WTF is Storytelling for VCs?

The WSJ kicked the hornet's nest on "storytellers" this week.

Forgive me if this is the third time today you’ve read their headline, "Companies Are Desperately Seeking 'Storytellers’”, that LinkedIn job postings for the role doubled in the past year, or Vanta is hiring a head of storytelling for up to $274,000.

For venture funds, this has coincided with renewed chatter around 'new media' and a16z's (even more) aggressive push into content (we analysed that here). Now, everyone's asking what storytelling means for their fund, their portfolio, their strategy.

Look, storytelling isn't exactly revolutionary - even Kobe Bryant made it the 10th and final rule of his "Mamba Mentality."

But it's the current thing in tech, which means there's been endless debate about what it means for companies and funds.

As always, I try to ground each post (all 34 so far) in frameworks and useful things you can actually do.

So… what's missing from all the chatter - how does storytelling work for VC firms?

The Key Distinction - Zoom In vs Zoom Out

I believe that VC storytelling is fundamentally different from company storytelling.

For companies:

Storytelling = zoom in

Founders / companies are judged on near-to-mid-term execution → storytelling naturally zooms into specific problems, customer, wedge, roadmap.

For VCs:

Storytelling = zoom out

VC storytelling has to survive multiple vintages → storytelling must zoom out, to how the world changes, where value accrues over cycles, how decisions compound over a decade.

It's a proxy for: can these people actually deliver returns across a decade, or are they just well-packaged tourists?

Because VC success is a lagging indicator, VCs to use narrative and evidence-in-progress (early markups, follow-ons, founder references, internal discipline) to bridge the gap between "we have a hypothesis" and "the DPI says we were right."

What Makes a Story (vs. Just Messaging)

Storytelling isn't just saying things differently. It's structure, character, stakes, and emotion.

Every good story has:

• A character (who is this about?)

• A conflict (what's the tension?)

• Stakes (what happens if they fail?)

• Resolution (what does success look like?)

For companies, the character is the user, the conflict is the problem they're solving, the stakes are customer pain, and resolution is the product.

For VCs, the character shifts. Sometimes it's the founder in your portfolio. Sometimes it's the future you're building toward. Sometimes it's the market itself. But the structure stays the same.

Most VC marketing skips this entirely. It's just messaging - claims about what makes you different, lists of portfolio companies, partner credentials.

Real storytelling makes people feel something. And that requires these elements working together.

How to Build Your Fund's Story

Many fund pitch decks and websites = pages of partner bios nobody reads, investment philosophies in abstract MBA-speak, value-add services listed like product features.

None of this connects. Here's the fix:

Step 1: Delete the wallpaper

• Everything about your fund's founding story

• Every sentence with "we believe"

• Every generic claim about "adding value" or "partnering with founders"

Step 2: Ask "What are we really trying to do?"

For Founders? For LPs? For The World?

Then build your story using the elements:

• Character: Who is this story about? (The founder's journey? The market transformation? The future you're building toward?)

• Conflict: What's the tension? (What's broken? What's the alternative?)

• Stakes: What happens if this fails? What happens if it succeeds?

• Resolution: What does the future look like when you win? (Be specific - paint the scene)

For a fund's story, belief without a point of view is table stakes.

For example:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Generic wallpaper vs. a specific future you can see.

Story breakdown:

• Character: The reader

• Conflict: Virtue signalling vs. economic reality

• Stakes: Climate crisis

• Resolution: Founders solving the crisis

But storytelling doesn't stop at your website or deck.

How do the character, the conflict, the stakes show up across your quarterly comms? What are you constantly repeating?

It's possible to do this in LP communication too - how are you convincing your LPs to go to bat for the future you want to build as a fund? Not just with DPI projections, but with the story of what you're building and why it matters.

The Four Frames of VC Stories That Work

These templates help you zoom out - showing patterns across portfolio, time, and systematic insight rather than individual wins or credentials.

1. The Contrast Story

Structure: Villain → Hero

The market/status quo is the villain. You're the hero offering an alternative.

Template:

"Most VCs promise [common claim], but actually deliver [disappointing reality]. We built our fund specifically to [do the opposite]."

Example: Founders Fund

Ideological storytelling. Very polarising. That's the point. Clear enemies.

They don't say "we back bold founders." They say "we wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters" and position themselves against incrementalism in tech. Their contrast is stark - the rest of venture capital has become timid, funding minor improvements instead of breakthrough technology. They are the alternative.

Why this works: Contrast creates clarity. It positions you against the default behaviour in the market, which makes your difference obvious. "We're different" means nothing. "We fund what everyone else thinks is too crazy" means everything. You know exactly what they stand for and what they stand against.

Story breakdown:

• Character: The entire VC industry

• Conflict: Incrementalism vs. breakthrough innovation

• Stakes: The future of technology

• Resolution: We fund the crazy stuff

• Craft: Sharp contrast ("flying cars vs 140 characters"), clear villain (timid VCs)

2. The Insight Story

Structure: Mystery → Discovery → Application

You observed something others missed. Here's what you learned. Here's how you use it.

Template:

"While working with [specific type of founders], we noticed that [unexpected pattern]. This insight led us to develop [specific approach]."

Example: Y Combinator

Core insight: Great startups don't look great at the beginning. Speed, iteration, and founder quality matter more than polish or pedigree.

They've hammered this insight relentlessly for two decades. It shaped their batch model (fund fast, iterate together), their application process (doesn't require a deck or credentials), and their advice ("make something people want," "launch now," "do things that don't scale").

Why this works: Insight signals pattern recognition. It shows you've seen enough to spot what others miss. The best VCs have compressed that into frameworks - YC's insight became their entire operating model, and now everyone knows it.

Story breakdown:

• Character: Pattern across thousands of startups

• Conflict: Everyone else judges by polish and pedigree

• Stakes: Missing great founders because they don't look the part

• Resolution: Batch model + simplified application based on founder quality

• Craft: Counter-intuitive insight, repeated relentlessly for 20 years

3. The Solution Story

Structure: Current State → Future State

Paint what's broken today. Paint what the world looks like if you succeed.

Template:

"We've watched founders waste countless hours on [specific problem]. That's why we've built [specific resource/network/approach] to eliminate this entirely."

Example: Families Fund

"Families are under pressure. Schools haven't improved in decades, children's health is deteriorating, and trust in public systems is at an all-time low. We back founders rebuilding education and health - the two institutions that matter most to families."

Why this works: Most investors frame funds in terms of 'thesis' - but few talk about the problem their investments will solve, or work backwards from 'what does the world look like if we're successful?' Solution stories make your fund easier to understand and easier for others to talk about.

Story breakdown:

• Character: Families

• Conflict: Broken institutions (education, healthcare)

• Stakes: The next generation

• Resolution: Rebuild these institutions through founders

• Craft: Specific problem (deteriorating systems), clear mission (rebuild)

4. The Path Story

Structure: Fork in the Road → Two Journeys → Different Outcomes

Show the default path. Show your path. Show why outcomes diverge.

Template:

"When founders take money from typical VCs, they often end up [negative outcome]. Our portfolio companies instead experience [different path] because we [specific difference]."

Example: Indie.vc

Founder control → cash-flow alignment → long-term ownership.

Most VC forces founders onto a path toward exit or die. Raise, scale, raise bigger, exit within 7-10 years. Indie.vc showed a different path: revenue-based returns that let founders build profitable, sustainable businesses without selling. The story isn't about their returns - it's about what happens to founders who take their capital versus traditional VC.

Bonus Example: Terrain's "Call Your Shot"

From their essay… Terrain tells the story of what happens when founders follow "The Startup Track" (generic playbooks, raise-scale-exit) versus when they "call their shot" (specific vision, willing to take longer, build differently). The path story shows two futures: one where you follow the herd, one where you forge your own way.

Why this works: Most VC path stories look backward. They borrow prestige from past wins and anchor on outcomes like "enduring companies." They describe where a founder might end up, not what the journey is actually like. The good ones flip that. They describe how it feels to build with that fund.

Story breakdown:

• Character: The founder

• Conflict: Which path to take (The Track vs. Call Your shot)

• Stakes: Your cap table, your company, your life for the next decade

• Resolution: Two different futures based on the path chosen

• Craft: Extended metaphor (The Track), clear fork in the road, visceral consequences

The Craft: How to Make People Feel Something

Messaging tells you what to say. Storytelling makes people feel it.

Use specificity:

Vague: "Founders struggled with unresponsive investors"

Specific: "The only time VCs responded to emails was when they needed updated financials for their LP reports"

The second one makes you wince because you've lived it.

Use contrast:

The climate fund example works because of the contrast between the BEFORE (generic mission statement) and AFTER (you're driving past a former coal plant in 2035).

It drops you into a specific moment and makes you see it.

Use stakes:

Bad: "We back technical founders"

Good: "If we don't build it now, nobody else will" (Terrain's "Call Your Shot")

The second makes you understand what's at risk. It raises the stakes from "we invest in X" to "the future depends on this."

Use time:

Zoom out to show patterns over years, not moments:

"Over the past decade backing 40+ companies..." "They've hammered this insight for two decades..." "After working with 50+ marketplace startups..."

Time signals pattern recognition. You've been in the game long enough to see the pattern play out repeatedly.

The Bottom Line

There is so much activity wrapped up in VC comms and content, but the challenge is to resist viewing them as separate tasks. They're all opportunities to tell the same story in different formats.

But equally, as a GP or VC marketer, don't get wrapped up in the hype of hiring storytellers or chasing whatever's trendy. You don't need to change everything. You need to get clearer and more compelling about what you already stand for, then weave it into everything you do.

The stories people remember combine clarity with point of view and stakes.

Take a position, name the villain or the problem, and paint a specific future instead of a vague one.

Pick your structure (Contrast, Insight, Solution, or Path). Build it with character, conflict, stakes, resolution. Then show up with it consistently - in your deck, on your site, in your deals, in your updates.

Eventually everyone else can tell it for you.

Zoom out. Build your story. Repeat it everywhere.

Laurie, Refinery Media

If you made it all the way through, thanks so much for reading! Several hundred VCs now open this every week. If it's helped you think differently about marketing, Venture, or storytelling, please send it to someone in your orbit.

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