It’s essentially the progressive decentralization of narrative. Create the building blocks, tell the initial story, and then get out of the way. It might feel uncomfortable, and it’s not the right approach for everyone, but in the competition for attention, you’re up against people who are willing to give up control to let the narrative take on a... See more

I think this is why certain NFT projects, even new ones, do well while others flop. Pudgy Penguins, Art Blocks, and Bored Ape Yacht Club have all captured the attention and imagination of communities of people, who in turn tell the projects’ stories, which forms a narrative around the projects that give them staying power. They built worlds in... See more

The thing that people scoff at -- these are just stupid jpegs! -- is the same thing that makes them so rife for narrative building. They’re largely empty vessels into which the community of owners and supporters can pour stories that turn into a narrative.

This is the same reason that so many startups are welcoming more individual investors, particularly those who can help tell their story, onto the cap table. It creates more surface area for more people to tell the company’s story, which lets companies control their own narrative.

What’s new is that today, power lies in sharing the mic.

The big idea was that companies and investors should be able to tell their own stories, directly.

The old way to build a positive narrative was to tell a consistent story about yourself over time. The new way is to have other people tell your story for you, either directly or by association.

A great current example is Apple vs. Facebook. The narrative around Apple is that it’s a world-class design-and-privacy-first company whose products say something good about the people who own them. Facebook’s narrative was formed in articles about its brash and awkward founder, Mark Zuckerberg, in the film The Social Network, in the company’s old... See more

The best thing for a company or project’s narrative is to have a lot of people with credibility to the target audience tell stories with roughly similar positive themes again and again over a long period of time, with new examples of the same positive themes added in. The more authentic and the less coordinated it all seems, the better.