A Friend at a Tech Startup Asked Me About Storytelling

I told him what I learned at USC's School of Cinematic Arts: great stories all run on the same engine. Someone wants something badly and is having difficulty getting it. That's it. That's the simplest dramatic circumstance, and it's the foundation of every television series you've binged, every campaign that made you feel something, and every brand you remember. Pixar knows it. Nike knows it. Anthropic knows it. If you're building a brand, creating content, or trying to get anyone to care about anything, you need to know it too.

The Engine

Strip any great story down to its frame and you find the same thing. A character. A want. An obstacle. The want creates direction. The obstacle creates tension. Tension is what makes the audience lean in, hold their breath, refuse to look away. Without it, you're not telling a story. You're showing people stuff. And nobody cares about stuff.

This is true whether you're writing a founder story, a feature film, or a thirty-second TikTok. The format changes. The engine doesn't.

Make Them Care

One you have the engine started, you need a likable character to drive the story. Someone the audience can get emotionally invested in. There are three steps to that, and they happen fast. Often in the first few seconds of a great story.

Interest. The character has to stand apart. In The Matrix, Neo notices the woman in red because everyone else is gray. In Schitt's Creek, the Roses arrive in a dusty town wearing couture. On a crowded sidewalk, your eye finds the one person walking against traffic before your brain knows why. Humans are wired to spot difference. Use that. Make your character impossible to miss.

In Schitt's Creek, the Roses arrive in a dusty town wearing couture.

Sympathy. Once you have their attention, give your character a problem. Not a cosmic one. A simple, recognizable one. Locked out. Lost. Late. Overwhelmed. For startups, this is often the painpoint your solving. We've all been there, and the moment we recognize the feeling, we're in. Sympathy is what closes the gap between the audience and the character. It says: I get it. Let's go.

Empathy. This is the leap. Your character has to solve the problem in a way that surprises and inspires. Predictable solutions kill empathy. A unique, clever, distinctly-them response is what turns watching into rooting. It's the difference between observing a stranger and pulling for a friend. Once empathy lands, the audience will follow that character anywhere.

Three steps. Interest gets the eye. Sympathy gets the heart. Empathy gets the commitment.

Now Apply It to Your Startup

Here's where most tech, and especially emerging AI, brands fall apart. They have a logo. They have a tagline. They have a color system. What they don't have is a story.

A brand is a character. It wants something badly. Something stands in its way. And the way it pushes through that obstacle is what people remember. Look at what Anthropic just did to OpenAI. The spot opens with a guy who wants to get ripped. He's struggling. He asks an AI for help. The AI, an obvious stand-in for ChatGPT, serves him an ad instead of an answer. The villain isn't the gym or his motivation. It's the rival product that's supposed to help and chooses to monetize him instead. Anthropic doesn't have to say "Claude is better." The story does it for them. Character, want, obstacle, resolution. A company taking on a rival without ever raising its voice.

Nike isn't selling shoes. It's selling the fight against the voice in your head that says you can't. Everybody has that voice. Nike's whole brand is a battle cry against it. "Just Do It" only works because the obstacle is real and universal.

Liquid Death is another great example. The brand wants to make water cool. The opposition? Water is boring as hell. It's Hydrogen and Oxygen. And, it's everywhere water boring. Their solution was so unexpected it became the entire brand: can it like a tallboy, market it like a heavy metal band, donate to anti-plastic causes. They turned a non-category into a cult.

Each of these brands has a clear character, a desperate want, and a real opposition. That's the structure. That's why they last.

Anthropic doesn't have to say "Claude is better." The story does it for them.

Tell a Good Story

Humans don't think in features. We don't dream in bullet points. We think in stories. We pass them down. We tell them at dinner. We remember them long after we've forgotten the facts.

If you want people to remember your startup, your content, or you, stop handing them information. Hand them a character worth caring about. Give that character a fight worth watching. And resolve it in a way they didn't see coming.

The simplest dramatic circumstance is the most powerful tool you have. Use it. Steven Townsend is a Senior Creative Director and Creative Technologist with experience at agencies including 72andSunny, Saatchi & Saatchi, and TBWA\Chiat\Day. He's written Super Bowl spots, produced an Emmy-nominated series, and integrates AI tools like Claude, Midjourney, and Runway into creative workflows for brands including The North Face, Toyota, Genesis, and DoorDash. Learn more at townsendsteven.com.