Every business has one. Most of them are terrible.
Not because the stories aren’t interesting — they usually are — but because they’re told in entirely the wrong way. They start with the founder, linger on the CV, and end with a list of services. The audience learns what you do but has no reason to care.
An origin story isn’t a biography. It’s a strategic weapon.
Done well, it’s the story that builds trust before anyone has bought anything. It’s the answer to the second of the two stories that matter: Do I trust this person to deliver on their promise?
The trick is that your origin story isn’t really about you. It’s about your audience, told through the lens of your experience. The closer it lives to their story — their struggles, their aspirations, their fears — the more powerfully it resonates.
This is why the Beacon starts with audience, not with you. Who is this for, and what do they need to believe?
The structure underneath most great origin stories is some version of the Hero’s Journey. You lived in an ordinary world. Something changed. You struggled through the unknown. You emerged with treasure — a skill, an insight, a product, a perspective — that now helps others on their journey.
In Donald Miller’s framework, this is the crucial reframe: you are not the hero. Your customer is. You are the mentor — and your origin story is how they decide whether to trust you with that role.
My origin story is about 350 words. It touches on building a successful agency, sleepless nights, illness, death, writing a novel, and the discovery that storytelling was the force behind everything I’d built. It never once says “I’m good at this.” It doesn’t need to. The inference does the work.
The details matter. Not because they’re all important, but because specificity builds belief. “Clients around the world” is more credible than “a successful business.” “Hundreds of 5-star reviews” lands harder than “well-received.” This is ethos in action — Aristotle’s persuasion through character.
And length matters too. An origin story is a Minimum Viable Story — up to 500 words, targeted at a specific audience, designed to build attention, connection and trust. Not a memoir. Not a LinkedIn post. A precision instrument.
If your origin story doesn’t exist yet, or it reads like a CV, or it tries to impress rather than connect — start again. The building blocks are simpler than you think: character, conflict, consequence. Who you were, what changed, and what treasure you now bring.
The rest is craft.
See my origin story here.