21 Founder Stories: Great Startup Branding

How to tell a founder story?

That's the million dollar question every startup should ask.

Because no matter how you feel about founder stories, the most brandable, most sellable, most lovable startups in the world have a compelling human face leading the way.

You can think of this as "the face of the brand."

But every good founder story won't just stand alone. It'll set the tone for everything as a whole.

It'll unify every marketing story told across the startup brand back to a single shared narrative.

The best startup founder stories do three things:

1. They focus on specific human interest moments as it relates to the founding of the product.

2. They're real and relatable. No Steve Jobs impressions: aka Elizabeth Holmes (Theranos) in a black turtle neck.

3. They position the brand as an underdog. It's a battle versus the status quo.

If done right, a founder story gives a startup the chance to broaden the base.

Having a compelling character at the core of your mission allows the marketing to engage audiences who otherwise wouldn't be interested.

Case in point, there have been two Hollywood movies made about Steve Jobs and Apple. We're still waiting for the movie about Microsoft.

Not that Bill Gates isn't worthy. It's just that the best marketing dramas with the best characters have an X-Factor (traits like the 3 points above).

X-Factors don't typically come in the image of perfect comb-overs and a nice cotton sweater vest. But that's another story for another time.

Keep reading for 21 great founder stories.

21 great founder stories

1. charity: water

ESSENCE: Scott Harrison's journey from a nightclub promoter to founding Charity: Water to bring clean water to everyone on the planet.

FOUNDER STORY: At 28 years old, Scott Harrison had it all. A top nightclub promoter in New York City, his life was an endless cycle of drugs, booze, and parties. But 10 years in, desperately unhappy and morally bankrupt, he asked himself, "What would the exact opposite of my life look like?" Walking away from everything, Harrison spent the next 16 months on a hospital ship in West Africa and discovered his true calling. In 2006, with no money and less than no experience, Harrison founded charity: water. Today, his organization has raised over $300 million to bring clean drinking water to more than 9.5 million people around the globe.

BONUS: Because I think this is the best founder story ever written. I'm sharing the full Charity Water story from Youtube.

Just seeing how Scott's story shapes the marketing of his brand, will change how you think about founder stories.

2. SPANX

ESSENCE: One simple cut of the pantyhose.

FOUNDER STORY: In 1998, Sara Blakely was getting ready for a party and realized she didn't have the right undergarments to provide a smooth look under her white pants. Armed with scissors -- and sheer genius -- Sara cut the feet off her control top pantyhose and created her own solution. Two years (and countless prototypes) later, SPANX launched. And that's when the SPANX magic began.

3. Dropbox

ESSENCE: “I started Dropbox more out of just personal frustration,” Founder, Drew Houston.

FOUNDER STORY: It happened. Again. On a long bus ride with a mountain of work to do, a college student realized he'd forgotten his thumb drive. With all his files out of reach (in the days before the cloud), this meant 'S.O.L.'

Just minutes later, he was coding a fix to the problem.

By 2007, at age 24, Justin Houston invented a cloud storage platform for his own personal use. Later, he built it out into the file-hosting company the world knows today as Dropbox.

4. Athletic Brewing

ESSENCE: Bill likes beer, but beer doesn't always keep up with Bill's life.

FOUNDER STORY: Back in 2014, Athletic's co-founder, Bill, was working on Wall Street. His job was 24/7. He was going out a lot, trying to stay active, and still be his best. But it was nearly impossible.

Then one day, Bill had a wild idea.

"Why can't there be an amazing non-alcoholic beer that keeps up with my busy life, that wouldn't affect me the next day?"

"And... one that actually tasted great?"

"That would be a great idea," Bill thought. "Someone should actually fix this."

Of course, Bill had never brewed anything before. Not once. And making NA beer taste good? Needed a whole new process. So... Bill came up with one.

But he still needed the help of a real brewer. Enter his co-founder, John.

Bill had approached a ton of brewers. And almost everyone was making fun of him. But only John had seen the potential.

So he said... "No."

Then, after second thought, he said "Sure... why not?"

Together, Bill and John were two totally delusional people. And just like that, they were off to the races: Pioneering a new era of non-alcoholic craft beers.

5. Who Gives a Crap

ESSENCE: A toilet and a dream.

FOUNDER STORY: It all started with 50 hours on a toilet and a dream.

Actually, it started when we learned billions of people don't have access to clean water or a toilet. It's devastating, it's dangerous and we knew we had to do something about it.

That's when we created our unique business model - 50% of profits donated to help the billions of people in need.

Crowdfunding for our first production run, our CEO Simon sat on a toilet for 50 hours until we successfully reached our $50,000 goal. Since then, we've made a whole lot of toilet paper, added new products to our line up, donated millions and grown our community of people passionate about making the world a better place.

Awww…

6. Warby Parker

ESSENCE: Broken glasses. A college backpacking trip. And squinting eyes.

FOUNDER STORY: Every idea starts with a problem. Ours was simple: Glasses are too expensive.

Our founders were students when one of them lost his glasses on a backpacking trip. The cost of replacing them was so high that he spent the first semester of grad school without them, squinting and complaining. (We don't recommend this.)

The others had similar experiences and were amazed at how hard it was to find a pair of great frames that didn't leave their wallets bare. Where were the options?

It turns out there's a simple explanation. The eyewear industry is dominated by a single company that has been able to keep prices artificially high while reaping huge profits from consumers who have no other options.

Warby Parker was started to create an alternative. By circumventing traditional channels, designing glasses in-house, and engaging with customers directly, we're able to provide higher-quality, better-looking prescription eyewear at a fraction of the going price.

We believe that buying glasses should be easy and fun. It should leave you happy and good-looking, with money in your pocket.

7. Beam

ESSENCE: Just a simple coffee and a chat.

FOUNDER STORY: In 2016, Alex Stephany became friends with a homeless man who would sit outside his local train station. Alex would stop to chat with him and buy him coffee. The man had been out of work longer than he could remember.

Then one time, a few months went past, and he didn't appear. After some worry, the man resurfaced. And Alex noticed he looked completely different. He was clean shaven. But he looked years older.

He told Alex that he had a heart attack. And had just been discharged from a hospital.

And it struck Alex then, that it had been months since he'd known this man, and his condition was worse than ever. And he still sat there on those concrete steps.

Alex began to think what he could do to make a lasting difference to his life. What would that look like?

As the months passed, Alex became determined to find ways to help the man leave homelessness for good.

So in 2017, he founded Beam.

Today, as a social enterprise, Alex and the Beam team are using the power of people and technology to transform how the world supports those left behind.

Enabled by tech and AI, Beam's expert caseworkers support thousands of underserved people into homes and jobs, while our software has slashed admin for thousands of frontline workers.

8. DASH Water

ESSENCE: Two founders with farming backgrounds and a naive state of mind.

FOUNDER STORY: Both from farming backgrounds, Alex Wright and Jack Scott saw firsthand the staggering reality - up to 40% of food grown globally goes to waste.

The pair met while working for a large soft drinks company, where they identified a gap in the market for a soft drink range committed to protecting people and the planet.

Starting the business at just 24 years of age, Alex and Jack were both naive and optimistic, which allowed them to challenge the status quo without being limited by traditional norms. With no manufacturing experience, they began experimenting with infusing water with imperfect fruit, carbonating it, and taking it to local parks for feedback.  

From the beginning, Alex and Jack built DASH Water with a clear purpose: to disrupt the soft drinks industry with a product that champions taste, health, and sustainability. Their mission was simple yet bold: to create delicious sparkling water using wonky fruit and veg – perfectly imperfect produce that might otherwise go to waste. 

9. Patagonia

ESSENCE: I never wanted to be a businessman.

FOUNDER STORY: I never wanted to be a businessman. I started as a craftsman, making climbing gear for my friends and myself, then got into apparel.

As we began to witness the extent of global warming and ecological destruction, and our own contribution to it, Patagonia committed to using our company to change the way business was done.

If we could do the right thing while making enough to pay the bills, we could influence customers and other businesses, and maybe change the system along the way.

We started with our products, using materials that caused less harm to the environment. We gave away 1% of sales each year. We became a certified B Corp and a California benefit corporation, writing our values into our corporate charter so they would be preserved.

More recently, in 2018, we changed the company’s purpose to: We’re in business to save our home planet.

10. Ritual Zero Proof

ESSENCE: Ritual Began Because We Love To Drink

FOUNDER STORY: Ritual began because we love to drink. We like to make art and we like to stay out too late laughing. We're passionate foodies and damn good cooks, so Ritual started in our kitchens.

The goal wasn't to replace liquor —bite your tongue! — but to add a new tool to our cocktail kit. Another way to mark a moment.

Simple enough, right? Yeah, not so much. It took more than a year and hundreds of iterations to perfect our recipes.

We learned how to blend jambu and prickly ash, how to extract the essence of blue agave, reduce the oil in juniper and heighten the perfume of pine. We taste-tested vanilla from Madagascar against vanilla from China. We sought guidance from master chefs and held tasting sessions for Chicago's best bartenders.

We weren't interested in a glass of "something." We're not interested in new-age goop that defies explanation, or fancy spa water that bears no resemblance to liquor.

We weren’t satisfied until it tasted and smelled and felt like the real thing. A new way to make an old favorite (or an Old Fashioned.)

11. Mailchimp

ESSENCE: Empowering the underdog.

FOUNDER STORY: More than two decades ago, Ben Chestnut and Dan Kurzius started a web design agency called the Rocket Science Group. Their focus was on big, corporate clients, but on the side, they created a delightful email marketing service for small businesses.

Mailchimp was designed as an alternative to the oversized, expensive email software of the early 2000s. Founded in Atlanta in 2001, it offered small business owners access to many of the same digital marketing advantages that their much larger competitors enjoyed, powering their success and enabling them to grow.

In the years that followed, Mailchimp continued to deliver results for budding entrepreneurs. But just as those original customers continued to grow, so did Mailchimp, evolving its product offerings to serve companies and marketing teams of all sizes and skill levels.

Today, we continue to empower the underdog and strive to be the business partner we wish we had way back in the beginning.

12. Ben & Jerry's

ESSENCE: Gas station beginnings with worldly ambition.

FOUNDER STORY: From a renovated gas station in Burlington, Vermont, to far-off places with names we sometimes mispronounce, the journey that began in 1978 with 2 guys and the ice cream business they built is as legendary as the ice cream is euphoric.

Today, we love making ice cream - but using our business to make the world a better place gives our work its meaning.

13. Magic Spoon

ESSENCE: Childhood classics. Grown up ingredients.

FOUNDER STORY: Hi, we’re Greg and Gabi, co-founders of Magic Spoon.

We’ve been friends for ten years: met at college, lived together, even started a previous business together (you could call us “cereal” entrepreneurs).

We both grew up eating cereal every morning for breakfast, binging on the sugary crunch of the classic brands and then crashing in the afternoon when we were supposed to be at our most productive.

Now that we’re adults, we’ve searched for years for a cereal that has the same addictive quality but actually fuels us. We've turned up nothing.

Plus, as we learned more about the cereal industry, we were shocked by the true scope of the problem. The average American eats 100 bowls of cereal a year (this even includes people who don’t eat a single bowl!), and kids are one of the largest consumers. Yet almost every version in the aisle is stuck in that old paradigm of grains and sugar.

We experimented for over a year to create a cereal inspired by the flavors and nostalgia of Saturday-morning-cartoon cereal but upgraded for a 21st-century consumer. A guilt-free treat that tastes like you remember and you can eat at any time of day.

That’s what Magic Spoon is all about—we hope you enjoy!

14. Bumble

ESSENCE: Rewriting the dating rules.

FOUNDER STORY: In 2014, Whitney Wolfe Herd was on a mission to rewrite the dating rules. She founded Bumble with one goal: to build the most trusted space to find love, where women make the first move, allowing them to take control of the online dating experience.

A dating app where connection is rooted in respect.

As CEO, Herd still leads with the same belief: that finding love online should feel intentional, safe, and authentic.

Bumble is about more than dating. It’s about helping people find what matters, with care, intention, and heart.

15. Allbirds

ESSENCE: It's all part of making better things in a better way.

FOUNDER STORY: Our story began in New Zealand in 2007, the passion project of former professional footballer Tim Brown.

Disillusioned with over-branded shoes made with petroleum-based synthetics, he saw an opportunity to do things better.

Partnering with renewables expert Joey Zwillinger in 2014, the two set out to revolutionize the shoe industry.

Defying industry norms, they harness the power of nature using superfine Merino wool... introducing Allbirds to the world with a single shoe in 2016: the Wool Runner, an instant best-seller grounded in design, comfort, and natural materials.

An immediate sensation, it soon became known as "the world's most comfortable shoe."

16. Impossible Foods

ESSENCE: Make meaty meat from plants a successful reality.

FOUNDER STORY: In 2011, instead of panicking, our founder set out on the mission to make delicious, mouthwateringly juicy meat a better way for the planet: from plants. And that is exactly what happened.

Pat Brown realized something: people love eating meat, but how it’s made is a big problem.

In 2016, after five years of hard work, we shared with the world the burger that launched a movement: the Impossible Burger at Momofuku restaurant in NYC. Pretty soon after, we gained recognition and partnered with influential chefs and national restaurants eager to join the mission.

In 2021, then we hatched Impossible Chicken from made from plants. A whopping 81% of consumers say Impossible Nuggets taste as good or better than animal-based chicken nuggets.

We didn’t just set out to make a chicken substitute, we made it better.

We're always looking for new ways to make nutrient-packed, savory products made from plants that are better for the planet.

17. Policygenius

ESSENCE: Getting insurance shopping out of the stone age.

FOUNDER STORY: In the early 2010s, two McKinsey consultants, Jennifer Fitzgerald and Francois de Lame, realized the insurance industry was stuck in the Stone Age.

Their idea: “Could we modernize life insurance online and help people feel good about finding the right coverage?”

In 2014, they launched a startup in New York City called…KnowItOwl. The name didn’t last, but the idea did. By the end of the following year, the rebranded Policygenius had already reached more than 800,000 people looking for the right life insurance.

Since then, we’ve expanded to offer home, auto, disability, renters, and other types of insurance. Today, we’ve helped millions of people find the best financial protection solutions for their needs — and judging from our reviews, we've helped them feel good about it.

18. tomboyx

ESSENCE: A tale of two tomboys.

FOUNDER STORY: We set out to offer a brand that is a reflection of who you are. To celebrate you being you. No matter what size, what gender, what color or what sexuality.

We started tomboyx in 2013 because we recognized a gap in the market for people like us. We asked ourselves, “How hard can it be to make good underwear?”

And by that, we meant underwear that anybody could feel comfortable in, inclusive of all sizes and gender expressions.

We began working on better underwear options for people who were failed by the status quo. We believed we could make underwear designed to perform beyond convention - sustainable underwear that focused on quality, fit and function.

In 2019, we developed new product lines to serve trans folks looking for gender affirming underwear and safer alternatives to binders.

19. Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams

ESSENCE: Always and forever, the Jeni way.

FOUNDER STORY: Jeni started making ice cream in 1996, as a 22-year-old art and art history student obsessed with scent. Blending her own oils in her spare time, she’d throw basil oil into pasta and rose petal into creme brulee. On a whim one day, she added cayenne to a tub of chocolate ice cream and took a bite. It was cold! Sweet! Then burst into flames in her throat. Jeni knew right then and there she was going to make ice cream for the rest of her life. 

Jeni opened her first shop late November 2002, in the North Market, a centuries-old public market in Columbus, Ohio. For years, she worked the counter, tweaking her recipes, and scooping for long lines of customers. This is where the earliest iterations of signature flavors like Wildberry Lavender and Brambleberry Crisp appeared.

Today, we still make ice cream the same way with Jeni’s original recipe. Free of anything fake. Full of the best ingredients we can find from producers and growers who do what they do best.

20. Rent the Runway

ESSENCE: A costly designer dress. A college kid. And too much credit card debt.

FOUNDER STORY: It was serendipity.

Over Thanksgiving break from college, our founder Jenn Hyman's younger sister Becky showed off a $2,000 designer dress she bought for a wedding.

This splurge was sending her into credit card debt!

Jenn wondered, wouldn’t it be so much smarter if we could rent designer items rather than purchase them? She returned to Harvard Business School and shared the idea with her friend, Jenny Fleiss.

In "The Meeting that Changed Everything," Jenn and Jenny wondered whether the fashion industry would be on board with their idea. They cold-emailed Diane von Furstenberg (why not start at the top?!) who agreed to a meeting.

The pair walked into Diane’s office and introduced themselves as the founders of Rent the Runway. While Diane was initially skeptical, she offered business advice and gave them each a good luck charm.

Testing the waters, Jenn, Jenny and Becky set up a pop-up shop on Harvard’s campus where students could try on and rent dresses on the spot.

Seeing the excited reactions of their peers, it dawned on the team that renting could make women feel amazing, solidifying RTR’s mission to power women to feel their best every day.

And Rent the Runway was Born.

21. Lyma Skincare

ESSENCE: This skincare is personal.

FOUNDER STORY: After the birth of her daughter in 2012, our founder Lucy fell dangerously ill. She spent six weeks in hospital battling septicaemia, riddled with toxins and being told she had no real hope for recovery.

Terrified for herself and for the future of her family, Lucy saw several leading physicians, each of them prescribing a convoluted cocktail of drugs.

Not only did nothing help. But she was left feeling even worse. She then tried a multitude of supplements, but still no improvement. At this point, she could barely function.

Then a chance meeting with Dr. Paul Clayton, a world authority on preventative degenerative disease, completely changed her life. He showed Lucy that many supplements sold today aren’t formulated to deliver benefits beyond that of a healthy, balanced diet. This seemed morally and ethically miles away from what she had been led to believe.

It also explained why nothing had worked.

Dr. Clayton prescribed Lucy a new protocol using peer-reviewed, patented ingredients. These were each dosed at active levels, had a rigorous sourcing procedure, and were formulated in a way that enabled the body to actually absorb them. Within just a matter of weeks, Lucy felt like herself again. Within months she felt better than ever before.

It was like a miracle.

Because of this transformative experience, Lucy decided to found LYMA.

How to tell your founder's startup story?

Remember the three keys to a good founder story:

1. Specific human interest moments relating to the discovery of the product.

2. Relatable. Real. Genuine. Leave the Steve Jobs' turtle neck in the closet.

3. The outcast rising up against the status quo is a winning story structure.

DON'T FORGET: Check out the Charity Water Story on Youtube. It's in my opinion, the greatest founder story ever written.

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