How to Tell Your Product Story

Five ways to make your product communications more story-ish

In 1836, a naturalist started mulling over– as a hobby– a theory that had been bubbling inside the scientific community since the 18th century. More than twenty years later, one cold day in November, On the Origin of Species went on sale. It was a big idea but such a good story that by Christmas nearly everyone in England was excitedly repeating it. Today we still easily recognise Charles Darwin as the author of that story.

As product managers one of the most impactful things we do is communicate ideas. Because we sit between many different individuals– business people, technical teams, customers, and more– we need to get really good at relaying all kinds of information in all kinds of different ways to make sure our message is received and understood. In today’s busy world, help your audience engage with information about your product and step away with the key points. And the best way to do that? By telling stories.

To tell a story well, there are several things to remember: 

1. Select a meaningful message

2. Know who your audience is and their role in your story

3. Add some conflict

4. Get the structure right

5. Connect to your audience

1. Select a meaningful message

Know why you’re telling your story in the first place, and the message you want your audience to come away with. In product, this could be to explain why your team chose one path over another, or why your product vision is compelling and meaningful.

In his discussion with Lenny Rachitsky, Figma CPO Yuhki Yamashita said that a big part of being a great product manager is being a great storyteller. He goes on to say that product managers can use storytelling to understand “the power of synthesis,” taking a lot of information and bringing it together in a single message that allows you to push an idea forward. Make sure your synthesis is clear and, regardless of what story you’re telling or what you want your audience to come away with, creates a central point or theme that your story builds towards.

2. Know who your audience is and their role in your story

Recently, after a project for a client I was working on wrapped up, my team and I were asked to tell our story to the rest of the company. We got together and thought about how to do this using the Pixar formula (see below)-- making sure to raise the stakes and hit the right beats, with ourselves at the centre and our team’s trials and tribulations the main conflict. It was cathartic. But it wasn’t working. And then we realised why: we had made ourselves the heroes of the story. Usually in product the storyteller isn’t the hero at all, and it was true in our case: we were the guide. 

When you have access to special information that can help your audience (or your users), you have a special gift that will guide them on their way. What is their problem? Where do they want to be? What do you have access to that can help them bridge that gap? If your audience is the hero, your the guide that will show them the right path.

3. Add some conflict

Let’s be real. The best stories only start once something goes wrong. (Think Hans Gruber’s terrorists taking over the Christmas party while John Maclane is taking off his shoes.) 

Great storytellers craft narratives that have all sorts of obstacles and hardships strewn in the path of their protagonists. In order to be satisfied with a happy ending, audiences have to watch the main characters struggle to achieve their goals.

In response to those obstacles, there are choices to be made. Each choice has potential risks, impacts, and rewards involved. All of this can be summed up in a single question: Why does the audience care?

The higher the stakes, the more enjoyable and engaging the story is. Whatever story you’re telling, at that moment the stakes should feel like everything. 

We can break stakes into three different kinds:

• Internal stakes: These are psychological. If your hero fails, what will be lost, and why is that difficult or sad? This could be the impact to your team and stakeholders or the way users feel about your product.

• External stakes: This is what’s going on in the world. Think about your industry, and your product’s place within it. What physically will happen to that world if the hero fails– will your customers be underserved, will revenue suffer, or your brand face reputational damage? 

• Philosophical stakes: These are the values or beliefs that impact the world, in terms of market trends or value innovation, and what it means if they change or stay the same. 

4. Get the structure right

Aristotle wrote the rules of storytelling in his pamphlet ‘Poetics’ in 335BC, which are still followed today. This is where it was first outlined that basic stories have three acts: a beginning, middle, and end.

In the past 2,000 years, successful storytellers have built on this idea. 

Pixar famously uses the same formula for its films, called the story spine, and it has made them one of the most successful Studios out there. The story spine goes like this:

“Once upon a time _______________. Every day _______________. One day _______________. Because of that __________________. Because of that _________________. Until finally ______________.”

It includes how the world is at the beginning, before setting up an “inciting incident” that sets the story in motion. The protagonist begins on a journey, where they face a series of challenges that force them to make difficult decisions. By the final act, the protagonist is in danger of losing everything, and must make choices they weren’t capable of at the beginning of the story.

This has a certain shape to it, and knowing the shape of a story can help us see how big the stakes are. “There’s no reason the shapes of stories can’t be fed into computers,” Kurt Vonnegut said in a lecture that stemmed from his rejected Master’s thesis, “they are beautiful shapes”. He drew out eight different shapes, representing common narratives used throughout history. Nancy Duarte took the idea of drawing the shape of a story and applied it to presentations in her 2011 TED Talk. Here’s how it goes:

• You compare the current situation, the status quo, to your vision for the future. Amplify this gap.

• For the rest of the presentation, go backwards and forwards between these two points in order to make the status quo as unappealing as possible and by responding to resistance your idea may face from the audience.

• End with the world as it would be with your idea adopted.

5. Connect to your audience

While taking your audience backwards and forwards between the two points in time, if you can induce three basic hormones in your audience, they’ll be sure to remain engaged. These hormones are oxytocin, endorphins, and dopamine. 

Oxytocin is a hormone that creates empathy between yourself and your audience, generating trust and generosity, bonding them to you. It is the hormone that makes us feel human. To do this, be vulnerable in your storytelling. Don’t just refer to KPIs, metrics, or large groups of people. Make it personal by talking about a named individual– perhaps someone your team spoke to during your user research– that your audience will relate to.

Dopamine can be created with suspenseful moments, like cliffhangers, and will increase attention and memory. If you are giving a talk, create a scene that your audience can really see and feel. Be surprising. Keep them wanting to know what comes next.

And finally, endorphins make people more creative, more relaxed, and more focused. Generate endorphins by making people laugh. Help your audience discover the misconceptions you found in your idea of the world or through your work by sharing a funny moment.

Put everything together to make your product communications more story-ish and share your team’s ideas effectively.

One last tip, from Steve Rawling: Build a story bank in a spreadsheet, so you are able to draw from your experiences at the drop of a hat, capable of making sure your big ideas stick.