How story can advance collective understanding about complex technologies
By Libby Clark | Editorial Director at The New Stack
When security software startup Twistlock went to market in 2015 they were up against companies with a much larger marketing spend in the enterprise security space. They needed a strategy that would help them quickly gain brand recognition in the emerging cloud native computing market, without breaking the bank.
Fortunately, they had a strong story to tell. They were a purpose-built cloud native security platform — not a legacy solution adapting to a new environment. So they leaned heavily into that story and cranked on a smart content strategy that told that story over and over in different formats, on different platforms, culminating in their acquisition by Palo Alto Networks in 2019 for $410 million. They credit their success, in part, to the consistent narrative they built over four years on The New Stack.
“The traffic that TNS drove, as well as the backlink strategy helped make us the most visited site in our competitor category, as well as driving authority to key pages so that we ranked in the top three on all the priority keywords related to our product,” said Jeannie Christensen, former marketing strategy director at Twistlock.
Strong narratives shrink the competitive gap for software startups. By telling an authentic and compelling story about your company, its history and the problem it’s solving through technology, companies of all sizes can influence audiences and markets.
Libby Clark
But content is table stakes for a startup, which needs all the help it can get. Advertising is a major cost — and its effectiveness is questionable. While display ads may drive some immediate results, a better long-term approach to real influence is consistent storytelling that aims to educate and build understanding in the market.
The same short-term gain comes from issuing press releases. To be more effective, PR firms are now writing for their clients’ blogs instead. The TechNews 2021 Tech PR outlook shows PR professionals in tech are working harder for media coverage and are instead spending more time interviewing customers, writing case studies and creating blogs for their clients.
The shift in PR strategy comes in part because it’s much harder to attract earned media coverage as the number and staffing size of publications shrinks. But also because regular, high-quality content creation is effective at getting the message out.
“We see the results of this narrative building approach every day at The New Stack. Stories make the difference for those who succeed in a market that is ripe with complex technologies. ”
We see the results of this narrative building approach every day at The New Stack. Stories make the difference for those who succeed in a market that is ripe with complex technologies. Explanation and analysis is what people need to better understand at-scale development, deployment and management of software architectures on fast, distributed infrastructure.
The Heavybit startup accelerator encourages the companies in its portfolio to contribute abundantly and widely to media outlets. The feedback founders receive on their articles helps with the discovery process for their products. It validates that there is, indeed, a problem their users will pay to solve.
Several Heavybit companies contribute to The New Stack, where we measure effectiveness of contributed posts by standard awareness metrics — pageviews and social shares — as well as referrals that the posts drive back to the company’s home page. Companies such as CircleCI leverage TNS to scale discoverability of their own websites through a linkback strategy and SEO best practices.
Other companies aim simply to reach those one or two key influencers who ultimately become a customer, or an investor. Rezilion has traced at least six new customer opportunities and two new customers back to TNS, including a marquee web-scale company that found Rezilion’s security software by reading one popular post.
The challenge is that startups must be aware that their chance for success increases only if they post materials that users value. Writing or speaking in an accessible way to other technologists about the problem provides an opening for understanding and feedback. This means having original ideas and communicating them with good technical detail that’s framed in a larger context and includes plenty of explanation.
The fewer product mentions, the better.
“Companies must then take the feedback they receive on their articles (or, more accurately, the ideas in their articles) and iterate on their products and services to adapt to the market’s needs.”
Companies must then take the feedback they receive on their articles (or, more accurately, the ideas in their articles) and iterate on their products and services to adapt to the market’s needs. The goal is not to convince the market that their product is needed, but that the product is a good solution to a technical problem that already exists. If you listen, readers provide feedback on how you’re shaping that narrative.
The effectiveness of strong and consistent storytelling is why a VC firm can tell a room of startup executives at a TechCrunch event that they invest in companies that have developed a strong narrative. Everyone on the team, from executives to boots-on-the-ground engineers, must communicate that narrative well. That means developing the skills to speak and write about complex technologies.
“That’s what we’re looking for and that’s how we justify the investment. Everyone on the team can communicate this paradigm shift in a very succinct way.”
“That’s what we’re looking for and that’s how we justify the investment. Everyone on the team can communicate this paradigm shift in a very succinct way,” Katherine Boyle, principal at General Catalyst, said at TC Sessions: Enterprise in 2019, one of the last panel discussions The New Stack hosted in person before COVID-times.
Frequency of content production is also key. Startups that build a narrative as a never-ending stream of posts find that they can drive strong organic growth in awareness and leads. A contributed article is awesome, two is better, and a third, fourth, fifth ... They all add up to long-term relationships, shifts in the market that benefit the startup and earned coverage from media outlets that know who they are and what they stand for.
But writing and sharing your story is also about creating a reality that is, for the time being, only an ideal or a concept. Putting thoughts into words and hitting publish is an incremental step toward creating a new thing in the world (not just selling a product). Viewed as a single article or campaign, it doesn’t tell the whole story. Repeat that process many, many times, and it forms a narrative about your work in the world.