How to choose a logo for your startup?

For 90% of businesses, which logo you choose isn’t so important. Exceptions to this would be the likes of McDonalds golden arches - however 1) it is always possible to change your logo in future and 2) whether people like your logo or not may be a result of them liking your product/service overall.  On average, I wouldn’t spend too much time or money on one.

The most important thing is to ensure that you own the intellectual property for any logo that you do use. Usually, we commission people on Upwork (the Upwork service agreement should mean that you own the IP, but an additional one pager to ensure that the IP is ‘assigned to <COMPANY NAME>’ by the Creator is useful too. 

I would avoid using symbols or signs. Logos that are merely your company name spelt out nicely are good enough. Again, this assumes that you operate an 80:20 business where the logo isn’t too important. If you use your logo, it means people know your name too. And it reduces the number of decisions around which design asset to use in some cases. 

At Seneca, we had a logo that wasn’t a word. It was a weird loading symbol that happened to match one of Dua Lipa’s hand tattoos. We did not really have enough brand equity that the logo was recognised without the name. A logo that simply spelled out the word SENECA would probably have been better for our brand.