# Narrative Frameworks

Reference frameworks for building compelling, consistent business narratives.

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## 1. Storytelling Structure for Business

### The SCR Framework (Situation, Complication, Resolution)

Barbara Minto's Pyramid Principle adapted for business narrative. Works for any audience.

**Situation:** The established facts everyone agrees on.
**Complication:** What changed, what problem arose, what makes the situation untenable.
**Resolution:** What you're doing about it, and why this solution works.

**Example — Investor update:**
> **Situation:** We entered Q2 with €650K ARR and a target of €800K. Our DACH pipeline was strong at 3x coverage.
>
> **Complication:** Two large deals (€90K combined ARR) that were expected to close in May pushed to Q3 due to procurement delays on the customer side. We ended Q2 at €710K — below target but within the range we'd flag as manageable.
>
> **Resolution:** Both deals are now signed with June start dates. We're entering Q3 at €800K ARR. We've added a new procurement risk flag to our pipeline methodology to catch this pattern earlier.

**Why it works:** It respects the audience's intelligence, acknowledges the problem directly, and frames your response before they can object.

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### The Problem-Solution-Evidence Structure

Best for pitches, product announcements, and strategy communications.

1. **The world as it is:** What's the current reality?
2. **What's broken about it:** Why is the status quo painful or inefficient?
3. **What we're doing:** Your specific solution
4. **Why it works:** Evidence, mechanism, or proof
5. **What happens next:** Call to action or forward look

**Example — All-hands strategy communication:**
> The world as it is: We have 80 customers in DACH. Churn is 8% annually. That means we're losing 6–7 customers a year just to stay flat.
>
> What's broken: Our onboarding takes 6 weeks. By week 4, customers haven't seen value yet and they're questioning the decision. We've traced 60% of churn to customers who never completed onboarding.
>
> What we're doing: We're redesigning onboarding to show the first meaningful mobility report within 48 hours of account activation.
>
> Why it will work: We ran this with 5 pilot customers in Q2. Time-to-first-value dropped from 4 weeks to 2 days. 4 of 5 expanded their contract within 60 days.
>
> What happens next: Engineering ships the new onboarding flow by August 15. CS is retrained by August 22. We'll run the new flow with all new customers from September 1 and report back at the October all-hands.

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## 2. The Founder's Narrative

The founder's personal story is one of the most underutilized assets in a startup. Used well, it anchors the company's mission and creates genuine connection.

### The Founder Story Structure

**Origin:** What led you to this problem? (Ideally personal — you experienced it, someone you loved experienced it, you couldn't stop thinking about why nobody was solving it)

**Insight:** What did you see that others didn't? (Your unique perspective or unfair advantage)

**Decision:** The moment you committed. (Specific, not aspirational — "I left my job on March 14" not "I decided to pursue my passion")

**What you've learned:** 2–3 honest observations that shaped your approach. (Including what you got wrong)

**Where you're going:** Connection from your personal why to where the company is heading.

**Example (condensed):**
> My mother had a fall in 2018 that broke her hip. She spent 3 months in rehabilitation. The terrifying part: nobody saw it coming. Her doctor had assessed her fall risk 4 months earlier — using a paper questionnaire. I spent two years talking to geriatricians trying to understand why this assessment was still done by hand, on paper, in 2018. The answer: nobody had made it easy enough for a non-specialist to do it digitally. That's what we're building.

**Why it matters:** Investors, candidates, and customers all respond to a founder who started from a real problem rather than a market opportunity. The narrative makes you memorable and makes the mission credible.

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## 3. How to Deliver Bad News Across Audiences

### Universal principles

1. **Internal first.** Always. Every time. No exceptions.
2. **Direct, not hedged.** "We missed our Q2 target by 12%" beats "Q2 performance came in below our expectations."
3. **Own it before explaining it.** Context comes after acknowledgment, not before.
4. **State what you're doing.** Bad news without a response plan creates panic.
5. **Give a timeline.** "We'll know more by [date]" is better than open-ended uncertainty.

### Delivering bad news to employees

**Format:** Synchronous (all-hands or team meeting), followed by written summary.

**What to say:**
- What happened (factual, no spin)
- What it means for the company
- What it means for them specifically (will roles change? Will comp change?)
- What you're doing about it
- When you'll have more information

**What not to say:**
- "I can't share the details" (share everything you legally can)
- "This is actually good news because..." (if it's bad news, don't reframe it before acknowledging it)
- "We saw this coming" (if you did, why didn't you tell them?)

**Example — Missed fundraise:**
> "I have to share news that's disappointing. We went out to raise a Series A in Q1, and we didn't close the round. We had term sheets that fell through when the market conditions shifted in April. We're not in crisis — we have 12 months of runway — but we need to recalibrate. Here's what that means concretely: we're pausing 3 open headcount. Everyone currently on the team keeps their role. We're going back to market in Q4 with stronger metrics. I'll share our updated financial model with everyone by Friday and answer every question you have."

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### Delivering bad news to investors

**Format:** Written update (monthly update format) + proactive call if material.

**What to say:**
- Headline the bad news in the first paragraph (don't bury it)
- Context: what changed and what didn't change
- What you're doing about it
- What you need from them (if anything)

**What investors hate:**
- Finding out from someone other than you
- Bad news wrapped in so much context they have to work to find it
- "We're watching it closely" without specific action
- Consistent over-optimism followed by consistent misses

**Example — Investor update paragraph:**
> "Revenue miss: We ended Q2 at €710K ARR vs. a target of €800K. Two deals totaling €90K pushed to Q3 due to customer procurement delays (not product or relationship issues — both have since signed). We've adjusted our sales process to flag procurement risk earlier. Q3 is starting at €800K with those deals live."

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### Delivering bad news to customers

**Scope:** Only share bad news that affects them. Don't share internal struggles that aren't relevant to their experience.

**Format:** Proactive communication from their account owner or a senior leader.

**What customers need:**
- What happened (that affects them)
- What you're doing about it
- What they should do (if anything)
- Who to contact

**What customers don't need:**
- Your internal financial struggles
- Drama about team changes
- More detail than affects their use of your product

**Example — Service disruption:**
> "Yesterday evening we experienced a 90-minute service outage that affected your access to [feature]. We've identified the root cause (a failed database migration) and deployed a fix. Your data is intact and complete. We've implemented additional monitoring to prevent this from recurring. I'd like to schedule a brief call to answer any questions you have."

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## 4. Narrative Consistency Checklist

Use before any significant external communication.

### Pre-communication audit

**Factual consistency:**
- [ ] Is the ARR/revenue figure consistent with what we've shared with investors?
- [ ] Is the team size consistent with what's on LinkedIn and our careers page?
- [ ] Are our stated priorities consistent with our published roadmap?
- [ ] Is our "stage" description consistent across all channels? (We can't be "early stage" to investors and "established leader" to customers)

**Message consistency:**
- [ ] Does this message conflict with anything said in the last 90 days?
- [ ] If an employee read this external message, would they recognize the company?
- [ ] If an investor read our internal all-hands, would they find anything that contradicts what we've told them?

**Audience appropriateness:**
- [ ] Have we answered the key question for this specific audience?
- [ ] Have we avoided sharing information this audience doesn't need and shouldn't have?
- [ ] Have we framed the message for what this audience cares about — not what we want them to care about?

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## 5. All-Hands Presentation Templates

See `templates/all-hands-template.md` for the complete slide-by-slide template.

### Monthly all-hands (30–45 min)

**Structure:**
1. State of the company (10 min) — honest, metric-driven
2. Progress on quarterly rocks (5 min) — on track / off track / done
3. Team spotlight (5 min) — one team's work, why it matters
4. What's coming next 30 days (5 min) — what to expect
5. Q&A (10–15 min) — real questions, real answers

### Quarterly all-hands (60–90 min)

**Structure:**
1. Last quarter results vs. targets (15 min)
2. What we learned (10 min) — honest reflection on what didn't work
3. Next quarter priorities (15 min) — company rocks, why these three
4. Strategy update (10 min) — anything changing? Why?
5. Team recognition (10 min) — specific, values-linked examples
6. Q&A (15–20 min)

### Annual all-hands (2–4 hours, often a full day)

**Structure:**
1. Year in review: what we achieved (30 min)
2. What we learned — what we'd do differently (20 min)
3. State of the company: financial health, competitive position (20 min)
4. 3-year vision update (30 min)
5. Next year's strategy and priorities (30 min)
6. Department presentations: what each team is building (60 min)
7. Celebrations and recognition (20 min)
8. Q&A + social (open-ended)

### The "no-BS questions" technique

At any all-hands, reserve the last 5 minutes for: "What question are you afraid to ask publicly? Submit anonymously via [link]."

Read 3–5 of the hardest ones out loud and answer them honestly. This builds more trust than 45 minutes of polished presentation.
