the stories we tell
Storytelling is the single most valuable founder trait. I believe this. It’s priority as a skill varies by the role in the organization, but it is remarkably under-discussed as a distinct and broadly appreciated proficiency. At it’s best, storytelling is “vision.” At it’s worst, storytelling is hype. Worse still, it’s lying. But there is a significant space within these extremes that captures the magic of translating a founder’s version of the future to those around them.
Magic might actually be the right word for it. The definition of magic is “the power of apparently influencing the course of events by using mysterious or supernatural forces.” The most important word in that sentence is “apparently.” That is where the storytelling lives. It is inspiring belief in something that hasn’t yet presented itself. It renders the unseen into a digestible format.
The way a founder performs storytelling surfaces itself in a few key areas:
team- Early on, every founder is spending the majority of their time relaying their version of the future to potential team members. Inspiring them to help build with her. The best founders will make you question what you thought you knew. It’s like being handed a pair of 3D glasses and realizing that you had previously been watching a different (and less interesting) movie altogether. The most persuasive founders tell enough of the story to draw intrigue, but leave the space necessary for you to feel like you can inform the ending. This is certainly what brings people on board, but it’s also what keeps teams motivated when the business invariably oscillates between good times and bad.
customers- Some say a genius is someone who takes a complex thing and makes it look simple. I was recently conducting research for a startup I was working with and speaking to one of their potential customers. I was trying to understand what elements of the product were most relevant to his business and how much it should cost. He said to me, “You have to assume I don’t know anything. I need to know why it’s important and how it helps me. Thats it.” The most artful storytelling is one that optimizes for ease of comprehension. It is about making your complex product, one that might not even exist yet, feel immediately useful and intuitive in essence.
investors- I speak to many founders as they are getting ready to raise capital- sometimes it’s help with introductions, crafting the right strategy/amount, or just with their presentation. In these conversations I almost always find myself explaining that the most significant and surprising takeaway I’ve had working in venture is that the ability to secure a (seed) round is almost completely reliant on a founder’s ability to tell the right story. To detail their grand vision. The failed attempts I’ve seen almost always focus on the product in its current form... a plan to take one thing and place it in the hands of as many people as possible. The most successful founders through that process are almost always more concerned with where the current product will take us from where we are today. Those that tell a story about how their product builds a bridge to enter a future where things look much different.
themselves- I think most importantly, storytelling is an ongoing conversation with ourselves. Even the biggest visionary is constantly reminding themselves why they’re doing what they do. Why they’re bothering to take chances. Why they’re good enough. One of my most favorite anecdotes:
E. B. White was amused to learn from a farmer friend that many electrified fences don’t have any current running through them. The cows apparently learn to stay away from them, and after that you don’t need the current. “Rise up, cows!” he wrote, “Take your liberty while despots snore!”
We get to decide what we want to believe. There is a narrative that will help us remember that there is actually no current in the fence.
