Stories That Stick: How Storytelling Can Captivate Customers, Influence Audiences, and Transform Your Business

Remember the “There Has to Be a Better Way” Moment
The day the young man left his glasses on an airplane and faced the cold,
hard, soul-crushing reality of the cost of eyewear was the moment Warby
Parker’s cofounder said to himself, “There has to be a better way!”
If you have ever had that same realization, that same moment when you
realized the way things have always been done is not the best way, you could
have the beginning of a founder story.
Take some time to think about that day when the thought first hit you, the
early days when you began exploring what a better way might look like. What
were you feeling? Who was there? How did events unfold? Include the wonder,
the disbelief. Include the parts that, in hindsight, are funny or crazy or endearing.
When I say “take some time,” I mean it. It’s easy, as a founder, to be so
immersed in where your company is right now or focused on where your
company is going that you forget the moments when it all began. But some of
the best founder stories are born from those “There has to be a better way!”
moments.
Look for the Blood, Sweat, and Tears
It was season 5 of 
Shark Tank
when a mother stood before the toothy
investors. She was there to pitch her line of baby moccasins, and this mom knew
her stuff. She answered every tough biz question the sharks threw her way.
Margins, customer acquisition cost. They asked the question, she had the
answer.
And yet the waters looked murky.
None of the sharks seemed particularly invested in investing. That is, until
the Utah mother found the opportunity to tell her founder story. It wasn’t
necessarily about the footwear but rather about the other product she was selling:
herself.
She told them what it took to get the company started. She had the idea, yes,
but ideas take money, and money was something she didn’t have much of. In an
effort to raise enough funds to get her first products made, she spent an entire
summer breaking the glass out of aluminum window frames. Grueling work,

---

sweaty work, bloody work.
Once the frames were cleared, she brought the aluminum to a scrap yard
where they gave her a total of $200. She used that $200 to buy fabric for her first
few moccasins.
It wasn’t until the sharks heard her story that the water in the tank turned
from lukewarm to a total feeding frenzy. Because, let’s face it, baby footwear,
even moccasins, are not a new concept. None of the sharks cared about her baby
moccasins. What they cared about was her “do whatever it takes,” “sweat it out
in the summer sun,” “I’m not afraid of manual labor,” “watch me turn $200 into
millions” story. Now her moccasins are everywhere—Nordstrom, on my friends’
babies—all because she told her story of blood, sweat, and tears.
When it comes to finding your founder story, don’t immediately run to the
sunny side of the street. Though it may be tempting to focus on your successes,
you’re better off looking in the shadows. Those moments that weren’t all
rainbows and unicorns. The Airbnb founder story isn’t “We had a great idea, and
we worked hard, and we were really talented and smart, and now we have a
billion-dollar company.” The real Airbnb story is far less glowing, and that’s
what makes it great.
Remember when everything was going wrong in your business? When things
got ugly? When your friends and family kept saying that one line that made you
want to punch them in the face: “Everything happens for a reason . . .”
Remember that?
Good.
Because that’s where your story is. It’s in those struggles. The bloody,
sweaty, “cry it out” struggles that led to eventual victories. That’s where you’ll
find the seeds of your founder story.
Four Founder Story Pitfalls (And How to Avoid Them)
While the founder story may appear to be a bit of a no-brainer, like the endless
stream of Instagram #fail photos from when a recipe looks so easy and beautiful
online but in real life turns out laughable, there are plenty of challenges, pitfalls,
and ways a founder story can go wrong.