Seven prompts. One button. A draft 90-second origin story you can actually tell out loud — the kind that anchors every sales call, every podcast intro, every "so what do you do?" at a conference. Stop describing your business. Start telling its story.
Customers don't buy products — they buy stories that include products. The owners with a clear, specific origin story close more deals, get better referrals, attract better press, and command better prices. The ones without it sound like every other vendor in their category, no matter how good their work is.
The catch: most founders can't tell their own story. They know they have one, they fumble through it at every networking event, and they leave money on the table every time someone asks "so how did you get into this?"
The fix isn't writing skill. It's structure. Answer seven prompts in the right order and the story assembles itself — specific, with stakes, with the line that makes someone lean in.
Each one has a weak example and a strong example so you know what good looks like. Aim for one or two sentences per answer — specific, not polished. When you're done, hit "Build my story" at the bottom.
Different founders, same five rules. If your story is missing one, listeners will nod politely and forget. Hit all five and they'll repeat it back to people you'll never meet.
Your 90-second story is the master version. For every other context, you'll compress it — but you can only compress what already exists. Build the long version first; the short ones extract from it.
The full assembled version, lightly polished into prose. Lives on your About page and at the bottom of your homepage. The single most-read longer-form thing on your site after the headline.
Trim Prompt 6 (the stake) and shorten Prompt 1 (the before). Keep the itch, the fight, the insight, the mission, and the now. The version you use when a prospect asks "tell me a little about how you got into this."
Itch + insight + mission + one current proof. The version the host reads while introducing you, or the version you give when they ask "tell us your story." Punchy enough to set up the rest of the conversation.
One sentence with the fight + one sentence with the mission. Skip the rest — it's bait, not a recital. "I left a corporate marketing gig because I watched my dad's small business get crushed by Amazon — now I help second-generation owners modernize without losing what made them work."
The mission and the insight, framed for the partner's audience. "She works with X kind of person, and her thing is Y. That's why I think you two should talk." The shortest version, but the one with the highest conversion rate, because it comes with a trusted introduction.
The discipline of telling your story the same way every time is what makes it memorable to others — even if you're tired of it. Different versions for different lengths, but the words inside each version stay consistent. Repetition is what builds reputation.
The seven prompts are universal. What "lean in" looks like isn't — here's how to read your draft through three audience lenses.
Even with the worksheet done, founders drift into the same handful of traps. Catch yourself on these.
"I started my company in 2018…" is the most forgettable opening line in business. Stories don't start with you — they start with the world before you. Start with the before, the itch, the moment. The "I" arrives in paragraph two.
"I left my job and started this." Cool — what did you risk? What did your spouse say? Were you scared? Stories without stakes are LinkedIn updates. Stakes are what make people root for you, and rooting is what makes people refer.
"I help small businesses succeed" is the equivalent of saying nothing. Name the actual person you're here for — by role, by life-stage, by problem — or be invisible. Specific is the entire game.
Founders who ad-lib their story sound made-up. Founders who tell the same crafted version every time sound true. Discipline is what makes a story memorable to other people — not freshness for the founder telling it.
Your origin story has to have a paragraph from this quarter. The world has changed, you've changed, your customers have changed. A founder story without a recent proof point sounds like a museum tour — interesting, but over.
Don't sand off the rough edges. The "I borrowed against the truck" line is the line that lands — not the carefully phrased version of it. Specific imperfect language beats smooth professional language in story-form every time. Your draft is closer to right than the version a copywriter would clean up.
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