The Key Reason Why a Strong Brand Starts With Your Backstory

Your brand’s backstory isn’t a piece of nostalgia.

It’s why your brand started. What problems it solves. The big moments that shaped what the brand is today.

It’s the foundation that guides decision-making.

Yet, many businesses lose track of why they started.

They get caught up in the day-to-day grind and lose sight of the journey that shaped them.

They lose their foundation. They end up chasing trends. They build brand extensions that make no sense.

Customers become confused.

And they lose trust.

Only when you have a clear idea of where you have been and what shaped your brand can you have a clear idea of where you should go next.

Your vision of the future needs to connect to your backstory.

Earlier today, I published an in-depth article examining how designer Virgil Abloh drew power from his backstory to change the fashion industry.

And today’s newsletter is a guide to help you build your own.

The Power of a Well-Defined Backstory

A clear backstory limits what you can do.

But it also ensures that your brand continues to resonate with your customers.

When customers can connect your past actions with your present promises, they gain confidence in your brand’s future.

A well-defined backstory gives your brand a sense of consistency and reliability.

And that leads to trust.

Customers aren’t left guessing about what your brand represents. Instead, they see a clear, continuous path that reassures them that you will deliver on your promises.

The 4 Elements of a Strong Backstory

To create a compelling backstory for your brand, you need to take into account four elements: History, Passion, Limitations, and Milestones.

Each piece helps define what your brand has done so you know what it should do.

They make your brand more memorable and trustworthy.

1. History

Many leaders lose sight of the early challenges and inspirations that built their brand.

And they stop thinking about why the brand was created in the first place.

They get so focused on today that they lose connection with their history.

Without this history, they risk making decisions that don’t feel authentic. And they risk weakening customer trust.

To illuminate with your brand’s history:

Relive the Origin Story: Recall early challenges and what inspired the business.

Capture Influences: Reflect on what events and people shaped the brand.

Map the Brand’s Evolution: Document the growth of your offerings and how it affected your customers.

For example, Virgil Abloh’s background in architecture gave him a unique perspective on fashion design. It helped him apply structured thinking to creating designs and embrace the power of collaborative work.

Your history isn’t just background; it’s a snapshot of what built the brand. It's the foundation for creating a power backstory for for making better decisions.

2. Passion

It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day work and lose focus on the big picture.

This often leads to brands chasing trends or creating brand extensions that don’t make sense.

Constantly chasing what’s new dilutes the brand and risks alienating loyal customers.

Grounding your brand in why it was created—the purpose that built it—helps keep your brand focused on what really matters.

To reconnect with your brand’s passionate purpose:

Identify Pain Points: What problems did you solve when your brand started?

Stay Purpose-Driven: Identify why founders were motivated to solve that pain point.

Clearly Define Your Purpose: Make it clear who you serve, what problem you solve, and how you help solve it.

Virgil Abloh’s passion went beyond design—he wanted to break down barriers for Black artists and designers. When he walked down the Louis Vuitton runway as artistic director, he wanted the 17-year-old version of himself to see that a career in fashion was open to them.

When you know what drives the brand at its core—its passionate purpose—you have a clear idea of what’s right and wrong for the brand.

3. Limitations

Brands often try to grow by being everything to everyone.

However, stretching too far beyond core competencies makes it harder to build customer trust.

And disaster can result: LEGO's moving away from its core business of bricks into video games and theme parks brought the company to the brink of bankruptcy.

Limitations define what you’re great at. And what you’re not good at.

They help build the box your brand should play in.

To define your limitations:

Identify Core Strengths: Looking at your history, what do you do best?

Find Failures: What didn’t work?

Determine Customer Expectations: What do you customers expect? What do they trust you for?

Abloh embraced limitations by following a 3% rule: changing existing designs by just 3%. This made his work familiar yet fresh, helping him break into new spaces without confusing his audience.

Limitations not only define where you should and shouldn’t go. They also force you to see the world in new ways. And they act as a powerful catalyst for creativity.

4. Milestones

Your brand’s backstory is ultimately a snapshot of the milestones that helped define what created the business, the problems it solves for your customers, and the events that shaped it along the way.

Many things will happen throughout the life of your business (you’ve probably captured a lot of them in detailing your History).

However, only some are significant enough to have a lasting impact.

To highlight your milestones:

Highlight the Origin: What key events created the brand?

Choose Impactful Events: Identify the turning points that significantly shaped your brand.

Use Passion and Limitations as a Filter: All the events you listed should reinforce your passion and limitations. If they don’t, eliminate them.

For Virgil Abloh, Paris Fashion Week was a pivotal milestone. There, he realized a place for streetwear to reinvigorate high fashion.

Milestones capture the moments you should bring to life for yourself, your customers, and your employees that capture both the high points and the low points that helped define your business.

They’re the foundation of a strong backstory.

Draw Power From Your Backstory

Your brand backstory is a strategic tool.

When you’re clear on your history, passion, limitations, and milestones, you have a solid foundation for every future decision.

It keeps you from straying into irrelevance.

It helps you stay on brand in a clear and meaningful way for your customers.

And it helps you focus your energy on projects that can add value to your brand.

So, take your milestones and craft a story that highlights the passionate purpose and limitations of your brand.

Your past is the foundation of your future.

P.S. If you need help creating a backstory for your brand that sets the foundation for your future, reply to this email, and I’ll help you get started on the right track.