The power of storytelling with prototypes

In my five year journey of working with teams who try to bring their ideas to market, I've seen a lot of ideas and a lot of different teams and people. I often ask myself:

What is the difference between teams who are successful and teams who are not?

In my experience, one interesting and very important differentiator is storytelling: Are teams able to tell a compelling, convincing story about their idea which touches the hearts and minds of people?

Let's look at somebody who is one of the best story-tellers currently alive: Elon Musk. I recently stumbled upon his presentation of the Model 3. The first ten minutes he doesn't talk about the new car. He talks about why Tesla exists, his vision & mission, about global warming and his "top secret master plan". With setting this narrative, he makes the viewers part of something much bigger. It's not about a car, it's about saving the world. Nothing less than that. Let's be honest, who wouldn't want to be part of this journey? With this brilliant story, which is a little bit exaggerated, but true, he touches the hearts and minds of the people. He makes us part of something important, much bigger than us. And gives us the feeling that we are not alone. We are part of a tribe!

This story is so compelling to people that they are happily willing to buy a car where every car-expert tells me that there are much better & cheaper cars out there. That's how powerful stories can be.

You probably ask yourself: What does this has to do with prototyping? A lot. Because every prototype tells a story. Prototypes can NOT NOT tell a story. And this has HUGE implications how you need to build prototypes. How you need to talk about prototypes. And how you can use your prototypes to tell inspiring stories.

We generate a lot of hard-facts in Business Design. Almost like little scientists. That's important. That's the base. But we also need to become great storytellers for our ideas. Because we have to convince our sponsors, investors, customers and ourselves. And prototypes can help us with that!

P.s.: Another great example of a great story-teller is Steve Jobs. Especially his presentation of the iPhone 1 is legendary. I recently read, that he practiced this presentation for at least one year. He told everyone the same story over and over again. On a weekly basis. Until he head it right.