Startup CEO, 2nd Edition

Part OneStorytelling

Fred Wilson is right: “setting a company's vision” is one of the three full‐time jobs every startup CEO takes on when they found a company. That vision – the new product, the disruptive service, the “Blue Ocean” monopoly – is liable to be a private moment. The first step toward making that vision a reality is to translate it into a story.

Stories, like startups, paint a picture of what the future could be. They engage our hearts and minds. They inspire people to act – to give you money, to buy your product, to join your team. Stories have a main character (the customer or user) and a supporting cast (investors, employees, partners, competitors). They have a beginning (the problem), middle (the product), and an end (the solution). Stories take a jumble of facts (profit‐and‐loss statements, customer surveys, market realities) and give them meaning.

Part One of this book explains how to tell startup stories. Begin with a problem your customer faces and the solution you and your team propose to build. Continue through the trials of market obstacles and changes of plan. Bring it to life in the transformation of your story into the reality of your business.

In the excitement of building a business, it's easy to ignore the time to create a story or to save it for a time when you can give it your full attention. That is a huge mistake. The storytelling I'm talking about is not a one‐time activity that you do as you're starting to scale your business, but it's something ...