In a conversation with one of our founders last month, they reflected on the importance of having a storyteller leading the company — no matter how much the company grows and pivots are made, someone needs to be able to tell the company’s true story and remind stakeholders why the company exists in the first place.

Because startups are often in the business of innovation, there is an element from day one that cannot give way to the necessary corporate and operational maturity the company grows into over time. That element is the “day one” story. In the company leadership, that requires a “day one” storyteller, often someone who has lived that story themselves.

The “day one” story is about a moment of realization. It is realization that the impossible is possible. These moments are also often turning points or crossroads, when founders have to decide whether to go all in or call it a day.

This could be a founder facing immense competitive pressure being presented with a term sheet that could finally fuel their competitive edge.

This could be a founder who decides to keep building even when (nearly) every one else thinks market externalities are too challenging for the startup to survive.

It is not about what decision is right or wrong, but that the founder keeps going and keeps learning.

“Day one” stories can make for great bedtime stories and drama series but where it really applies to a business is how these stories are documented and communicated across stakeholders, from employees to shareholders, from end users to regulators.

Communicating these stories matters all the more in periods of heightened tension, when there is a key decision that is not clear cut. The goal is for the storyteller (often the founder) to bring stakeholders back to the first principles of a business decision. Why are they making this decision in the first place?

Being reminded of these core motivations can bring clarity into decision making (not that it will make the decision any easier, but more aligned with what the company has been setting out to do in the first place).

We share some examples of these stories in action we’ve covered in articles this past month (though we could write an entire book if we covered everything since 2019):

(1) “Day one” stories are not meant to keep a startup settled, but always questioning the relevance of a company’s existing products. How can the startup innovate itself?

When Fazz was founded in 2016 as Payfazz, Hendra and his co-founders Ricky and Jefri were building a solution for unbanked Indonesians to access financial services, shaped by their own experiences growing up in Jambi, a far flung city in Sumatra.

Even as Payfazz grew on top of one of the country’s largest agent networks for financial services, their product leaders are always on the lookout for how they can continue this “day one” story amidst changing consumer behaviors.

As Tania Desela, Fazz’s Principal PM and one of Payfazz’s earliest employees, shared, “For Fazz right now, especially in Indonesia, the biggest challenge is how we stay relevant in the context of our agent network. In the coming years, Indonesians will be using less cash…we need to cater to their evolving problems and needs.”

(2) “Day one” stories are not meant to distract a startup from opportunities, but keep it focused on what kind of growth and products matter for the business.

Tonik recently launched its Shop Installment Loans in Cebu, the second largest city in the country. This comes on the heels of Tonik sharing news of its loan portfolio growth (94% into H1 2024) and unit profitability across three product lines that include the Shop Installment Loans.

These milestones reflect a focus that is rooted in the company’s “day one” story. Greg started Tonik to tackle the Philippines’ credit inclusion opportunity with a fully digital bank approach, kicking off the start of an industry that today grapples with proving the sustainability of the thesis.

(3) “Day one” stories are not about resting on one’s laurels, but pushing constant reinvention.

Konvy is recently marked their 12th year anniversary! Over the past twelve years, they went from a website built to house product listings with photos taken from offline stores, to an entire ecosystem today enabling brands both global and local to grow across channels and even beyond Thailand to other countries like the Philippines, Malaysia, and China.

The biggest learning from following Konvy’s journey and working closely with them as they have grown beyond Thailand is how the company remains hungry to innovate the very industry they have established themselves in for all these years.

As CEO and co-founder Qing Gui Huang points out in an interview for this anniversary with Sanook, “The beauty retail industry is now mature, but the application of technology in this industry is still new.”

Konvy continues to experiment new ways of enhancing the consumer experience in beauty retail, like developing a Visual Shopping Assistant or combining the fascination for horoscopes with product recommendations.

This builds on Qing Gui’s “day one” story of exploring what it would take to introduce a dedicated online marketplace to Thailand’s vibrant beauty industry.

Even Southeast Asia has its own day one story. Once a region shaped by maritime trade routes between East Asia and the rest of the world (still the case today), it has played a similar role for innovation ecosystems. But today, it is undergoing its own reinvention as now a place from which to build global companies. Yinglan discusses these changing dynamics and their impact on venture capital in the region for a keynote presentation at the Techsauce Global Summit in Thailand.

(4) “Day one” stories are not about holding on to ideals but letting go of preconcieved notions in order to competitively mature.

While Vietnamese asset management and personal investment platform Finhay started out with a purely digital approach, their acquisition of securities brokerage in 2022 brought on a whole new challenge for the organization.

The fintech had to mature the “Fin” side, as Huy shares in this interview reflecting on the company’s past seven years, while still leveraging the competitive advantage of having a “Tech” side as well — their “day one” story.

This evolution of the company has allowed it to last as long as it has in a space that has been relatively unforgiving with the pressures of regulation and the inherently volatile nature of personal investing.

So what does day one storytelling look like for a startup?

The day one storyteller does not just embrace a day one mentality. More importantly, they are able to communicate the company’s unique “day one” context (i.e., their purpose, mission, and vision as it relates to the current market context) to stakeholders, from employees to shareholders and from customers to regulators. This communication needs to be aligned across all these stakeholders. It also needs to be tailored to each of these stakeholders’ communication approaches.

Because “every day is day one”, the company’s unique context is also evolving. In essence, the company is accumulating “day one” stories over time. These stories are not necessarily from the founder. They could come from anyone in the organization.

Because the volume of stories naturally grows over time, the role of “day one storyteller” thus also needs to be scaled. It could be constructed into a history or legendarium where the exploits and adventures that reflect the company’s ideals and values are codified for the organization to build on and learn from.

These “day one” stories are not for the sake of building ego or resting on the company’s laurels, but highlighting the values that brought the company where it is today. For example, it could be the value of being customer-first, where an early product manager spent weeks in a remote island to learn with a potential customer.

This storytelling, when embraced throughout the organization, can then influence concrete practices within the organization itself. A company would introduce “going back to roots” as part of its employee onboarding, to ensure new joiners clearly understand why the company was started in the first place.

More on day one storytelling coming this September. Stay tuned to Insignia Press.