Get a clue: 5 secrets to creating a compelling company origin story using classic board games
To create meaningful engagement, find likeminded lasting partnerships, dazzle potential investors, and win the hearts and minds of your employees, your company must have one, often overlooked thing: a compelling origin story. An origin story tells us how the company started, why it started, and why it matters. Why does this matter? Because long after salary negotiations and equity packages are finalized, the people that vibe with your vision are the people you want to do business with for the long haul.
Let’s look at 5 classic board games to reveal the secrets of a compelling company origin story:
Monopoly. Sure, owning Park Place was pretty sweet. But before you even got there, you had to engage in the most important part of Monopoly: battling a sibling for the Thimble or the Top Hat. You couldn’t possibly win without your lucky playing piece. How does this apply to crafting a compelling corporate origin story? It reminds us that symbols carry great meaning. And many great company origin stories contain an iconic symbol at the center. Just think of Phil Knight crafting the first Nike rubber sole with his wife’s waffle iron, or Jeff Bezo’s famous door desk. Why do these objects carry such resonance? Because they cut through the abstract corporate-speak and reinforce that the company is founded in something real. The moral of the story? The most emotional experiences are grounded in the concrete. l.
Clue. When it comes to crafting a great corporate story, it definitely matters whether it was Colonel Mustard in the Drawing Room with the candlestick, or Miss Peacock on the veranda with the rope. After all, we don’t just know that Facebook exists. We know that Facebook was started one late night in 2004, by Mark Zuckerberg, in a Harvard dorm room, in a grey hoodie. Why does it matter? Using the 5 W’s (who, what, where, when, why) help us to visualize the origin of the story, and to feel the excitement and picture what it must have been like for ourselves. It’s exhilarating, and evocative, and again, grounds the story in credibility. The moral of the story? A picture’s worth a thousand words.
Chutes and Ladders. Oh, you knew this one was coming! A great company origin story needs a great arc. That means, the story must have dizzying highs and historic lows to keep people’s interest. No one wants to hear a story about a company who started very successful, stayed very successful, and ended very successful. That’s a story only a shareholder could love. The rest of us? Not so much. Take the story of Paul Mitchell hair products. John Paul Dejoria, the company co-founder, began his career working in a hair care factory, where he was horrified by the use of testing on animals. He joined up with his friend Paul Mitchell to take out a $700 loan in 1980 to found Paul Mitchell Hair Systems, a cruelty free haircare line. Along the way, John Paul slept in his car and sold products door to door. Today he is worth 2.7 billion. I also love the story of Sarah Blakely, CEO of Spanx, who started out selling fax machines door to door and then went on to found Spanx, a company worth 1.2 billion. We all love a good rags to riches story. The moral of the story: don’t feel a need to hide the dark spots or humble beginnings of your company’s story. Highlight them! They are what keep audiences hooked to hear the ending!
Taboo. As someone who has worked in technology storytelling for the majority of my career, the game of Taboo has been the absolute best training. If you’ve never played, you have to get someone to guess a word, like “pumpkin” but there are a list of forbidden words you can’t use to describe it, like “orange” and “round.” How would you describe a new technology if words like “dynamic, robust, agile” were “taboo”? I remember working for one of my first tech clients who sold cyber security software. I was so frustrated, tying myself in knots trying to write smart-sounding taglines like ‘the most dynamic, fluid, ergonomic ethernet dongle toggle plug…” you get the idea. But when I played taboo with myself, I wrote a beautiful tagline that became the centerpiece of one of my best-selling campaigns to this day “Don’t let coffee breaks spill the company beans.” Moral of the story? A compelling origin story is plain-spoken and written in human language.
Scrabble. Ok, if you are not a person who has a tendency to laugh, cry, scream, or emit some colorful language based on the outcome of a Scrabble game, this analogy might not be for you. In my household, Scrabble gets very emotional. And that brings me to my final point. Even the most dry or technical product can be brought to life by an emotional element. I once heard the founder of Marketo, a very helpful but rather dull marketing automaton software, tell a moving story of how he was inspired to found Marketo after seeing his CMO, a smart and articulate woman, reduced to tears before the Board because they were grilling her for data points she had no possible way of knowing. Hence, he was inspired to build the marketing data software many know and use today.
What’s your favorite company origin story? Tell me which ones I missed in the comments! Game on!