Why Founders Suck At Telling Their Story

Imagine you’re on a road trip to Scotland.

You’ve just pulled off to refuel and you’ve been approached by a hitchhiker.

There’s only one priority on his mind: "Let’s pray to God this driver is going to take me to Scotland."

The problem is: you don’t ask him where he’s going.

Instead, you tell him about how you got there. You tell him about your mission statement, your purpose, or how many miles this engine has done, how powerful it is on the open highway, how it switches lanes on autopilot…

…ad infinitum

…ad nauseum

Your passenger is lost. All he wants is to get to Scotland.

It’s been rammed into us from an early age: tell your vision, your mission, your story, your brand values…ad infinitum, ad…

But guess what?

The passenger doesn’t care! He doesn’t care about the fluff.

And Founders frequently forget the fluff factor.

And I’ve been guilty of it too. Because we somehow think that the real hero of our story is us. But it’s not.

It’s the passenger. The customer.

And the customer doesn’t care about the fluff.

He just cares about whether you’ll take him to Scotland.

He just cares about whether you can solve his pain.

If you can’t do that in a simple sentence every time you speak to a customer, stakeholder or investor – simple, memorable, fluff-less, you’ll be sending your customer to the land of ad nauseum – and you’ll never get to Scotland.