I’ve been seeing a lot of articles about founders succeeding with little to no marketing (in a traditional sense), but one of the reasons those founders were able to succeed without a traditional approach is because they nailed their storytelling.

Like how @Fer_Momento was able to grow his site traffic to 100K visitors/mo for his resume builder by tapping into Argentinians who wanted to land an overseas job and leave the country.

As a marketer, I thought I’d speak about how I was able to create a story for my agency and micro-SaaS side project - storytelling is pretty much my one-word job description!

Part 1: How I learned to tell stories

The first brand I fell in love with was Warby Parker. 💙 👓

I was in high school, a dorky nerd who wore strikingly bright outfits (I’m talking head-to-toe colors), was a business geek (yes, even then!), and had very prominent braces.

But my first pair of Warby Parker glasses! 😍

The packaging, the note on the inside of the case that said “Nice to see you”, the darling illustrations, the support people and care instructions that were so ding-dang nice. The feeling that I had found my people, that I was finally in a club of cool nerds who also used Crime and Punishment references as inside jokes.

I decided then and there I wanted to be the person that designed that experience. Whoever that was, that was the job I wanted.

That was when I went on a long (and still ongoing) love affair with the agency High Tide, who had created the Warby Parker brand. And the day I decided I wanted to own a branding agency. It was a good day.

But why did Warby Parker stick?

Why do I still speak about them in glowing terms well over a decade since my first encounter?

Why did I buy an eyeglass-print shirt in Warby Blue? (no there will not be pictures)

Because the brand

Gave me what I wanted - a sense of belonging and acceptance

Helped me avoid something I was scared of - that I was not cool

Got me to an end goal - I was in a club and felt accepted!

For who I was - a self-identified nerd

I couldn’t tell you exactly how I arrived at that specific framework, but it’s pretty much the same one I use for clients, and for my own agency and projects.

Here’s what it looks like in practice:

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Part 2: What is my product's story?

Types of emotional chords (I call them core desires/fears)

We all want to use products that

1. Gives us what we want
2. Helps us avoid something we’re scared of
3. And gets us to our end goal (or one of them)
4. For who we are

Each of those tend to fall into one of these buckets:

Core Desires (your product gives them)

1. Money
2. Time
3. Knowledge
4. Power/Control
5. Happiness
6. Love/Acceptance
7. Energy/Productivity

Core Fears (your product helps them avoid)

1. Losing or wasting money
2. Losing or wasting time
3. Being ignorant or uninformed (or appearing so)
4. Being powerless or out of control (or appearing so)
5. Feeling rejected, out of place, or left out
6. Feeling like they’re not hitting their potential or “missed their shot”

And End Goals (your product helps them achieve)

1. freedom to ...
2. having enough money to...
3. control over ...
4. praise from/love from ...
5. seen as a specific kind of person by...
6. connection to/with...
7. acceptance in a ...[specific situation or setting]

For a core niche audience (starting out)

1. [specific industry] Teams
2. ex: marketing agency teams
3. [job role] in [industry]
4. ex: developers in healthcare companies
5. [role] in [organization type]
6. ex: fundraising managers in non-profits
7. [role] that does/does not have [resource]
8. ex: founders who can’t code

Before building this framework, you might ask: what is customer discovery or what is voice of customer? Understanding why is voice of the customer important comes down to learning how to build an ideal customer profile using an ideal customer profile template or ideal customer profile template B2B (ICP template).

Here are two examples:

Product: Lingoduck by @itsmeek

• Function: video chatting with native speakers
• Gives them: a feeling of acceptance
• Helps them avoid: feeling left out, wasting time spent language learning in the past
• The end result: connection with another culture
• For a core niche audience: expats who can’t speak another language

Product: Tangram by me (shameless plug)

• Function: custom marketing plan generator
• Gives them: knowledge
• Helps them avoid: wasting time
• The end result: making more money, living their dreams of being a full-time entrepreneur
• For a core niche audience: founders without marketing knowhow

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Talking about your product this way makes you feel like an easy sell. People are excited to try the product - it’s what they’ve been longing for! (even if they didn’t know that consciously)

How to find your product’s emotional cord

Not sure what that chord is, how to do customer discovery, or how to collect voice of customer?

Here’s how to find it through voice of customer research (voice of the customer research):

1. Go through your customer interviews and reviews using a user interview template or user research interview template
2. Highlight all the times they talk about what your product
3. gives them
4. helps them avoid
5. and what the end result is of them using your product

When looking for that info, you’ll often hear one of these key phrases:

Saves me...

Makes me feel...

I love it when...

When people ask me...I say...

This product is...

I can’t imagine not using [product] to ...

1. Organize them and see what comes up most for each of those things.
2. name your core niche audience
3. [specific industry] Teams
4. ex: marketing agency teams
5. [job role] in [industry]
6. ex: developers in healthcare companies
7. [role] in [organization type]
8. ex: fundraising managers in non-profits
9. Write it in a fill-in-the-blank sentence

✨ Product name gives core desire to audience niche and helps them avoid core fear so they can reach their end goal. ✨

That’s the story your company should be telling at every turn!

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Part 3: How to tell your story

Storytelling doesn’t always come naturally, I get it!

Here are the two biggest places to tell your story as you’re starting out.

Your landing page copy - are you walking users through the story?

You started here...but then you used this product... and it gave you this...and solved this problem...and boom shakalaka, you’re where you’ve always wanted to be!

Your demos/videos/MVP image - are you walking users through how your product gives them their desires, solves their problems, and gets them to their end goal?

My trick is to write scripts for product demo videos that follows that format and have them as notes for when I record.

I don’t have a double monitor setup, so I’ll often write my cues on a piece of paper and tape to the wall just above my computer camera.

It works wonders!

That’s it! That’s how you figure out your product story and tell it to the world!

What are your questions about storytelling? 👇🏽  Ask Away!

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