How storytelling plays a part in the Baltimore startup community

Origin stories are often the great myths of the startup community. Companies begin in basements, they grow in garages and boom in incubators.

And as much as those stories are a part of culture-setting, storytelling often becomes strategy for these young companies. To picture where you’re going, you just might have to make up the future.

Recently, we wanted to better understand how startup companies were using their story to set themselves apart, grow and find new paths of innovation.

So we set out for TEDCO’s Entrepreneur Expo and Stem Cell Symposium a few weeks ago to learn from entrepreneurs themselves.

As media partner of the event, Technical.ly decided to get creative by engaging the attendees in thinking about their own organizational story. We also polled our readers. More than 100 people participated, and here’s what they shared:

If you were a character in your company’s story, who would you be?

• Hero: 28%
• Villain: 14%
• Ally: 18%
• Guide: 34%
• Gatekeeper: 6%

How well is your organization telling its innovation story?

• We’re master storytellers: 24%
• We could be doing better: 58%
• We need a ton of help: 18%

Which roles would give your company super powers?

• Data Scientist: 20%
• UX Designer: 11%
• Artificial Intelligence Engineer: 12%
• Mobile Developer: 16%
• Other: 41%

TL;DR? Most people consider themselves heroes, allies or guides in their organization who want to help others to succeed. Most companies could be telling their story a whole lot better. And although mobile developers and data scientists are more highly sought after, each organization has its own unique superheroes.

We’re planning more data and learning partnerships like this in the future. And if you’re looking for ways Technical.ly can help you tell your story, click here.