Storytelling for Startups

4.8

(9 ratings)

·

10 Days

·

Cohort-based Course

Learn how to improve your fundraising, sales, and hiring through better communication.

Course overview

Learn Effective Storytelling for Startups

Storytelling is about building narratives around your ideas to make them more engaging and memorable and help you stand out in a crowded market.


In this one-week class you will master storytelling and gain a key competitive advantage.

Who is this course for

01

CEOs and Founders of early stage startups who need to raise venture funding.

02

Executives at growth stage startups who need to improve sales and hiring.

03

Team leads at all companies, who want to learn how to see their ideas succeed.

Key outcomes

Improve your fundraising skills

If you want to raise Venture funding, you need to stand out from the thousands of other people pitching VCs. Storytelling is the key to getting their attention and closing your round.

Close more customers

Customers are busy, and you need to convey your story quickly and clearly. It's not enough to have a great product, you need to tell them why it matters to them. Storytelling helps you craft a better pitch to get attention from customers.

Hire a better team

The best people have a wealth of job opportunities. If you want them to join your team, you need to tell a compelling story about your opportunity and how it stands apart.

Improve your marketing

People are overwhelmed by marketing messages everyday, why will they notice yours? Storytelling is the key to crafting an effective marketing message, and having it stick.

What to Expect from the Class

See what people are saying

        I can officially say that it was one of the best things I could have done as a founder. Every exercise in this class allowed me to look critically at my own company from new perspectives. The outcome was a concrete narrative that hammered home, to both investors and customers, the many reasons why we deserve to exist.
Brandon Minor

Brandon Minor

CEO, Tangram Vision
        Sean is an expert storyteller and I found this course to be extremely helpful. The course covers frameworks that help you tell your story more effectively to potential customers, partners, investors, and more. Many of the lessons learned will help you communicate better with others every day, and not just in bigger meetings. I highly recommend it!
Jonny Simkin

Jonny Simkin

CEO, Swiftly
        I enjoyed this class and Sean's sense of humor. Sean is masterful at storytelling and his expertise shines through the entire class. Really glad I took this.
Ashita Achuthan

Ashita Achuthan

CEO, Jelly
        Improving my storytelling ability with Sean was critical in helping us close our series A in these incredibly choppy markets. Sean helped me weave everything into a cohesive narrative that helped investors achieve confidence and conviction in our mission.
Amit Bhatia

Amit Bhatia

CEO, Datapeople
        Numbers are numbers. But if you don’t tell the right story, an investor call can go south fast. With Sean’s help I was able to lead the narrative and story of how Falkon had proven traction and how we were primed to win.
Mona Akmal

Mona Akmal

CEO, Falkon AI
        You have to define your company narrative, otherwise someone else will do it for you—likely less favorably than you would. Sean helped me figure out the best narrative in order to reveal the essence of our business, rather than just sending over Excel files and hoping investors would convince themselves.
Carlos Vega

Carlos Vega

CEO, Tesorio
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Questions? Email us for answers and more information on the class. We'd love to hear from you.

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Meet your instructor

Sean Byrnes

Sean Byrnes

Sean has been the CEO & co-founder of many category-defining companies (including Flurry and Outlier.ai), raised over $100M in financing from leading venture firms, built teams of hundreds of people, and both bought and sold companies in his career.


Over the past decade, Sean has also mentored and coached over 100 CEOs in building and scaling their software businesses. He has been a force for diversity and inclusion in the technology industry, focusing on supporting both founders and investors from under-represented groups.

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Course syllabus

01

Chapter 1: Why storytelling?

Learn how storytelling is a unique skill, and how it underlies everything you do as a leader. We'll cover examples of how stories take the facts and messages about your business, and package them up so other people will pay attention. You will start crafting your own stories right away!

02

Chapter 2: Crafting a Hook

Your audience is bombarded with messages everyday. In order to stand out and be remembered, your story needs a hook. Great hooks will stick with the audience long term and bring them back to your story again and again. You'll learn how to evaluate hooks and build your own!

03

Chapter 3: Building Foundations

Great stories are built on solid foundations. You need to link your story to something familiar, while also introducing them to something new. Learn how to structure your story for maximum impact. You will learn how to tell stories through data, not just words and pictures!

04

Chapter 4: Knitting Narratives

Your narrative is what ties together everything else that you say and do about your business. It weaves through your pitch, your marketing and even your job descriptions making them all stronger and more memorable. You'll learn to use the 3 different kinds of narrative and the advantages to each!

05

Chapter 5: Cliffhangers

It's not enough to have a great story, you need your audience to come back for more. Whether it's a potential customer, job candidate or investor you need them to want to learn more about you and your story is why they will. You will learn where your story should end, to leave them wanting more!

Course schedule

5-8 hours per week
  • Class Sessions

    9:00pm - 10:00am PST

    We'll have a live discussion every other day (Monday, Wednesday and Fridays) to cover the Chapter concepts and answer questions.

  • Class projects

    5 hours per week

    There will be projects associated with each class session that will follow up on and reinforce the concepts we review. These are optional.

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Learning is better with cohorts

Learning is better with cohorts

Active learning, not passive watching

This course builds on live workshops and hands-on projects

Interactive and project-based

You’ll be interacting with other learners through breakout rooms and project teams

Learn with a cohort of peers

Join a community of like-minded people who want to learn and grow alongside you

Frequently Asked Questions

What happens if I can’t make a live session?
I work full-time, what is the expected time commitment?
What’s the refund policy?
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