Know-How Exchange : Branding

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I'm with Phil. Hire a professional designer.

Just be sure you have prepared a tight Creative Brief so they don't spin their wheels and burn through your budget before you know what's happening. You need to establish objective criteria for the creative project so it's not just a case of "I like it" or "I hate it."

BTW, I would start with the Creative Brief whether you hire a professional or try to cobble it together yourself. If you don't know what you want going-in, you won't know when you have it.

For more information on the Creative Brief, see this page: https://bit.ly/htnXoR

Logo design is one of the hardest creative specialties to pull off without experience. When starting with my current company two years ago I inherited an in-house designed logo. It was costing the company hundreds of extra dollars every time they needed the logo imprinted on apparel or promo items to have it rebuilt to a usable vector format. It also turns out to have partly originated from clip art and elements of the logo have since appeared in package design for a multi-national (we are a local not-for-profit). Your logo will be a huge part of your identity and can become an ongoing headache if not built properly from the start. Invest in the logo, skimp elsewhere.

Consider this:
If you needed open heart surgery, you hire a doctor, right? You wouldn't dream of attempting this yourself.
If you need a mortgage, you hire a broker. You really shouldn't do that yourself.
If you need a logo, you shouldn't dream of doing it yourself either. So you hire an expert, a designer. Period. Design by committee (especially inhouse people who have other strengths) is NEVER a good idea.

Doing it right the first time, from the beginning, will save you time, money, frustration, misinterpretation, poor positioning, and clientelle. You have a marketing budget for your startup, right? Build in logo design; most agencies JUMP at the opportunity to do logo work in conjunction with a startup.