Leveraging your startup's origin story

By Laura Vrcek , Director of Content Strategy at True Ventures

Selling a product is selling a story. Where did your company’s story begin?

The startup origin story is a powerful way to connect with your audience, as well as ground and humanize your company. These stories tell the personal journey of how you, the founder, got to where you are today, and, importantly, what drives your passion to build for your space.

If you take the time to write your company’s origin story, you’ll find that it’s a versatile piece of cornerstone content you can use ubiquitously across all of your channels, in both earned and owned media, and through the long-term journey of your company’s growth.

While your boilerplate communicates the brass tacks of the product or service you provide, your company’s origin story holds space for an emotive backstory that can communicate your passion – the ‘why’ behind your work – in addition to building trust with your audience. Once there’s trust, the selling becomes that much easier.

Let’s look at a few examples from the True Portfolio.

Basecamp Research ’s co-founders came up with the idea for their company while conducting experiments on Europe’s largest icecap, Vatnajökull, in Iceland. Their research was inspired by a 1932 expedition where half a dozen students from Cambridge University traversed and lived atop Vatnajökull.

Moneta Health co-founders Paul A. Campbell and Jen Flexman, PhD, MBA began building their cognitive brain health company following Paul’s mother’s dementia diagnosis. His experience supporting his mother's journey with dementia drove Paul to take on the challenge of changing the standard of care. Paul shared his story along with Moneta’s mission to make early-intervention cognitive therapy more accessible with AI for millions of older adults like his mother – and it’s captured attention in a way that will enable the company to help more people.

Seurat Technologies ' story began when James DeMuth attended a seminar at Stanford University on the National Ignition Facility. Captivated by the potential of fusion energy, James joined the NIF and worked on the development of a fusion powerplant. The project revealed to him the limitations of existing manufacturing methods and led him and his Seurat co-founder, Erik Toomre , to innovate a new approach to manufacturing metal components.

The stepping stones that led to the creation of these companies are fascinating – and easier to connect with than product messaging. Origin stories are free of industry buzz words; they’re fact-based and detail-rich. And they’re liberated from the constraints of snappy one-liners companies are forced to fit within the character limits of their social profiles.

“Being able to clearly communicate what your company does is great, but an origin story that roots a reporter in the time and place where an idea began creates the foundation for a truly compelling, memorable story,” commented our Head of PR, Brooke Van Natta .

“In the hustle of operating a company, we sometimes forget to take the time to shape our stories and make them interesting so we can continue to reflect the passion that got us started in the first place,” shared Dave Balter , investor at True and Founder-CEO of Flipside . “Origin stories are also good for recruiting talent and partners.” 

Why not try your hand at writing yours? Once you do, here are a few ways you can use it to connect with customers and other key audiences: 

• Copy for your website’s about page
• A post on your company’s blog
• Rewrite it in first person and publish it under founder authorship on LinkedIn
• Divide it into a three-part series with your favorite generative AI tool and use it as an opening series for your newsletter 
• Turn it into a video script and share snippets on your social channels 
• Refer to it in conversations with reporters when you emerge from stealth or announce funding; it can create a memorable moment or personal connection during an introductory interview

Try writing your company's origin story by describing in detail where you were when you came up with the idea. What led you to that point? Why do you persist? See where it takes you.

Learn more about the True team and the expertise we have to offer early stage founders.

True Talk: NYC

Thanks to everyone who joined us in NYC for our most recent True Talk, our open-to-all event series exploring the ups, downs, twists, and turns of the founder journey. Big thanks to our speakers, Devshi Mehrotra of JusticeText and John Foley of Ernesta Inc. , for sharing what they’ve learned with our many new friends of True.

We’ll be hosting three more True Talks this year in cities across the U.S., including Washington, D.C., Atlanta, and Detroit. We’d love to meet people in your community. Direct message our team here on LinkedIn to let us know who’s building something interesting or a city our team should explore to help widen access to venture capital.

Portfolio News

Bigscreen VR : Consumer Review

Ernesta Inc. ’s John Foley on the Modern Retail Podcast

Flux Emerges From Stealth 

Moneta Health in StartUp Health

Nixtla Partners With Microsoft to Bring Time-Series Forecasting to Azure

System Inc. : Uncovering the System of Cardiovascular Disease 

Spawning in TechCrunch

Understory in TechCrunch

WattCarbon in CleanTechnica

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What are a few questions founders of consumer brands can ask themselves when considering opening retail storefronts? 

“Consider what your payback period will be so you have a clear sense of the cash flow you need to support building your next unit thereafter. This really comes down to whether you can generate enough profit to pay back what you put into the space in 24 months.

"Anything beyond 24 months is considered too long. Typically, the goal is not to open another until you’ve paid back the loan on what you just built. You do this over and over again as you expand to new geographies. 

"And with regard to whether a consumer brand should have a storefront at all, consider whether you need a store to sell your product. Is your product sold at a high price point and the only way to sell it is for a customer to see it, touch it, and experience it? Or, can the consumer get a strong enough sense of the product when shopping online?” 

- Tony Conrad , True Partner

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Flipside is hiring a chief of staff to extend the capacity and capabilities of Founder and CEO Dave Balter . Learn more about what Dave’s looking for, or view all career opportunities across the True Portfolio.

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