It’s true because at Story99 we’ve actually worked with many in this space, helping them bring out their culture stories (from Chargebee to Hyperverge, Pricelabs, Vayavya Labs, Jodo and many more).
Ask any employee in these companies (the names that I dropped above) and they will tell you that the stories they saw & read, influenced their decision to join.
-Amrit, Founder, Story99.com
Story99.com is a branding & storytelling consultancy for B2B, tech & deeptech
Culture is what binds a group of strangers under immense pressure.
And sure, the career page can list down a bunch of values, but that’s hardly enough. A great story captures the messy, vivid reality of a Tuesday afternoon instead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PS8kThNpmso
Authentic culture stories influence the candidates to say yes or walk away, serving as a sort of a natural filter. The above video if you saw, beautifully showcases the culture at Jodo - a fintech headquartered in Bangalore, India.
One of the problems with culture videos is that it’s difficult to have a strong engaging narrative beyond a minute or two.
Compared to that, an origin story is follows a traditional storytelling arc better. There is a structure and a progression to it. And so it becomes relatively easier to have a really engaging narrative. Watch the Pricelabs origin story by us and you will agree.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtWAJJwe1cI
Learning how a company came to be, tells a lot about what kind of culture and working environment an employee can expect.
A sweeping company vision sounds nice, but an exhausted software engineer might have a very vertical specific question: does this company believes in breaking things or playing it safe?
Likewise, someone applying for the customer success role might want to specifically understand if they are signing up for something much beyond a traditional call-centre job.
Answering these questions require vertical focus stories - like what we made for Chargebee (a unicorn today).