- The creation of the story of a startup is vital to its success
- Startups are extremely difficult and having the right story helps in overcoming challenges
- Founders need to tell a story that resonates with themselves and others
- YC helps people craft and reimagine their startup stories

Being able to tell the story of your startup is a fundamental skill for founders. YC President Geoff Ralston tells us why.

Join the community and learn how to tell your startup's story. Sign up now for this year's course at startupschool.org.

I just wanted to spend a couple of minutes talking about something that I think is absolutely vital to startup success, but although it's fundamental, it's often somewhat overlooked.

And that is really the invention, the creation of the story of your startup.

This might sound obvious or basic, but it turns out that getting this right is actually non-intuitively important.

And the reason it is so important is because startups are so hard.

It is almost certainly going to be the hardest, most difficult thing you will do in your professional career.

And if you don't create a story, the right story, that you can tell yourself to keep going when things go wrong, you'll quit.

My YC partner Aaron Harris, who's going to be giving a lecture later on in startup school, thinks and talks a lot about stories and I'm indebted to him for a number of the ideas and what I'm about to say.

So there are stories and there are stories and the famous author Ian Forster maybe said it best many many decades ago when he gave this example.

So the king died and then the queen died is certainly a story.

But it's not a very interesting story, is it?

It's not a story you necessarily care about.

But the king died and then the queen died of grief.

There's something in that story that seems to matter.

And it turns out, Founders spend a lot of time telling stories.

They tell stories about what they're doing.

They tell stories about the future that they're trying to create.

They tell stories originally maybe to their parents, to their friends, to their family, eventually to co-founders, potential customers, partners in the company, investors.

But most of all they need to tell a story that resonates with themselves.

It's a story of your startup that will nourish you, that will keep you going through hard times and setbacks.

It's a story that will persuade you to actually do this crazy thing, and it's a story that will maybe just, for those others, persuade them to join you on your journey.

Think how crazy it is to convince someone else to follow you on such an uncertain path.

So we actually spend a lot of time at YC helping people craft and sometimes even reimagine their stories.


Speaker 0: I just wanted to spend a couple of minutes talking about something that I think is absolutely vital to startup success, but although it's fundamental, it's often somewhat overlooked. And that is really the invention, the creation of the story of your startup. This might sound obvious or basic, but it turns out that getting this right is actually non-intuitively important. And the reason it is so important is because startups are so hard. They're so very, very hard.

It is almost certainly going to be the hardest, most difficult thing you will do in your professional career. And if you don't create a story, the right story, that you can tell yourself to keep going when things go wrong, you'll quit. And your startup will die. So it's worthwhile. My YC partner Aaron Harris, who's going to be giving a lecture later on in startup school, thinks and talks a lot about stories and I'm indebted to him for a number of the ideas and what I'm about to say.

So there are stories and there are stories and the famous author Ian Forster maybe said it best many many decades ago when he gave this example. So the king died and then the queen died is certainly a story. But it's not a very interesting story, is it? It's not a story that grabs you. It's not a story you necessarily care about.

But the king died and then the queen died of grief. Well, there's something there. There's something to grab you. There's something human there. There's something in that story that seems to matter.

And it turns out, Founders spend a lot of time telling stories. They tell stories about what they're doing. They tell stories about the future that they're trying to create. They tell stories originally maybe to their parents, to their friends, to their family, eventually to co-founders, potential customers, partners in the company, investors. But most of all they need to tell a story that resonates with themselves.

It's a story of your startup that will nourish you, that will keep you going through hard times and setbacks. It's a story that will persuade you to actually do this crazy thing, and it's a story that will maybe just, for those others, persuade them to join you on your journey. Think how crazy it is to convince someone else to follow you on such an uncertain path. It's not easy. So we actually spend a lot of time at YC helping people craft and sometimes even reimagine their stories.

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Geoff Ralston: The Story of Your Startup