Brand story isn’t extra—it’s essential
Are a groundbreaking technology or model, a compelling market opportunity and whip-smart leaders enough to build a company that has real impact? You might think so, but no. The missing piece is a brand story that helps you drive adoption, expand awareness, make key hires and raise capital.
A good brand story can do that because it paints a vivid picture of what you’re trying to achieve, why you’re the ones to do it, how it can work and why it matters. Yet brand story—and communications in general—may be the most overlooked aspect of getting a startup off the ground. I say that not just because Thinkshift has a hammer and we’re looking for nails, but because our own media experience proves it and we’ve heard it from everyone we’ve ever met who works with startups.
“Standing out is the gold standard—to be able to tell the story of why and how you’re different,” one incubator director told us years ago. “Companies that understand they need a good communications strategy will do better than those that don’t. Sometimes it’s the story that makes it.”
Just recently, the Emerson Collective, which invests in purpose-driven entrepreneurs and other innovators, underscored the point by hosting a daylong “Building a Consequential Climate Company” event devoted entirely to various aspects of brand storytelling. (See the presentations here.)
We’ve found that regardless of channel, form or sector, stories that make a difference to customers, media, talent and investors follow these three guidelines.
1. Lead with people, support with numbers
Yes, investors want to see a lot of numbers before they write a check. They want to know if your growth projections are realistic, what the size of your market is, and if you have a moat around your intellectual property. But investors put money into companies they love, and love doesn’t spring from spreadsheets.
What insight inspired you to take on the freakin’ hard slog of building this company? What keeps you going every day? What are your customers’ lives like, and how are you making them better? Framing your story around the answers to questions like these helps investors understand the stakes and the opportunity—and whether you are the person to pull this off.
The same is true for media. Reporters lead with people because they know that’s what attracts readers, listeners and viewers. And they can’t tell your story if you can’t.
Many founders resist this, but, as Molly Wood, a former New York Times editor and current venture investor, said at the Emerson Collective event, “You’re the story. You have an origin story, a staff who’s working for you because they care about what you do; your customers are part of your story. Do not hide the personal below the tech; [the personal] makes you more interesting.”
2. Clearly state what you do and how you do it
Every enterprise should be able to fill in the blanks in these two sentences: [Company name] is a [blank] that does [blank] for [blank]. We do it by [blank].
That sounds basic, but companies often get so focused on articulating the need they’re filling that they neglect to say exactly what they do and what they are selling. That’s something investors, journalists, and customers need to know, and it should be clear whether you’re telling your story in person, in a deck or on your website. If it’s not, you’ll raise doubts about your enterprise.
3. Articulate an inspiring—but plausible—vision
Unquestionably, a big vision is more exciting than incremental improvement. But before you put that vision out in the world, make sure you can plot a plausible path to achieving it. An ambitious vision you can support with reasonable analysis will be taken more seriously than one that assumes a world-historical level of change based on hand-wavy assumptions.
And again, put it in people terms. If you’re on the cusp of a technical breakthrough, whose lives will you make better, on what scale, and in what way? Even if you’re working in a niche B2B market, you’re selling to people, and technological superiority alone often is not enough to get them to buy. The same goes for investors and journalists.
A brand story isn’t a “set it and forget it” project—it needs to grow and change as your enterprise grows and changes. No matter what phase you’re in, though, if you build it on the guidelines above, you’ll always have a story that connects with the people you want to reach.
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