The Founder’s Marketing Dilemma, Part 2
Your Audience Isn’t Looking Back. They’re Deciding Forward.
One of the most common fears I hear from founders sounds like this:
“If people don’t know our history, how are we telling our true story?”
It’s a fair question.
It’s also the wrong lens.
Your audience isn’t evaluating your past.
They’re evaluating their future.
Your audience isn’t
evaluating
your past.
They’re evaluating their future.
Here’s a simple exercise I often give founders.
Think of a brand that caught your attention recently. Not one you already loved, but one you noticed. One that made you pause.
Ask yourself:
What did they lead with?
Was it their origin story?
Or was it a feeling, a value, a solution, a lifestyle?
Most of the time, it’s the latter.
They didn’t start by explaining themselves.
They started by understanding you.
This is where founders and prospects diverge.
Founders look back and see meaning.
Prospects look forward and see risk.
They’re asking:
Will this place, product or person understand me?
Does this align with what I care about?
Will this experience solve something for me, even if I can’t name it yet?
Marketing that works answers those questions quickly and clearly.
That’s why so much effective brand storytelling feels less like explanation and more like alignment. It reflects something the viewer already believes or wants to become.
This doesn’t mean legacy is irrelevant. It means legacy isn’t the hook.
Heritage lands differently once trust exists.
History resonates more once curiosity is sparked.
Early-stage marketing is not about proving worth.
It’s about creating belonging.
When founders feel uneasy about this shift, it’s often because they’re still speaking from inside the brand rather than stepping outside of it.
A helpful reframe is this:
Your story is not disappearing. It’s being sequenced.
First comes resonance.
Then curiosity.
Then depth.
When marketing skips that order, it doesn’t feel thoughtful. It feels heavy. Too much too soon.
In the next post, we’ll talk about why first-touch content carries more responsibility than most founders realize and why trying to say everything often results in saying nothing at all.
