Why fortune favors the bold

Success isn’t a product of luck or incremental improvements. It is boldness—paired with a compelling vision and the courage to innovate—that separates the exceptional from the ordinary. At Motto®, we believe that the ancient proverb “Fortune Favors the Bold” is more than a timeless adage; it is a guiding principle for leaders and brands striving to make a transformative impact.

This ethos forms the backbone of our work. We partner with visionary leaders and ambitious companies to craft brands that redefine the rules of their category. Through our brand frameworks, including the Idea Worth Rallying Around®, we help companies articulate bold ideas, align their teams, and inspire their audiences. And it’s the boldness of our clients—from Andela to CloudBees to GoodNotes—that fuels their success.

The Case for Boldness in Leadership

Bold leadership isn’t about recklessness or bravado; it’s about clarity of purpose and the courage to act decisively. Fear and doubt are natural companions on the path to innovation, but great leaders don’t let these emotions dictate their choices. Instead, they harness trepidation as a motivator and use boldness to push forward, even when the marketplace is uncertain.

Take Andela as an example. Born with a mission to connect top talent with opportunity, Andela’s audacious vision wasn’t just to source Africa’s top software talent but to create a global marketplace that reshapes how businesses find and leverage talent. Their big idea—Connecting Brilliance with Opportunity—challenged traditional models of talent acquisition. Initially rooted in Africa, Andela evolved into a globally respected Unicorn, proving that world-class talent knows no geographical boundaries.

Motto partnered with Andela to refine their brand for this ambitious transition. We helped distill their purpose into a compelling story that resonated globally while honoring their roots. By aligning their visual identity and messaging with their bold aspirations, we elevated Andela into one of the most admired tech companies in the world.

Boldness Drives Innovation

Innovation thrives on boldness because it requires leaders to envision what could be, rather than what is. It’s about embracing the unknown and reimagining the status quo. For CloudBees, a leader in the DevOps space, their big idea—Unleash the Power of Continuous Everything—was a direct challenge to conventional thinking in software development.

CloudBees’ vision was ambitious: to empower companies to move faster and more efficiently by unlocking the full potential of continuous integration and delivery. Motto worked with CloudBees to translate this vision into a cohesive brand strategy that communicated their leadership in the DevOps space and inspired confidence among their global enterprise clients.

By defining their narrative and crafting a bold, future-focused brand identity, we helped CloudBees claim their space as a transformative force in their industry. The result? A brand that inspires trust and action in a category defined by complexity and rapid change.

Boldness Inspires Culture

Boldness isn’t just external. It’s deeply ingrained in the culture of the most transformative companies. A bold brand aligns and inspires teams, fosters innovation, and creates a shared sense of purpose. Goodnotes, a digital note-taking platform, is a perfect example of how boldness can ignite cultural transformation.

Their big idea, Notes Reimagined, which Motto created, wasn’t simply about creating a better app. It was about redefining how people interact with their thoughts, ideas, and creativity. GoodNotes wanted to bridge the analog and digital worlds, creating an intuitive and human experience while harnessing technology’s power.

Motto helped Goodnotes articulate this bold vision and bring it to life through a brand strategy that resonated with their audience and team alike. By aligning their messaging, identity, and purpose, we enabled GoodNotes to carve out a distinctive space in a competitive market, elevating them as a leader in digital creativity tools.

Why Bold Brands Shift the Landscape

Bold brands transform industries. Companies that embrace bold vision and innovation can make shifts that others cannot. This is because boldness creates a ripple effect: it inspires teams, attracts loyal customers, and forces competitors to adapt. When a brand is clear about its purpose and audacious in its execution, it becomes more than a market participant; it becomes a market leader.

For Andela, this meant evolving from a regional success to a global force in talent innovation, connecting brilliance with opportunity worldwide. For CloudBees, it meant challenging enterprise norms to make continuous integration and delivery a cornerstone of digital transformation. For GoodNotes, it was about reshaping how people bridge analog creativity with digital technology. Each brand’s transformation came from embedding boldness into their vision, culture, and execution—a process that Motto enabled by uncovering their true potential and aligning it with strategic action.

The Payoff of Boldness

The common thread in these stories is clear: boldness leads to transformation. Companies that dare to challenge norms and articulate bold visions don’t just succeed; they create movements that inspire loyalty and drive lasting impact.

At Motto, we help these brands define and refine their bold ideas. For Andela, we crafted a global narrative that champions untapped potential. For CloudBees, we aligned their vision with their category-defining solutions. For GoodNotes, we empowered them to own their space in digital creativity. These are not just stories of success but blueprints for reshaping industries.

A Call to Bold Leadership

If you’re a leader seeking to make a transformative impact, ask yourself this: What’s true AND interesting about your company? At Motto, we believe that this intersection is where bold ideas are born. It’s not enough to be innovative—you must be audacious in articulating your vision and relentlessly pursuing it.

Fortune doesn’t favor hesitation. It rewards those who lead with clarity, align with purpose, and act with courage. As we’ve seen with Andela, CloudBees, GoodNotes, and countless others, boldness drives the brands that change the world.