How Founders Can Use Storytelling to Build Trust and Scale Their Business

At Inc. Founders House, three business leaders explored how entrepreneurs who share relatable experiences can tap into loyal customers and sustainable growth.

BY INC. CUSTOM STUDIO

At Inc. Founders House during SXSW weekend, SolComms hosted an all-star panel on the art of storytelling, featuring (L-R) Kim Vaccarella, founder and CEO of Bogg; Bruno Solari, founder of SolComms; and Nadya Okamoto, co-founder of August.

Every founder has a story, and how they share it could make all the difference in shaping their company.

This topic came into focus at this year’s Inc. Founders House event at SXSW. During the panel “The Art of Founder Storytelling,” moderator Shibani Joshi of Inc. Custom Studio sat down with Bruno Solari, the founder of PR agency SolComms; Kim Vaccarella, the founder and CEO of Bogg Bag; and Nadya Okamoto, the co-founder of the menstrual care brand August, to unpack how entrepreneurs can use personal narratives to earn consumer trust and business growth.

Founder storytelling can help build that trust—but it has to be authentic, relatable, and capable of evolution as the business expands, according to the Inc. Founders House panelists.

Turning an individual story into a shared experience

Okamoto, who built August alongside a massive social following, emphasized that her early storytelling worked because it made people see themselves in it. “When you can tell your story, and it makes someone else realize something about their story, you have that bond,” she said.

Working in a space that’s often stigmatized, she leaned into relatable, even uncomfortable truths to spark connection. That openness, she explained, became “a bid for connection” and, ultimately, a gateway to building a loyal customer base.

Building solid relationships through mutual engagement

For Vaccarella, storytelling was about building a feedback loop with customers and engaging with them. Early on, she focused on relationships with small retailers, then amplified those relationships through social media.

“Anybody and anyone that would talk about Bogg Bag, I was then talking about them in turn,” she said. That reciprocity helped her create a community that “has paid dividends for me going forward because those people are still there and they love to talk about our brands,” she added.

This approach helped Vaccarella partner with larger retailers and land Bogg Bag at 9,500 stores nationwide. “It’s really about taking all that I’ve learned through building those small relationships along the way and building them into massive relationships,” she said.

Reframing failures and using challenges to deepen a story

According to Solari, putting a positive spin on failures—and not just highlighting polished wins—can help develop a story. “I always advise founders to not think a loss is a loss,” he said. “A failure is a win.” Instead of hiding setbacks, founders should think of ways to turn them into narrative opportunities, especially amid industry tension.

He pointed to how external challenges, like tariffs or supply-chain disruptions, can become powerful storytelling moments when framed transparently. “Don’t put shame into your failures,” he added. “Power your failures into your successes.”

Focusing on relevance, not virality

Manufacturing online hype is a common strategy for brands nowadays. But all three panelists pushed back on the idea that going viral equals success.

“Virality is not everything,” Okamoto said. She noted that some of August’s viral moments drove little measurable impact, while others significantly boosted impressions and sales.

There’s also a cost. “The beauty of being more public is you win really publicly, but you also lose really publicly,” she said, adding that viral content often invites controversy, which founders need to be prepared for.

Solari echoed the sentiment from a strategy perspective, saying, “Everyone wants to go viral, but virality is fleeting.” Instead, he advised brands to “create trends or insert yourself into trends,” focusing on cultural relevance rather than one-off spikes.

Knowing when to step back from the spotlight

Founder visibility might become a limitation as companies scale. Okamoto, for instance, acknowledged that while being the face of August helped drive early growth, it’s not sustainable or scalable long term. “It is actually, I think, a danger for me to be the only face of the business,” she said, especially as the brand expands into mass retail and broader demographics.

Her approach now is to position herself as “top of funnel” rather than the entire brand identity, pulling back from constant visibility and investing in a more diverse brand voice.

Solari noted this as a broader trend, sharing how more founders are actively trying to separate their personal identity from their company as both mature. “Over the past two months, I’ve gotten calls from founders saying, ‘I can’t be the face of this company. I need to be more than that,’” he said, adding that some founders “want to separate themselves and want more for their narrative.”

The takeaway is that founder storytelling isn’t static. What works at launch may need to change and evolve as the business grows. As Vaccarella put it while reflecting on her own journey, “It doesn’t matter when you start.” It’s about how you show up and build from there.

Watch the entire panel discussion below:

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