“Don't tell me about your awesome product, tell me

about YOU!”

How to leverage your story & your purpose to get your startup heard.

@IanSanders

How do you get heard?

The opportunity

3 STORIES

Do you know what

this is?

Your Story & Purpose

Your differentiator

RelationshipsHiring

Marketing

Cultural touchstone

How the world sees you

What makes Hiut Denim, Sugru, BeerBods

good stories?

Story-led, but also purpose-led.

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you

do it.” Simon Sinek 

Hiut Denim = getting the people of Cardigan their jobs back.

Sugru = “Our dream is to make fixing, modifying and making

things easy and fun for anyone.”

BeerBods = “Getting more people drinking better beer.”

What’s your purpose?

HOW TOs

explore

capture

create

shareWhat fires you up?

What’s your story?What’s your purpose?What do you stand for?

Blog postsThought leadershipTwitterFacebookPresentationsManifestosOther digital contentPR Web copyetc

Telling your story

People not products!

Story Types

• The Eureka Story: How I had the idea

• The Why Story: Why I had the idea

• The Founder Story: Who had the idea

• The Customer Story: Who’s using the product?

• The Product Story: How is the product being used?

• The Transformation Story: how is this product changing the world?

Story Ingredients

• Keep it Human: emotionally engage with the audience

• A story of transformation: situation > complication > resolution

• Remember to include the 5 Ws:• WHAT• WHO• WHERE• WHY• WHEN

Where to use your story

• Sales• Marketing • Networking• Pitches• Social Media• Digital content• PR• Investor relations• Employee engagement• Recruitment

“The Internet has given us a microphone”

Set your story free!

Merci bien!

Continue the conversation:

@iansanders