CASE STUDY
STARTUP
Startups face a constant barrage of challenges. Raising money, finding product-market-fit (PMF), knowing when and how to pivot, and gaining customers that don’t cancel, to name a few. The use of AI doesn’t guarantee success either. It’s more of a mandatory element for most startups in 2024 and will be even more so in the coming years.
So, what does every startup team need to master to gain outsized success across the board? In our experience, masterful storytelling is crucial to improving fundraising, securing partnerships, testing MVPs, and closing sales.
THE CHALLENGE
A VC we advised contacted us to help one of their portfolio companies improve their pitch before they went out to raise the next round of capital. At first, we didn’t jump at the opportunity because it was outside of what we did at Emergent Line. But after speaking with the VC and hearing why they wanted us specifically to work with this company (and others after them), we understood. We were great at telling incredible stories that clients, partners, and investors loved.
But we didn’t want to become a pitching agency, and our founder wasn’t sure it was the right call until during our regular Monday Morning Meeting (MMM.) Everyone seemed to realize (simultaneously) that we could build a Storytelling Copilot for Pitches using technology we had already built internally.
THE PROCESS & SOLUTION
Storytelling is more than messaging, decks, and tone. It’s building a strategy, something we have been doing since day one for all our clients. With that in mind, we scoured all our previous work to see if we could gather enough internal data to build a Story Telling Copilot that would work for clients in different industries.
In a short period, we built a Storytelling Copilot for a small cohort of current clients to use, test, break, and generally put through the paces. Could we control for hallucinations? Were the pitches good? Were they different or very similar to one another? Did users find the suggestions helpful?
THE RESULT
We ultimately built a robust system that could analyze the quality of pitches for content, tone, and delivery, along with suggestions for improvement of the speaker and deck.
Our Storytelling Copilot has been used to raise capital for users and improve sales pitches successfully.
And what happened to the Startup, you ask? They were able to raise their next round of capital and position the venture with a stronger offering for users and investors.
