How do we tell a story that stands out from the others? It all comes down to storytelling. No story can start without a set of compelling characters.

The Hero

The central figure in your narrative. Whoever we root for - business leaders, ourselves! We are the heroes in our own stories. Overcome obstacles and growing from their experiences.

The Shadow

The internal or external challenge that the hero must overcome. Can be overcoming depression or a rival. The shadow arrives at the beginning of the story and forces them to ask the dramatic question.

Dramatic Question - The key question for the hero - "Who am i and who am I going to be".

Light Figure

Person or entity who helps the hero attain the knowledge and skills they need on their quest. Obi Wan gives Luke. The Light Figure never drives the action of the story. Instead, it tries to guide the hero towards the right answer to the Dramatic Question.

Business Storytelling

The customer is the hero and we are the light figure. Our audience is Luke and the business is Obi Wan. We need to motivate them to do something. The investors looking for the next opportunity. The Volkswagen Commercial - the car is the light figure, the hero is the man who is battling to get out of his car to battle the forces of nature.

Positioning Yourself as a Hero Figure

1. Determine your guiding idea - A one-sentence summary of the central idea of your story.

Netflix CEO in 2013 released an 11-page memo to employees and investors, detailin g acommitment to move from just distributing content digitally to become a leading producer of content that coudl win Emmys and Oscars...... Stranger Things have happened... Anyways, Netflix was the hero - winning Emmys and Oscars - while Hastings was da boss! Well duh dumbass but he also the Light Figure. Try to accomplish one of three things:

1. Connect with our audience
2. Motivate them to do something
3. Get a group of people to come together on a core idea

2. Identify Your Hero - This is the audience you are trying to reach. The customer segments that buy your products or the teammates you seek to inspire

Questions to Identify your hero: Who do you want to speak to? Who do you want to help?

3. Determine your hero's shadow

Questions to ask: What are your hero's fears and obstacles? What challenges stand in his way.

Design your role as the light figure in response to your hero's shadow

How can I help these hero's overcome their shadows?

Key Takeaways

1. Make sure that you the speaker, assume the role of the Light Figure
2. There are many use cases for the three type of character archetypes
3. Identify a compelling guiding idea

Tinder Case Study

Tinder, A $500 million Dating APp, Used This Pitch Deck When It Was Just A Tiny Startup

Find the Section 4 Tinder Pitch Deck

The Hero

1. Tinder wastes no time introducing the hero of it's stor - Matt.

2. He's casual. He's at a party. He's relatable. Matt represents every single person looking for a partner.

The Shadow

3. "He spots a girl he likes at the party - but doesn't ever go taok to her like most men." Now that Tinder has introduced its hero, it establishes the shadow: Matt spots someone at a party he wants to talk to...

4. ...but fears rejection!...

5.. He asks himself: Will I ever find my other half? Tinder frames Matt's problem as "the same problem most of us" have. Tinder is positioning its app as a light figure for a massive market. And that's appealing for investors.

The Light Figure

6. Meet the cure - at the time it was Match Box, the flirting game... Once Tinder sets up it shero and his challejnge, the company shows how it serves as "the cure" for Matt's fear of rejection.

7. Simple screenshots from the app demonstrate how Tinder connects people interested in one another - helping Matt (and many others!) solve their problem.

8. By positioning yitself as Matt's light figure, Tinder shows off some of it's key features: 1. You're able to view different user profiles near you. 2. Match with people. 3. Chat with them, and make plans to meet.

Tinder goes one step further! Under the hood

1. Hyper-location (using WiFi not GPS) 2. Mutual Liking 3. Social interests in common 4. Friends in common

Tinder gives specific details about matching by relevance... and income drivers leaving these details and data for the end.

By showing Tinder implicitly proves it'll be a dependable light figure for investors

Matt's Heroic tale is the investor's heroic tale. Funding allows Tinder to help more Matts in the world, which will generate a return on their investment

From this pitch deck and others, Tinder raised a total of $50M inm funding and is now the most popular dating app in the US!

1. For storytellers interested in using the Hero/Shadow/Light framework, there are couple key learnings.

2. Let characters drive your story - Tinder didn't list any specific data until the last two pages of its presentation. When you're selling an idea, focus on developing your story's three charactersand using data as supporting evidence