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- What makes a great story?
Greetings, Chief Storytelling Officers.
I spoke this week in front of 80 seed and series a founders at Embarc Collective in Tampa. It was great following Chris Fralic from First Round Capital as his talk on relationship building fit perfectly with mine on storytelling to raise capital.
Always remember when it comes to fundraising that the magic is relationships plus storytelling equals funding.
-Robbie
What makes a great story?
A great story looks and sounds different depending on it’s intended purpose.
So the question I want to answer today is what makes a great investable story.
You might be asking yourself this right here…
The answer is yes you can.
A great investable story needs to hit 3 key elements.
Feels huge.
Feels inevitable.
Feels like you are the chosen one.
That’s pretty simple in theory but much more difficult in reality. Since reality is where you and I live let’s dive into how to make those three come to life in your story.
Make it feel huge.
A great investable story feels huge and the easiest way to do this is by understanding data storytelling. One of the biggest mistakes founders make when thinking about numbers is they tend to say numbers don’t matter in the early days and numbers are the only thing that matter in the later days.
Both are wrong.
Making a story feel huge comes down to weaving numbers into the story in the right way. That means you need to choose the right numbers, put them in the right context, and place them at the perfect moment.
Once you’ve got the numbers dialed in then it’s all about how your voice transmits confidence and conviction. Nothing ruins the size of a story more than a shaky delivery. This is why I say that you need to understand this idea of how to craft, practice, and perfect your story.
I call it the U-shaped graph approach (the worst named concept ever but it works).
Now that you have element 1 taken care of we can move to the next one.
Make it feel inevitable.
I’m always shocked by how bad founders are at making the future come to life. It’s like nobody ever read or watched sci-fi and fantasy. I mean the entire Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Dune, Foundation, Battlestar Galactica, Game of Thrones, Red Rising, Ender’s Game, Ready Player One, Black Mirror, Hunger Games, Harry Potter and so many other properties are all perfect examples of world building.
The great investable stories all make the future come to life. You will know this happens when people start rattling off all the ways you can grow beyond your initial story.
This happened the other day when I was talking about my company Potential AI. I gave the quick story and all of a sudden a handful of investors started talking about the other opportunities the tech would enable and open up. That’s exactly what should happen.
Inevitable stories don’t get stuck in the present day. They shift attention to what’s ahead. They lay out here’s where the world is currently headed without us. Then they lay out here’s where the world ends up because of us.
Once again the delivery matters. Cool, calm, and collected is the way to go when making the future feel inevitable. Once again I will call out one of the concepts I’ve come up with over the past few years.
It’s called Approachable Expertise. It’s the tone you want to deliver your message with to get people bought in.
Which brings us to the final element.
Make it feel like you are the chosen one.
What trips founders up here is they don’t want to be arrogant or cocky. I get that.
The problem is you are wanting people to believe that you have the ability to build a billion plus dollar company. Normal people don’t think that way. So by believing you can do it, you aren’t a normal person.
Make sure investors, candidates, and your team can feel that you aren’t normal.
They are looking for special. They are looking for the chosen one.
Lebron James and Bryce Harper were both on the cover of Sports Illustrated at age 16. They were put out to the world as exceptional.
Both have delivered because they never shied away from that identity.
The same is true when you’re delivering a great investable story.
It’s not bragging when it’s true.
So there you have it. The three elements needed to tell a great investable story.
Make it huge.
Make it inevitable.
Make yourself the chosen one.
What I’m seeing in fundraising market
I talked with a few investors this week about what they see ahead for series a and b fundraises. It was interesting as the feelings were mixed. Some saw a serious slow down and others saw things picking back up.
So why share this? Because nobody knows. Some investors are playing far more cautious while others are getting much more aggressive again. If you need to raise, do it. If it makes sense to wait, wait. There is no right answer.
Links and Resources
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Two ways to get help on your storytelling and fundraising.
Join the waitlist at Potential AI. At Potential AI we’ve built the platform for founders to walk through our process and let our AI craft your 3 minute long Founder Origin Story and Startup Vision Story. Another way to say it, our AI builds your story to raise capital.
Apply to work with me privately over at Competitive Storytelling. This is one on one work typically for Series A and later companies given then expense and criteria I look for in a founder.