As a small business owner, your personal story will feel closer to home than some of the big brands.
We might know Nike & Apple’s origins, but they don’t often remind us of these to build connections. Instead, these founding stories evolve into a wider identity.
For small businesses, personal founder stories are essential. You need to share your story with your audience to build connections, establish credibility, and propel yourself forward. People don’t know your story yet, so it’s your job to tell them!
Your founder story is the story of how you started, built and scaled your business to where it is today. It involves the steps you took, your motivations, and what makes you qualified to do what you do.
It might *sound* simple, but anyone who’s sat down to write their About Page will know, crafting your brand founder story is a lot harder than it seems.
On top of that, you need to remember that your founder story isn’t your only brand story. And at times, it might not be the most relevant one to tell. Part of developing your brand messaging is crafting these stories and identifying which are most relevant to your audience and in certain situations.
Your founder story is ideal for welcoming new people to your community, showing how far you’ve come, and inspiring reliability with people who have been through similar situations.
Some questions you might have considering your founder story are:
- How do I know what’s relevant?
- What’s too much/too personal to share?
- Why do people care about this?
- How long should my founder’s story be?
While it might feel overwhelming at first, crafting a compelling founder story isn’t as difficult as it seems (or as we make it out to be— yep, the CEO pressure you put on yourself can be a smidge too much sometimes!)
To help you craft your founder story, I’m sharing my story, what your story needs and a few additional tips that will make compiling all this information feel stress-free & simple.
My personal brand founder story
Here’s a breakdown of my founder story and how I got here. You’ll notice that not all of this is included in the stories I tell regularly to connect with my audience. I’ve strategically crafted the most relevant story using this information.
- Like many writers, I fell in love with words at a young age. With a bookshelf full of well-loved paperbacks and the next bestseller on preorder, words have always been my love language.
- I knew my career would always be in writing, I just didn’t know what it would look like (or how to get there), so I studied English Literature at university.
- During my education, I worked in sales for several high-end brands. It was here I learnt about customer service, sales, and luxury consumers.
- I also began writing for several university publications as a way to get my words out into the world.
- Lockdown hit and my job and publication work went on hold. University went online, and I suddenly had a lot more free time.
- Determined to keep honing my craft and keep putting myself out there, I went online and Googled something like: ‘ways to write from home’.
- I found SEO & copywriting and everything changed.
- I spent a year writing copy & content for global clients while completing my degree and a very lengthy dissertation on Jane Austen.
- I took courses, read books, and became o-b-s-e-s-s-e-d with every established copywriter I scrolled across.
- I graduated and founded Cupid Copy, a copywriting business for creative business owners.
- After working with an event planner on their new website, I decided to niche down into wedding & events copy, an industry I was utterly infatuated with.
- Since then, I’ve written for celebrity event planners, beautiful wedding designers, and a host of other fun-loving wedding businesses. It’s been a wild ride & I am so excited for this journey to continue.
And that’s it. My 12-point personal, brand founder story. This could definitely be cut down. But, as an advocate for the long-story-long, I’m keeping it this way.
Notice a few things about my personal story:
Everything I mentioned is relevant to what I do now.
Writing & reading→ copywriter
Stories→ story-backed marketer
Luxury sales→ serving the luxury service space
I include relevant past experience:
→Wrote for publications
→Have an English degree (not super important but still relevant to my craft)
→Collaborated with those in the space I’m addressing
& where I don’t have experience, I show dedication:
→Books, courses, devotion to education
There’s adversity along the way:
→Covid threw my life upside down
But there’s a happy ending:
→I found copywriting, my literal dream job (I promise I won’t get emotional!)
A few things I’m not mentioning
→How much I love tea, coffee, or cats.
Sure, these can be fun snippets to include in a quick-fire facts section (see an example below from my client Nikki), but they don’t tell you anything about why I founded my business or why/how I can serve you.
→An operation I had in 2020 to remove a blocked salivary gland.
This was a pretty big hurdle in my personal life, but it didn’t spur any huge business changes or developments.
→My love for fashion, specifically handbags & coats
If I was working with fashion brands or stylists, this would 100% be the thing to write. And, you’ll definitely see me chatting about clothes on Instagram, but not so much on my website.
Your site is your prime real estate and you need people to read copy that relates to your reader and the brand you’re building— some things just won’t make the cut and that’s okay!
Your biggest takeaway here is that your personal founder story must include things that are relevant to your audience and the brand you’re building.
Let’s look at the brand founder’s story in action through one of my past clients, Lawrence.
Lawrence Banahan is a wedding photojournalist. We worked together on his English-speaking website to craft his Home, About, & Service page.
You can read the copywriter’s case study here.
My favourite part of this project was Lawrence’s brand founder story.
A love affair between a young boy and a Kodak camera blossomed into a lifelong career documenting candid moments for people to cherish.
Every part of Lawrence’s story relates to his brand, services, and USP (photojournalism capturing true-to-life moments). And it makes your heart swoon while your lips smile (if I do say so myself).
“That’s great Jasmine, but how do I write my founder story?”
I would never leave you without actionable advice, honest!
My best tips for crafting a compelling personal brand founder story for your small business:
01. Go back to your childhood → did you discover & fall in love with your craft at a young age?
I crave nostalgia at every turn, so childhood stories always resonate with me.
But, they won’t be for everyone. If you didn’t find your passion until later in life, that’s fine! Share your story as it authentically happened.
02. Write out all the experience you’ve had before founding your business
In-house event manager → relevant
Planned your own elopement during Covid → relevant
Got a new puppy called Bruce → cute but not relevant
03. Consider how these events transformed you
→You loved planning events but knew you wanted to create moments with more meaning.
→You’re proud you planned your wedding & learnt a lot, but it was a stressful and overwhelming experience that you don’t want other couples to have to go through.
04. Did you face adversity along the way? Readers love watching characters persevere, so don’t be afraid to be vulnerable and share what this experience taught you!
→ Horrible boss makes you question your skills & capabilities?
→ Forced to elope after 2 cancelled covid weddings?
05. Talk about how you overcame this hurdle, built your business & serve others.
→ Started a wedding planning business so other busy couples don’t have to experience the overwhelm of planning a wedding while looking after kids, attending meetings, and maintaining relationships.
→Decided to quit your job to serve couples one-on-one through bespoke wedding planning & design.
06. Sprinkle in some credibility
→ Worked with 50 couples to help them materialise & streamline their dream wedding day.
→ Graduated with an event management degree.
And you’re done. Obviously, you’ll want to wrap this up in a neat bow and present it to your audience on your About Page.
Now you know how to write your brand story, it’s time to chat about why it’s so important:
Your story is the foundation of your brand identity. After all, without this story, your brand & business wouldn’t exist.
But there’s one reason I believe stories are so magical: connection.
Your founder story is an open heart welcoming people in, showing them your journey, and accepting vulnerability.
And, as humans, we appreciate this openness and authenticity. Plus, lots of us (um, me) are super nosy, and there’s something about a founder story that scratches that inquisitive itch.
Simply by sharing your story, you’re developing a relationship with those who listen because your story is giving them all those ~fuzzy inside feelings~.
And these relationships are founded on trust, understanding, and appreciation (all things people need if they’re going to invest in you and your business)
It’s that simple!
When I work with clients on website copy projects, crafting their founder story is always my favourite part.
As soon as we hop on that discovery call, I’m putting together pieces of their founder story that I know will relate and resonate with their ideal client.
And if you’re searching for a website copywriter and brand messaging strategist to help you curate and craft your one-of-a-kind personal, brand founder story, I’d love to help.
