Startup Success: Turning Challenges into Victories

Only 10% of startups grasp the importance of strategic communications in establishing credibility. While many may have innovative products or services, their failure to articulate operational strengths, customer segments, technological prowess, or contingency plans for economic shifts hinders customer trust, leaving them as unproven entities.

It’s exciting to work with startups and their founders to address challenges. However, achieving the desired brand visibility or share of voice within a short timeframe is difficult for many reasons.

To begin, let’s understand the dualities: why they exist, the difficulties, and how to address them.

The Thrill of Building from Scratch

Startups in their infancy need proper handholding to define their voice.

This is an opportunity for communicators to showcase creativity—a freedom often absent when working with larger enterprises. Because they move so quickly, strategies can pivot spontaneously.

Plus, the founder’s willingness to collaborate with the team inspires out-of-the-box thinking—something crucial when competing against industry giants.

Here, brand guidelines and legacy narratives don’t constrain you. The wins—even small ones—are rewarding.

Knowing the game comes first

Focus on the startup’s specialization: its gameplay, the players, their strengths and weaknesses, the end goal, and the strategy required to achieve it. While prior experience helps, the rules and dynamics vary across businesses. The biggest mistake? Playing a game, you know nothing about.

Right in the Difficult

Founder Inexperience: Many founders are subject-matter experts or visionaries but often undervalue storytelling. They believe their technology or capabilities will “speak for themselves,” but overly technical communication becomes emotionally flat and disconnects the brand from its audience.

Storytelling matters because customers and investors buy into stories, not just spreadsheets. According to a Harvard study, 30% of startup deals originate from VCs’ former colleagues or work acquaintances. This highlights why the founder and management team’s communication skills are critical.

First, try to humanize their journey—the struggles and sharing information about the “why” behind the company. With customers—it’s the pain points, the real-world problems, and how that’s being addressed.

Next, break down the technical stuff (it’s hard, but doable with training), simple analogies, and relatable stories; for many stakeholders, tech feels like a foreign language. Finally, mix data with drama. Say something like, “Our software cuts energy costs by 40%”—try, “Imagine, that’s enough energy to power a thousand homes for a whole year.” It sticks with people.

Noise Pressures

Startups often chase trends just to please investors or gain quick validation. It’s tempting to jump on every media bandwagon, but that’s not a strategy—it’s chaos. You end up with a “spray-and-pray” mindset: spamming journalists, cranking out press releases nonstop, and commenting on every hot topic without tying it back to the brand’s story.

When a startup tries mimicking competitors or chasing trends, it overexposes the brand, dilutes its messaging, wastes time, resources, and money on tactics that don’t benefit the business, and misses long-term trust-building efforts.

Startups and founders, at this point, need to cut through the noise with discipline. It’s the job of the agency/consultant to educate founders and investors about the advantages of sustained media efforts—not one-off campaigns.

Begin by creating a 30-60-90-day roadmap: quick wins are good, but the foundational work should focus on communicating the brand’s clear value proposition.

Instead of tracking everything, track what matters—niche audiences first. Leverage stories in micro-communities; replace guesswork with data-driven strategies. As budgets will be a constraint, allocate at least 10% to experimental tactics.

Finally, say no. Push back against trend chasing and ask, “Why?” before jumping in. Does this fit your voice? That’s the brand-alignment question every startup needs to ask.

To conclude, not every startup requires media attention. You heard right! Not every new company deserves it, but for the ones—you genuinely believe in—it’s your responsibility to trust them before anyone else does.