The Irresistible Power of the Founder’s Story
Pour some love into your Founder’s Story
When it comes to telling stories to build your business, the ‘founder’ or ‘origin’ story is one of the most powerful.
A strong founder’s story can be the hook that pulls in investment, and the glow that attracts the best talent your way. Origin stories can make brands famous, with the owner’s personal story of how and why they started becoming part of business folklore.
Why are they so powerful?
For a story to work, it needs somebody for the reader to identify with and care about. Founders this role perfectly - the brave, the risk-takers, the dreamers, the builders make great lead characters.
A good story also needs a plot. Stuff has to happen, something has to drive it forward. And the episodes of thwarted dreams, resilience, failure, perseverance, sleepless nights, disasters, highs, lows and success that mark a founder’s path bring the story to life.
Here’s how that plays out.
Popular founder story structures
Rags to riches
The archetypal ‘rags to riches ‘founders story is the one that most easily lapses into cliche. You’ll have seen this a thousand times.
“I had nothing, I was down to my last dollar, then I tried something and it worked. Now here I am in my massive beach house. And I can teach you that secret something for only $1,995”.
Beloved of internet businesses, a good rags to riches story works by tapping into its audience’s financial stress and its desire to be rescued. Most of us can identify with money worries, and that beach house does look fantastic ….. But stories like this can be hard to trust.
David vs Goliath
With much more integrity than the rags to riches story, David vs Goliath is the founder story of sticking up for the small guy. Davids often spot an opportunity where big corporations are getting it wrong.
They start businesses that aim to disrupt the status quo, to do things differently, and to make life better for people. It’s their mission, rather than their wealth, that’s the rallying cry.
Their story pulls the people towards them who believe what they believe. Hiut Denim’s This Town is Going to Make Jeans Again is a brilliant example of this.
The quest
The epic journey, a life’s mission. Founders that tell quest stories have been on the journey for a long time. They’ve had an idea early on in life, and have stuck to it religiously, even when other people have lost faith.
They’re the businesses with the 30 failed prototypes that paved the way for the one successful one.
Telling a story that demonstrates how hard you’ve tried, and your resilience in the face of failure, gets an audience on your side. The subject of the quest is irrelevant - it could be the quest for phones powered by walking, or technology to cure insomnia, or even the perfect eyeliner - or anything at all - what matters is the exhaustiveness of the journey and the fact you’ve stuck at it until you prevailed.
How to create your own Founder’s Story
If you want to write your own founder’s story, here are a few pointers to get you started.
What’s your inciting incident?
In story terms, the inciting incident is the event that kick-starts your story into action. It’s the moment Dorothy is swept up by a tornado and deposited in the Land of Oz.
What happened to start your journey to where you are now? It could be something dramatic, like a disaster, an illness, a brush with death, or it could look less significant at first glance. Something you saw that inspired you, or something you experienced that changed you, or even something that was said to you.
Inciting incidents aren’t always positive - being told that you’ll never make it is sometimes just the thing that inspires you to prove people wrong.
2. What’s your mission?
What’s your why? What do you want to change? What makes you angry and what do you want to fix? A founder story needs an energetic drive, and that often comes from the desire to right a wrong. Think about what you want to change in the world. If that something would have positive effects for more people than just you, then all the better.
3. Who’s the villain?
The interplay between heroes and villains can keep a story moving. Your villain probably won’t be a person, but it helps if you can personify the force you’re fighting. It could be that your business was born to fight an injustice, or to level the playing field. The villain could be something like ‘wasted time’ or ‘frustration’. Think about how you can bring the villain in your story to life.
4. Who are you battling for?
The Founder’s story is all about you, but weaving your customers into the story too is a wise move. Who do you want to save? Who are you fighting for?
Did you start your business to make life better for young entrepreneurs or for women returning to work? Whether your customers are cyclists or chiropractors, dentists or delivery drivers, make them a feature of the story too.
How to use your Founder’s story
In website terms, a written version of your founder’s story sits fair and square in ‘about us.’ It’s the story of how and why you started.
We’re always hearing ‘people do business with people’ and the founder story can be a place where you show the person behind your operation.
Being able to tell the story verbally is helpful too. Particularly in the early stages of a venture, if you’re looking for investment, and being asked ‘why this business?’ (When they’re actually asking, why should I believe in you?’)
Writing it down will help you get clear on your mission, and find a way of talking about it that connects with the people you want to serve.
Think about your inciting incident, let your imagination run free, and see where it takes you!
Further reading
For more on the lure of the founder’s story, and some examples of great founder stories in action, read The power of the founder’s story. And how to write yours, by us from Cohesive Communications.
