each word. Could a competitor claim it? If everyone in your category could use it, it's describing your category, not you.
Then build the reference board, and go well outside SaaS. Architecture, print, packaging, film titles, signage, book covers, museum wayfinding. Staying inside your own category is exactly how everything ends up looking like everything else. You already know what your competitors look like. That's the problem, not the input.
Sort into taking and avoiding. The avoid pile does more work than anyone expects. "Not this" is easier to agree on than "this," and just as useful to a designer.
Name three nevers. Three things this brand will never look like. A direction that rules nothing out will collapse the first time someone pushes back.
