Challenge
Teaching story to emerging founders
Microsoft Innovation Centres support early-stage entrepreneurs in markets around the world.
Through access to mentorship, capital, and strategic tools, these hubs help founders turn ideas into viable businesses.
But Microsoft saw a gap in one of the most essential entrepreneurial skills: storytelling.
While founders were focused on product development, many struggled to articulate their value, whether pitching to customers, investors, or potential collaborators.
They had vision and hustle. What they needed was a powerful way to communicate it.
Microsoft asked Echo to design and deliver a global storytelling workshop that would help new entrepreneurs sell their ideas more effectively.
The training needed to be sharp, practical, and easy to adapt across cultures and markets. And it had to work for founders with very different products, levels of experience, and first languages.
Solution
A framework for entrepreneurial storytelling
We started by asking: What do entrepreneurs really need to know about story?
Then we built a storytelling curriculum around three key principles:
- Know your audience: Understand what matters to the people you’re trying to reach
- Focus your message: Structure your story around a clear value proposition
- Make it real: Use personal experience and emotional logic to connect and persuade
We developed and delivered a half-day workshop that walked participants through the key elements of business storytelling:
- Defining a customer pain point
- Articulating how their product solves it
- Showing what success looks like
- And doing it all with personality and authenticity
The session included live coaching, hands-on activities, and before-and-after pitch transformations.
To make the workshop repeatable, we built a custom learning toolkit that included:
- A printable story guide for participants
- Instructor notes and facilitation tips
- Case studies and examples
Microsoft staff could now facilitate the training themselves, in centres around the world.
Result
Sharper stories, stronger pitches
Entrepreneurs who took the workshop began using story more strategically not just in pitches, but in one-on-one conversations and the About Us page of their websites.
The training became a plug-and-play offering for Microsoft Innovation Centres globally. It was easy to deliver, easy to customize, and high in impact.
By giving entrepreneurs a repeatable storytelling framework, Microsoft helped early-stage ventures stand out in markets crowded with noise.
And for many founders, it was the first time they’d ever been asked to treat their own voice as an asset.
ONE MORE COOL THING ...
Building skills that scale
The most powerful part of the workshop wasn’t what people learned in the room. It was what they took with them.
The toolkit — designed for Microsoft facilitators — gave Innovation Centres lasting access to Echo’s storytelling methods.
Which meant the training didn’t end with our visit. It kept going.
The start-ups and their stories were new, but the foundation and the impact remained as powerful as ever.
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