For the first few years, people are not buying the company. They are buying you.
Early on there is no track record to lean on, no category position, no thirty-year story. There is a person with a point of view and a willingness to say it out loud.
That is not a weakness to design around. It is the most defensible thing a young company has, because nobody can copy it.
So the identity should sound like someone rather than something. The writing should have a temperature. The photography should include a face.
The company can grow past the founder later. It cannot start without them.