As co-founder of Overnight Success, I’ve written over 100,000 words about Aussie startups in the last two and a half years.
On reflection, only a select few have stuck with me — so much so that I could confidently recount their stories around a campfire with my mates.
These startups share a few key elements that make their stories genuinely memorable.
These startup stories aren’t just polished press releases; they’re crafted yarns that hit specific notes from the ancient craft of storytelling that anyone around a campfire wants to hear, and they’re built with a few common elements.
The startups that stick with me have created a sense of jeopardy. There needs to be something at stake. An easy question to ask yourself is, what is at stake if your startup doesn’t succeed?
If you’re a climatetech, paint me the picture of the world without your solution. If you’re building a solution for small businesses, teach me about the fate of SMEs that don’t use your product.
It’s this tension — this what if — that makes their journey compelling. Around a campfire, no one listens if there’s no risk involved.
If you’re building a startup looking to secure venture capital investment, you should have pretty big aspirations. These aspirations will probably disrupt a big industry, impacting many people’s lives or work.
Establish your David versus Goliath underdog story and give your audience a reason to back you. Everyone loves an underdog, and as a startup, you’ll always be the underdog. Let the audience know about your Goliath, why we should dislike them and how you’re taking them down.
The founders of the most memorable startups did something epic or life-altering to be where they are now.
Maybe they quit their safe corporate job, sold their car to fund their business, or had a personal life-changing inflection point that made them realise their mission. If you listen to enough episodes of How I Built This by Guy Raz, you can often identify this exact moment just before an ad break.
These decisions create inflection points in a narrative. They close Act One and launch Act Two, and around a campfire, inflection points are when people lean in.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned since childhood — whether from my three years working in childcare or my childhood playing video games — it’s that everyone loves discovering an Easter egg.
When a new startup announces a raise, highly invested readers will want to learn more. They’ll do their due diligence by looking at what else you’ve published or your startup’s website.
It’s a great feeling when there is a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow. Perhaps a personal story about what the raise means to them, arching back to the personal jeopardy they’ve risked.
Easter eggs like these make readers feel they’ve discovered something intimate about you. Actions like this build empathy, feel authentic and turn casual readers into supporters waving your flag.
Finally, the best startup stories are the ones I can retell effortlessly.
The founders arm you with the ability to explain what they do in a way that makes sense — no jargon, no buzzwords.
If I can’t summarise a startup’s purpose or how it works in a few lines, it’s not a campfire yarn worth sharing. The startups that nail this are the ones everyone talks about most, because we understand them.
In a crowded media landscape, the startups that stay with you aren’t just the ones with the most impressive numbers or most significant raises.
The startups that sit with you told a story worth sharing around a campfire. These stories make you believe something is at stake, where the founders made life-altering decisions, and where the mission is so clear that anyone can understand it and pass it on effortlessly.
These stories resonate long after the initial pitch or headline, the ones I’ll find myself talking about with friends years from now.
If your startup can pass the campfire test, you’ll build more than just a business. You will be creating a story that people can’t help but share.
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Will Richards is a senior associate at Encour and the co-founder of Overnight Success.
