Storytelling

Wayfinders

Startups that pay in love are a blank
canvas that comes to life through us.

By nature, parents want to provide the means for children to go beyond their potential. Family requires immeasurable resources, but the love from our kids unlocks more hours in the day. The added productivity comes from seeing the best of ourselves in someone we care so much about. Purpose is renewed and the heart we put into our creative work can make our presence as parents even more interesting.

Summon Stories

Children grow up fast, so we stay in the moment. Everyone tells us to cherish the simple joys of life, but it may be worth getting a little extra creative. One way to enhance your family’s ability to relive memorable moments, is by using multimedia marketing skills to summon family stories.

Every moment is special. As creation becomes second nature, handpicked memories can be stitched together to revisit interactively, any time, with or without you.

Most of us have an endless collection of photos and video on our smartphone, but scrolling around on a digital device doesn’t translate into something a group can enjoy together. It’s easy for good things to get lost in so much noise and spoken storytelling is always merry too, but why not paint more stories with a few added brushes?

Quiet relics like photo slideshows, something printed that sits beautifully on the shelf, a mix of audio recordings, art on the wall, or a cinematic feature film that highlights your adventures. You’re the creator with endless ways to create.

We all do a form of this, because family is our favorite, but the time required is real. A rigid cadence is not required, since any day is a good day to ship this type of of art. In the early days of photos and video, it was only birthdays and Christmas — now everyday is a holiday. No need to rush, but keep producing new surprises. Everyone will love the end result and as more come together, the growing playlist becomes a sequence of stories that follow kids growing up. With our constant collection of content, a good story is always ready to tell, but at a minimum, why not share an annual gift with your kids, partner, and other loved ones?

Along the way, attentive and controlled organization will make a growing collection of relics easier to craft. This takes an ongoing commitment, but file management is easy and helps bring life to life with shared memories.

Your future self will then thank you for an effort to organize this heartfelt content. Share in public if you want, but that can alter the art if it becomes a show. Do it for yourself and your favorite people first. Organize what will be a massive library offline, then, if you want play with the transitory channels of social media, that’s a personal choice.

No matter who resists whatever it may be, time compiling legacy projects will rarely feel wasted. It’s using our real skills to commemorate those we love. Scanned memories may give us content without capturing it in the future. For now, it’s up to us to trap time for personal storytelling.

Compensation is not money, but this does enhance your content creation skills for other areas in life. Technology also makes editing content more productive, but this is not your average task. This is the type of sincere storytelling you enjoy spending time with.

As kids grow up, these projects will have the lowest view counts, but always be your very favorite. Looking ahead, it’s crazy to imagine being a child right now, then receiving such a gift from my parents someday!

You’ve Got Mail

Consider setting up an email for your little one. This inbox can be used as a communication channel to write to your child as they grow up. Whether you start writing before they are born or later in their life, imagine what a gift this inbox will be in the future! This email address can be shared with family and used for online accounts if you want, but at a minimum, this curates a personalized time machine full of thoughtful updates.

Extra Shot

What’s your favorite parenting tip? Share it as a comment or hit me up!

Along with sentimental content, your kids will appreciate an email address that can be used after childhood. First and last name with your preferred email provider should stand the test of time. This is also a good chance to register a URL using their first and last name. This can connect to their email or support a personal website someday.

Avoid Routine

“Time flies” and “they grow up so fast” is accurate, but avoiding routine may slow down time.

The freedom to be spontaneous is a privilege and everyone will define such flexibility differently, but a proven path to explore such a reality is entrepreneurship. Boundless hard work, dedication, and resiliency are what this lifestyle takes, but suffering provides a stronger sense of purpose.

As this purpose is layered in later stages of life, experiential wisdom can be channeled into more treasured time doing things that make us happy. While hardship is part of the deal, children make their parents happy. Perhaps a reward for parents who lead by example, is the opportunity to share everything with those who matter most.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Prismatic

There are endless early moves to help avoid pushing your idea toward someday. For instance, creative wireframing requires only a pencil. With a little visualized clarity in place, a couple exploratory conversations can also help.

First, meet with a mentor. This should feel like a supportive space but avoid rainbows and butterflies. Be realistic with exciting aspects of the idea, but also the challenges. As we learned in YDNTB, an early no is much better than a long, wrong yes. That said, playing it safe is easier than activating initiative, so don’t let early doubt slow you down. Instead, welcome it. Let curiosity uncover new understandings. Pivots are inevitable, and this exploration adds confidence as the original idea is tweaked toward product-market fit.

After transparently talking with that trusted mentor, the next meeting is with a potential customer. This will feel too early, but it’s not. You’re actually protecting your personal bandwidth by not swinging at a bad pitch too many times.

To optimize early innings, arrive prepared to ask good questions. Take notes and speak less so you can actively listen to how this potential early adopter is responding.

Are you building a pain killer or vitamin? Remember, feedback is data, and this is only one data point, but let this conversation infuse reality into the idea. Show up, stand out, follow up, stay connected, find a thoughtful way to accelerate their work, and then keep building.

The business model canvas is a tool to do so. While it’s impossible to predict the future, business model canvases help us continue to explore while curating a story that sells.

Most early business ideas don’t have a clear story. This can make it hard to know where to start within the business model canvas. While you can use this tool in endless ways, consider an approach that is less about the entire business and more about one story at a time. Instead of trying to boil the ocean, organizing a complete story for each customer segment creates a combination of more actionable insights.

To give it a try, use this special business model canvas. The areas are numbered to curate canvases that each highlight a customer story:

  1. Customer Segments – Start with the details of a particular type of customer. The goal isn’t to complete the Customer Segments box. It’s starting a story to follow through the rest of the canvas. Now lean into the pain as you move from box to box and watch as your solution transforms into a story.
  2. Value Propositions – What benefit(s) can you deliver?
  3. Channels – Where can you connect with this customer?
  4. Customer Relationships – Who are you working with and how will you make this customer feel?
  5. Revenue Streams – Will financial income flow? How?
  6. Key Activities – What actions make the customer care?
  7. Key Resources – What is needed to keep building, and how might needs change to maintain momentum?
  8. Key Partners – Who helps to make this sustainable?
  9. Cost Structure – What costs go into activating this customer segment? How is pricing organized to support realistic profit margins that align with a financial model?

                By telling the story of created value for one customer segment, hypotheses can be connected with context. Next, using a separate business model canvas, visualize more stories based on different customer segments.

                With separate business model canvases for each customer segment, merge everything into one business model canvas. To stay organized, select different colors to use for each customer segment. As everything blends together, the prismatic rainbow maps roads to reality.

                Brewed From Within
                #8 📖 Entrepreneurship

                By Ben McDougal, ago

                Down Under

                It’s easy to think the perfect investor pitch exists.

                The inspired business idea, sharp slide deck design, magical lines within a concise pitch, and formulas to make everything click. Study fundraising all you want, but the art form can be seen when understanding adds space for storytelling that shows instincts.

                EXTRA SHOT

                This contribution was written by Saba Karim. This Australian technologist is a perpetual builder who has heard more business pitches than anyone you know.

                During my time at Techstars, we listened to hundreds of founder pitches. Different industries, backgrounds, and levels of experience. On paper, many of the companies looked nearly identical. Similar markets, similar traction, similar slides. Yet the outcomes were rarely the same. Some conversations created momentum immediately. Others stalled, even when the numbers looked better.

                The difference was almost never the product. It lived in the story. The strongest founders were not reciting information. They were explaining how they saw the world. Their judgment was heard in the way they framed problems and talked through decisions. Their pitch was not something memorized. It was something the founder(s) understood. That distinction matters, because investors are not betting on slides. They are betting on decision makers. A deck can show intelligence. A story reveals instinct.

                Many founders treat pitching like a checklist. Hit these slides. Answer these questions. Say the right words. But when either side approaches an early interaction that way, the conversation usually falls flat. No deck is ever complete enough to replace connection.

                When founders realize alignment matters more than perfection, the dynamic changes. The meeting stops feeling like a performance and starts feeling like a conversation. That shift alone creates momentum.

                Momentum is not mysterious. It is human. Founders who walk into meetings with clarity tend to leave with more doors open. Not because everything is perfect, but because belief compounds quickly. You can feel when someone has their right foot forward. 

                They are not rushing.
                They are not over-explaining.
                They speak in present tense.
                This is what exists today.
                This is what we’ve learned.
                This is what we are doing next.

                Reality builds more trust than ambition ever will.

                Another common mistake is trying to sell the product instead of the opportunity. Features matter, but they rarely carry the conversation. What resonates is why the problem matters, why the timing makes sense, and why this founder cannot walk away from it.

                The best meetings barely felt like pitches at all. They are calm, low pressure conversations. Sometimes there was a deck. Sometimes there was just a demo. The tone shifted from here is what I want to build to here is what I have already built. That shift changes everything.

                As founders, we tend to overthink the wrong details. Being slightly late. A noisy background. A moment of nerves. Those things rarely matter. What does matter is presence. Listening instead of talking. Answering the question that was asked. Slowing down enough to think clearly.

                Extra Shot

                Confidence is not volume. It is calm.

                Over time, storytelling stops being a fundraising skill and becomes a life skill. Entrepreneurship demands it constantly. With investors, teammates, customers, and yourself. Every difficult decision needs a narrative strong enough to carry uncertainty.

                Early on, those stories are mostly aspiration. Later, experience reshapes them. Obsession sharpens them. Failure humbles them. You stop trying to sound impressive and start trying to sound honest.

                Eventually, you care less about winning every room and more about finding rooms where you belong. Fundraising becomes relational. You are no longer trying to convince someone to believe in you. You are discovering whether you already believe the same things.

                People do not want to feel processed, optimized, or pitched. Success, whether in business or in life, is rarely about winning someone over. It is about how people feel when they leave your presence. The energy you bring into a room. The care you show when no outcome is attached.

                In the end, the perfect pitch never existed. What existed was clarity, presence, and the courage to speak from experience instead of expectation. There is no finish line. Only better questions, deeper alignment, and the quiet understanding that the best relationships are all built the same. With intention, kindness, and a genuine desire to be remembered for how you made people feel.

                Brewed From Within
                #20 📖 Entrepreneurship

                By Ben McDougal, ago

                Fashion Activism

                A movement doesn’t start with noise. It starts with intention.

                Let’s cook up the ingredients for a fashion activism movement.

                1. Clear Why
                  Before the fabric, before the fit—know the purpose. What injustice are we confronting? What truth are we amplifying? If the “why” isn’t rooted in lived experience or deep listening, the clothes will speak, but they won’t say anything real.
                2. Story Over Trend
                  Trends fade. Stories stay. Fashion activism is about garments carrying memory, struggle, joy, resistance. Every stitch should answer the question: who is this for and what are we protecting or pushing forward?
                3. Accessibility
                  Movements don’t live on pedestals. They live in neighborhoods, classrooms, kitchens, sidewalks. If people can’t see themselves wearing it, touching it, or participating in it—then it’s not a movement, it’s a moment.
                4. Co-Creators
                  You don’t build a movement alone. Invite youth, elders, artists, skeptics, organizers. Let people shape the message. Fashion becomes activism when the community helps design the uniform.
                5. Consistency
                  One hoodie doesn’t change the world. Repetition does. Show up again. And again. Workshops. Conversations. Pop-ups. Education. Fashion activism is practice, not performance.
                6. Courage in Discomfort
                  If nobody’s uneasy, you’re probably not pushing hard enough. Clothing should sometimes interrupt the room. Make people pause. Make them ask questions they’ve been avoiding.
                7. Joy as Resistance
                  Activism doesn’t have to be heavy to be powerful. Joy, beauty, pride—these are radical tools. Celebration keeps people engaged longer than anger alone ever will.
                8. Paths Forward
                  A movement must offer direction. Awareness is step one—but what’s step two? Where does the energy go after the outfit is seen? Give people somewhere to walk next.

                EXTRA SHOT
                This contribution was written by Andrè Wright. Andrè is a world traveler who uses design, fashion, and art to inspire students and community-driven movements.

                Fashion activism isn’t about what we wear.
                It’s about what we refuse to ignore.

                When clothing becomes language—and community becomes the author—that’s when a movement is born.

                By Ben McDougal, ago

                Front & Center

                Music massages the mind.
                Live music brings the body in-tune.

                As the mind and body respond to a beat, a pulsing pattern guides us to euphoria. In that state, we access elevated areas of the mind. Music anywhere can provide a version of this, but the loudest line is when we’re front and center.

                Extra Shot

                Listen to EDM when reading this. Visit the Museum on BenMcDougal.com to get a jump start from the author’s wild filmmaking.

                Showing up for live music is half the battle. Once you’ve arrived, grab bottled water and float around the venue to expose a variety of views. This takes practice, as wading in a crowd is an art form. As we trap time with content, these pit stops are also a chance to capture angles that set the scene for storytelling later. Securing drinks at a busy bar, spotting an odd perspective, finding a way into VIP areas, and vibing with strangers is all part of the performance.

                With the venue scouted, it may be time to push. Your destination is the madness that is front and center.

                Find an entry point and wiggle in. There’s no rush. Be considerate, but you will need to get physical, so don’t be surprised when you’re thrown a frustrated look. Before anyone can get angry, dance with these strangers. Share space and give anyone a reason to smile with conspicuous kindness. With that position fully admired, keep moving.

                As we maneuver toward front and center, the mob tightens. Once the main act arrives, it’ll be harder to achieve front and center. Time bravery wisely. Arriving early is easier, but you’ll have to survive longer. Wait if you want, but then the push will be harder. As we cut through the crowd, look for party people shorter than you, creases between groups, or wait until someone expires and then take their place.

                When you’ve landed front and center, there’s no room to move within this nucleus of humanity, but there’s nowhere else we’d rather be! Stay strong. Feed into the flow that surrounds you, trap time with stable content, meditate for teleportation later, appreciate outlaw logic, and ride this euphoria to a full escape.

                Push to feel the front gate if you must, and always stay here longer than you should. When you’ve sensed absolutely everything, begin your descent. Shimmy straight back to remain centered as you politely let others move forward.

                Extra Shot
                Music decorates time.

                It’s impossible to sleep after experiencing front and center. At home, use the earned insomnia to stitch a story together. The faster you tell this story, the wider it will spread when everyone wakes up looking to relive their own euphoria. There’s nothing that compares to being the artist onstage, but this is a very active way to spectate. 

                Extra gears and resources are required to arrive, find, and hold down the front and center, but that’s obvious. Two less apparent attributes help fans feel this dazzling splendor. First, a certainty in knowing you belong. This boldness may need to be faked at first, but with repetition, pure confidence comes from grasping the radical effort required to get here. Along with knowing we belong, honest self-awareness ensures we know our own limits. How wild can we live when it’s safe and so easy to conform? Push beyond your limits, but there’s no time for short-term mistakes that leave a long-term burden.

                As we age, co-pilots are harder to find, so test yourself with solo missions. The lightness is liberating, but beware. When you consistently create content, you may land a media or even an onstage pass. If you manifest this heaven on Earth, poise is tested. Remain affable, make all feel appreciated, and know you are not the show. Be a daring shadow, embrace every single second, and ship the art to feel euphoria all over again.

                Brewed From Within
                #104 📖 Life & Happiness

                By Ben McDougal, ago