Storytelling in Startups: Communicating Your Culture and Attracting Top Talent
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
To this day, the famous Peter Drucker quote rings true—especially for startups.
For every startup out there, nine fail.
And just three out of every five million reach unicorn status—a probability of just 0.00006%.
According to research from CB Insights, most startups fail for one of the following reasons:
- Failure to read the market (51%)
- Cash flow problems or failure to raise new capital (38%)
- Internal problems, such as team dynamics, disharmony, and burnout (26%)
- Flawed business model (19%)
- Regulatory/legal challenges (18%)
- Pricing/cost issues (15%)
- Poor product (8%)
But if you’re someone who reads these and thinks, “most of these have to do with culture and people,” you’re dead wrong.
Only about a quarter of startups in this research cited internal problems as the reason for their failure. But most of the other issues can be traced back to your team.
How do you attract and retain the team that can take you from startup to success?
Culture. That’s how.
And how will they know your culture is right for them?
You have to tell them. In the right way, of course.
Startup culture: What it is (and why it matters)
It feels more and more like “culture” is a buzzword gurus use for engagement. When you read about it on a LinkedIn post, it means close to nothing.
But it’s so, so much more than that.
Culture defines your team’s shared values and behaviors. It shapes how your team works, interacts with investors, and develops the product and messaging that ultimately makes or breaks your success.
And six out of seven startup execs agree: It’s paramount in long-term success.
As a bootstrapped founder, you might not think much of it. But startups can grow from two, to four, to ten, to 50 employees in the blink of an eye.
If you aren’t intentional with your team’s culture, you’ll make the wrong sourcing, hiring, and engaging with them.
And at startups, every decision has a massive impact.
“A company’s culture is the foundation for future innovation. An entrepreneur’s job is to build the foundation” – Brian Chesky, Airbnb (CEO)
What comprises startup culture, exactly?
Before diving into the significance of storytelling, we need to grasp the elements that constitute startup culture.
As Brian Chesky, co-founder and CEO of Airbnb, puts it, “A company’s culture is the foundation for future innovation. An entrepreneur’s job is to build the foundation.”
An exceptional startup culture is determined by its core values, purpose, people, and evolution.
Briefly, here’s an overview of what each of these entails:
Core Values
Core values—those that define your startup’s mission and value system—are the heart of its culture. What do you stand for? That’s what core values answer.
They should be results-oriented and guide your team’s decision-making and the way it interacts with the world.
Purpose
The best startup founders have a profound sense of purpose. They do more than lead by example—inspiring their executives, employees, and customers to take action.
People
When you’re hiring, culture fit and diversity must come together harmoniously. Having a mix of skills, educational backgrounds, and perspectives on your team is critical.
Successful founders surround themselves with others who reflect and amplify their company culture. And, of course, they’re always ready to celebrate successes and handle mistakes with care.
Evolution
A company’s evolution reflects its founders’ personalities, beliefs, strengths, and weaknesses.
Mark Zuckerberg’s powerful vision for Facebook is a prime example: As the tech giant rapidly grew past 400 employees, they continued to embody its humble beginnings.
The company grew through its team members—showing them how to share Facebook’s story with others. And they did so because it resonated.
Building a strong company culture, from the ground up
Like we mentioned, laying the groundwork for a successful startup requires significant forethought—while most companies scale and fight battles along the way, the successful ones always have (sort of) a plan.
We’ve learned a lot from ClickUp’s CEO, Zeb Evans (and so can you). A champion for the modern workplace, the now-unicorn-status project management software founder started at zero.
After revolutionizing the way we work and bootstrapping to $20 million in two years, he gave Authority Magazine his two cents on what it means to build a “culture.”
“To determine what the future of the workforce looks like, companies must consider the bottom line: what will work best for their employees?” – Zeb Evans, ClickUp (CEO)
Embrace workplace flexibility.
Zeb Evans emphasizes the importance of tailoring the future of work to fit your organization. He suggests that successful companies will adopt flexible workplace models, focusing on efficiency and productivity without restricting their approach to just in-office or remote work.
Adapting to various employee needs requires agility, which organizations have often overlooked in the past.
Lead with transparency and open communication.
According to Evans, fostering a transparent and open culture begins with leadership. Encouraging employees to express concerns and make decisions that prioritize their well-being is essential.
Leaders should avoid praising unhealthy work habits, such as working while sick or skipping vacations, and instead promote a genuine work-life balance. A well-rested and balanced workforce can significantly boost efficiency and productivity.
“If you aren’t growing, you aren’t being stimulated. At ClickUp, our core goal for employees is growth. You’re never locked into a role — for example, even if you have a customer service title, you can spend 40% of your time on other areas that interest you such as marketing or content” – Zeb Evans, CEO (ClickUp)
Stimulate your employees by helping them grow.
We tell our clients all the time: If you can’t provide continuous growth opportunities for your new employee, you aren’t ready to hire them.
For a company culture to be successful, ensuring readiness is absolutely critical. And according to Evans, this means you must also ensure you have the flexibility to let them experiment and find their true calling within your organization.
Cultivate team collaboration.
Evans highlights the importance of enhancing team productivity rather than just individual productivity. Streamlining processes for seamless cross-department collaboration can strengthen work relationships and lead to better results.
A survey he ran with ClickUp revealed that 52% of employees felt disconnected from their company or coworkers in the past year, emphasizing the need for a more collaborative work culture.
Leverage technology for efficiency.
Inefficient processes are widespread, even in the age of automation. His survey also found that 51% of employees felt they lost at least an hour each day due to inefficiency at work.
He suggests providing technological solutions that support long-term operational structures and save employees time. A well-structured infrastructure and a consolidated platform of workplace tools can set employees up for success.
“It is key to power your employees to do their best and to not be afraid of failure. They have to be able to take chances and try new things that could potentially improve the business” – Zeb Evans, ClickUp (CEO)
Encourage progress over perfection.
Evans believes in empowering employees to do their best without fearing failure. Supporting innovation and risk-taking can lead to business improvements. While perfection is desirable, it can hinder progress.
By encouraging employees to experiment with new ideas and embrace progress at varying paces, they may become less focused on perfection and ultimately deliver better results.
Storytelling: The Double-Edged Sword
On one hand, story-driven communication can be a powerful tool to engage and attract top talent. But there is a risk of misrepresentation if stories are not used authentically.
Organizations must clearly define their identity and values, then use storytelling as a tool to reinforce their employer brand. Sharing human-centric (and founder-centric) stories focused on meaningful conversations can help startups better connect with potential candidates and ensure their values are accurately conveyed.
Authentic storytelling helps employees remember your message.
The power of storytelling is heavily researched in marketing, psychology, and neuroscience. Often overlooked is its potential to influence how employees perceive their role in a company.
- Jerome Bruner’s Research: The famed psychologist found humans to be 22 times more likely to remember facts when they are part of a story, demonstrating the power of storytelling in retaining information.
- Chip Heath’s Experiment: Students of the Stanford professor were more likely to remember stories (63%) than statistics (5%) in speeches about non-violent crime, highlighting the impact of storytelling on memory.
- Paul J. Zak’s Explanation: Neural coupling occurs when neurons in our brains fire in sync with a storyteller’s, releasing oxytocin, leading to feelings of sympathy, care, compassion, and connection when we hear a good story. This scientific insight helps explain the power of storytelling in creating emotional connections.
- LinkedIn’s Solidification: A strong employer brand can significantly benefit an organization by reducing turnover by 28%, cutting hiring costs by 50%, and attracting 50% more qualified applicants. Brands aren’t built overnight—they’re the product of years of storytelling.
The bottom line: We’re emotional creatures. And so are our teammates.
They don’t care about your templated PowerPoint or the office ping-pong table. They care about the narrative they back by walking into your office day after day.
Your employees see right through inauthentic stories.
Feigning transparency and using storytelling as a smoke screen only erodes trust. Too often, companies with self-serving narratives are guilty of talking the talk but failing to walk the walk.
Authentic storytelling is about being genuine and creating meaningful connections with employees, not striving for perfection.
Let’s take a look at what matters to employees and where the gaps are:
- Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI): Almost all (97%) organizations say their initiatives to improve DEI have significantly ramped up. But a new survey from Harvard Business Review shows us that only about one-third agree.
- Corporate social responsibility (CSR): Almost three-quarters of employees would ditch a company without a strong purpose. 92% of them would refer a new employee if they felt the opposite. But only 44% of executives say their company has or communicates a purpose in its narrative.
- Employee experience: About 80% of executives consider employee experience important, but only 22% believe their companies excel at creating a differentiated employee experience, highlighting a significant gap in execution.
- Innovation: Just 26% of new employees feel their company supports an innovative culture, while over half of top executives share this view. 69% of employees would leave their current role for a similar position at a company recognized for innovation, emphasizing the importance of an innovative brand image in attracting and retaining top talent.
This fundamental disconnect between executive leadership and new hires is especially clear in startup culture: As a company scales from one, to two, to four, to 50 employees, the number of layers between the bottom and top increases. And a company’s story (and its perception) suffer.
A Founder’s Perspective: My Experience With Airbnb
During a visit to Airbnb’s headquarters in San Francisco, I met with a senior-level Data Scientist to potentially advise my startup.
Immediately, I asked what attracted him to work at Airbnb.
He passionately shared the founders’ story—their struggles, and how they sold cereal boxes during the 2008 presidential campaign to fund their startup.
His admiration for the founders’ tenacity was evident, and it struck me how powerful storytelling can be in conveying a company’s vision and culture.
This encounter with Airbnb taught me three key lessons about storytelling in the context of startups:
- Authenticity is paramount. As a founder, I always wonder how to communicate my vision in a way that attracts like-minded individuals. The answer lies in authenticity—aligning intentions, actions, and words. When we speak from the heart, people sense it. They’re drawn to you and your company.
- Transparency and honesty matter. To make storytelling more genuine, you have to be forthcoming. Sharing personal stories fosters a strong connection with potential team members and inspires them to join the journey.
- You can’t fake it. I’m not saying you need to sell cereal boxes. But I am saying you need to convey your ambition, values, and struggles with sincerity. Employees look up to founders who are passionate about their company’s mission, vision, and culture—all elements that require deep digging to find.
Forging Your Startup’s Culture, and Telling Its Story
“Authenticity”
“Transparency”
“Honesty”
They’re equal parts arbitrary and ambiguous until they’re broken down and put into action.
Here’s exactly how you can turn your actions into words—and your words into human extensions of your brand.
1. Start from the beginning.
The history of your brand starts with its founders.
You probably weren’t selling cereal boxes to get off the ground. But you were doing something.
Ask yourself these questions to uncover your brand’s true values:
- What were we doing before we started our company?
- What motivated us to do this work?
- How did the founding team come together?
- What were we feeling at the time?
- Why are we solving the problem we want to solve?
- What were we willing to do to make ends meet?
2. Capture your company and its values.
What makes your company special? Articulating its core values, mission, and vision will help you achieve consistency—a critical element come time to grow your team.
Your company values should serve as a litmus test for the words or visuals associated with your brand.
Does it pass?
If not, why?
Answering these questions will ensure everything you say and do aligns with your mission.
3. Shape your brand through the employee experience.
The values and tenets you claim through branding and storytelling must first be reflected in your employee experience. From recruiting to onboarding to years after, how your team works is a living embodiment of your culture—from the words you use to the interactions that take place.
The pandemic led to economic and political uncertainties that forced everyone to reevaluate how they allocate their time, energy, and social resources.
Employees now look for more value in their careers. Gartner calls this “The Human Deal,” a framework that comprises five elements:
- Enhanced connections. Taking work relationships to the next level, forming family and community bonds with team members.
- Extreme flexibility. Encouraging full workplace autonomy, beyond remote and hybrid work models.
- Individual development. Feeling appreciated through personal growth, not just professional advancement.
- Comprehensive well-being. Ensuring well-being programs are utilized, not just accessible.
- Common goals. Taking tangible steps towards the organization’s purpose rather than relying on cookie-cutter corporate statements.
Startups need to meet their employees halfway before publishing anything. And that means hearing their needs and responding with a values-driven approach.
4. Create a developed and consistent story.
If you’ve laid the groundwork, found your North Star, and created a positive culture from within, you can finally project it to others.
This requires a twofold approach:
- Engaging your existing team so they are contributing members of your story.
- Communicating your story to the world, some of whom will soon be a part of it.
And you can start with the former.
Focus on employee engagement initiatives that humanize your brand and demonstrate your commitment to its values.
Here are three founders who crush it in this category:
- Tom Blomfield, Co-founder and former CEO of Monzo Bank: Tom’s transparent leadership style and commitment to maintaining open lines of communication with employees has fostered a strong connection between the team and the company’s vision. Monzo’s active engagement with employees has helped create a culture of trust and collaboration that remains even after Bloomfield left the company.
- Julia Hartz, Co-founder and CEO of Eventbrite: Julia’s focus on healthy work-life balance and inclusivity is the icing on the cake for the ticketing behemoth. By offering flexible working options, encouraging team-building events, and celebrating diversity, she creates an engaged and motivated workforce that truly believes in the company’s mission.
- Ben Silbermann, Co-founder and CEO of Pinterest: Ben’s emphasis on creativity and adventure has driven Pinterest’s success as the powerful visual discovery engine it is today. Regular company-wide hackathons and innovation workshops allow employees to contribute to the company’s growth and development in meaningful ways.
5. Communicate your story across multiple channels.
The omnichannel approach looks different for every startup, and there’s no “right way” to do it. Experiment with different content formats, from podcasts to blog posts and social media visuals, to discover what resonates most with your audience.
- LinkedIn is an effective platform for sharing company news and stories. Use it to share updates about your team, product launches, customer successes, and company culture events.
- Press releases help you generate buzz around new launches, key hires, and other major milestones.
- Podcast appearances, keynote speeches, and guest interviews are perfect opportunities for you—the founder—to share your journey, while customer case studies provide evidence of success.
- Your company blog should highlight the initiatives your target candidates and customers care about, such as sustainability and DEI efforts.
- Employee-generated content can further spread the word about your company and its values. Encourage your team to create blog posts, shoot videos, or take an active role in industry events to amplify your message.
Bringing it All Together: Making Storytelling a Part of Company Culture
To truly harness the power of storytelling, it must be embedded within your startup’s culture—weaved through your hiring, training, and development processes.
- Encourage your employees to convey their experiences, skills, and the impact they’ve made in their roles.
- During interviews, invite candidates to share their personal stories, focusing on how their experiences align with your company’s values and mission.
- Incorporate storytelling into your training programs, using real-life examples and case studies to illustrate key concepts and make the learning experience more engaging and relatable.
- Encourage employees to share their own stories of success and challenges and highlight them as critical parts of your company’s whole.
- Build storytelling into your employee development initiatives. Celebrate milestones and achievements by sharing stories of individual and team accomplishments, highlighting their impact on the company and its customers.
When you deeply integrate storytelling into your startup, you create an engaging, inspiring, and authentic environment. And that’s what your “perfect hire” is looking for.
