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Where to start your founder story? If you’re a startup taking first steps into PR, here’s where to start your founder story to boost growth and awareness. We’ve explained why a powerful founder story is key to running successful PR campaigns for a startup. Now you’re ready to write yours. Here’s where to start your founder story:
- Create a positive narrative using your startup’s mission.
- Leverage your entrepreneurial journey as a founder.
- Contextualise by focusing on the present and the problem you are solving.
- Draw on the experiences of those around you.
- Talk about your size and scale.
1. Create a positive narrative using your startup’s mission.
Every company is different. You are in a different sector, you have a different vision, a different team or different market approach. The bottom line is you have a different story. We all do. Use your startup’s mission to help write your own positive story.
Storytelling is an art, but it’s important to remember why it exists and specifically what it can help to achieve.
For startup PR, storytelling is a strategic play. It enables you to create a positive narrative around your young company. You’re a fast-growing company, your product is environmentally friendly, your solution is safer, faster, more reliable. The narrative you’re creating is aimed at a potential audience of future investors, users or partners and effective storytelling is crucial in helping to reach that audience.
2. Leverage your entrepreneurial journey as a founder.
Companies that have been around for a long time become effective at leveraging their history to communicate experience, reliability and expertise. As a startup, your company doesn’t have that asset – but you do.
Start with your entrepreneurial journey. Why did you make the leap, what did you do before, have you any accolades from your working life, why did you feel the problem you’re seeking to solve needs to be solved? Have you overcome any personal challenges enroute?
Your personal history and journey can give context to your company’s mission, vision and purpose so use it.
3. Contextualise by focusing on the present and the problem you are solving.
Where you are in the entrepreneurial journey is important for context and is generally of interest to readers. Typically the right time to start your PR strategy is just before your product launch or latest funding round. Readers will want to know what you have created and how you envisage it benefiting their lives, sector or the marketplace. Keep it practical and useful, focus on the present and what problem you and your company are focused on solving.
4. Draw on the experiences of those around you.
Who is involved in your company? From your team to your investors, dig deep into their backgrounds. Perhaps they were previous investors in other big companies or took a leading role in the rollout of a big project for another major tech company. Maybe another team member had an interesting career path that led to them being on the team. All of this is relevant to telling your company’s story and building that narrative.
5. Talk about your size and scale.
Outline the size and scale both of your company and the problem you are looking to solve. It’s a useful tool to highlight the key milestones you’ve achieved and build your credibility. How many employees have you in the company? How much investment have you secured? How many users use your platform? What level of growth are you experiencing? These facts anchor your growth narrative so that over time those researching your company can clearly see your progress.
If you follow the tips above, and also review our advice on building your credibility with the power of a founder story, you’ll be well on the way to writing a compelling founder story to use in your PR campaigns to help your growth acceleration and boost awareness of your startup. If you have any questions or need help, feel free to leave a comment below or reach out to me at james@clearstoryinternational.com
