You are building something that does not exist yet. That is the job. It is also the problem.
Every founder eventually hits the same wall: How do you pitch something before it exists? How do you get an investor, a customer, or a reporter to understand a foreign concept without drowning them in details?
There is a tool that solves this in seconds, and you already use it about every 20 words without noticing. It is the metaphor. In this week’s issue, I’ll share:
3 lessons for crafting metaphors that land with any audience
A fun fact about how a single word can change how people see crime
A video on why metaphors hit your founder story so hard
Enjoy carrying your idea from one mind to another…LG
Founder Story Tip: Metaphor. The Great Translator
There is one tool that gives a founder speed, impact, and effectiveness in a single move. You already own it. You already use it. Most founders just never use it on purpose.
It is the metaphor.
You are building something new, and new things have no reference point. Explain them cold and people drown in the details, lose the thread, and move on.
A metaphor fixes that. It helps someone grasp one thing by pointing at another they already know. In a few words, it makes the unknown familiar and makes them feel it.
YOUR BRAIN RUNS ON METAPHORS
Metaphors are not decoration. They are how the mind works.
Vicky Lai, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Arizona, has used brain imaging to study how we process them. Her research, published in the journal Brain Research, points to a striking pattern: people use a metaphor roughly every 20 words.
They are so woven into language that we do not notice them. And we comprehend language at about four words per second, which means a good metaphor lands almost before the listener can think.
Your audience is already running on metaphor. You may as well choose the ones working for you.
MAKE THE UNKNOWN FAMILIAR
The brain loves to recognize things. When it cannot, it hunts for a pattern it already knows. A metaphor hands it that pattern.
Marc Benioff understood this when he founded Salesforce, now a company that generates close to $40 billion in annual revenue and the pioneer of the cloud software industry.
He was selling something nobody had a name for: business software delivered over the web. So he gave the market a frame it already knew.
The picture was simple: imagine business software as easy to use as Amazon.com.
Everyone knew that feeling. Search, click, buy, no manual required.
In one line, a foreign concept became familiar, and the press ran with it.
That is the first job of a metaphor:
take what is strange and fit it into a shape the audience already owns.
METAPHORS TOUCH THE SENSES
Here is what makes metaphors hit harder than plain explanation. They reach the mind & the body.
In Vicky’s brain imaging studies, when people hear “he had a rough day,” regions tied to touch light up. Hear “she’s so sweet,” and areas linked to taste activate. Hear an action phrase like “grasp a concept,” and the brain’s motor regions fire. The metaphor is processed not just as an idea but as a physical experience.
Say “it cuts through the noise like a warm knife through butter,” and your audience feels the ease before they analyze the claim.
The more senses you touch, the deeper you pull them into your story, and the longer they remember it.
ONE METAPHOR CAN CARRY YOUR WHOLE STORY
A great metaphor does not just explain a feature. It can hold your entire vision in a single phrase.
Jeff Bezos built Amazon into a half-trillion-dollar revenue company, and for decades he has anchored its culture to one metaphor:
“It’s always Day 1.” He spells out the alternative in plain, vivid terms. “Day 2,” he wrote to shareholders, “is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death.”
He even named an Amazon building Day 1 and took the name with him when he moved. Two words, drawn from the simple cycle of growth and decay, carry the company’s whole philosophy.
When your metaphor ties everything together, your audience has one handle to grab the entire idea.
A METAPHOR CAN CHANGE HOW PEOPLE THINK
Metaphors do more than help people understand. They shape how people reason.
Which way is your startup headed?
Linguists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson argued that our everyday thinking is built on metaphor, often invisibly.
We speak of the future as “ahead” of us and of prices “rising,” and we do not even notice the comparison underneath. The frame you choose quietly steers how your audience sees the problem you solve.
So the metaphor you pick is not just for show. It is a lens you hand to other people.
REFRAME THE ROOM
Reed Hastings used a single metaphor to reorganize how an entire company behaved. He co-founded Netflix, now home to more than 325 million subscribers worldwide. To define its culture, he rejected the usual line that a company is “a family.”
Instead he said Netflix is “a team, not a family.” A family keeps you no matter what. A pro sports team keeps the best players in each position. That one swap reset expectations on hiring, performance, and loyalty, and it spread far beyond Netflix.
Notice what the metaphor did. It did not describe the culture. It built it.
BORROW FROM ARENAS EVERYONE ALREADY KNOWS
You do not have to invent a metaphor from scratch. Some of the strongest ones already live in arenas your audience knows by heart.
The military gives you the force multiplier: one small thing that makes everything around it stronger. Use it to describe the hire, the tool, or the partner that lifts your whole team.
Business gives you the Trojan Horse: a simple offer that gets you in the door, then opens the way to something bigger. Use it to explain a land-and-expand play without a single slide of jargon.
Sports gives you the underdog: the smaller player nobody bet on, winning anyway. Use it to get a room rooting for you before you have the proof.
Three arenas. Three metaphors your audience already owns. Pick the one that fits your story and carry it across.
THE BOTTOM LINE
You are sharing your story because you want something: an investment, a sale, a story written about you. The faster your audience understands and feels what you are doing, the better your odds of getting it.
Metaphors are the shortcut. They make the unknown familiar, touch the senses, carry your whole vision in a phrase, and steer how people think.
So stop explaining your idea cold. Find the thing your audience already knows, and carry your story across on it.
Storytelling Lessons: Crafting Metaphors That Land
A metaphor only works if your audience already owns the reference. These three lessons turn that into a repeatable habit for your founder story.
#1. Borrow From What They Already Know
Founders reach for the “Uber of X” shorthand for a reason. Call yourself the “Netflix of” your space and you borrow a reference the whole room already owns, so your idea inherits that clarity in an instant.
ACTION: Write down the one thing your product does that confuses people most. Now finish this line: “It’s like [something everyone knows], but for [your space].” Test three versions out loud and keep the one that needs no explaining.
#2. Make It Sensory
When Apple launched the first iPod, Steve Jobs did not sell “5GB of storage.” He said “1,000 songs in your pocket.” Same fact, but now you can picture it and feel it in your hand. Specs slide off. A metaphor your audience can see or hold gets into the body and stays there.
ACTION: Take your favorite line about your company and add a sense to it. Can the listener see it, feel it, or hear it? If it only lives in the head, rewrite it until it lands somewhere physical.
#3. Keep It Simple, Then Test It
When Jennifer Hyman pitched Rent the Runway, she did not lead with logistics, data, or supply chains. She called it a closet in the cloud. Four words, and you can see it: your wardrobe, online, unlimited, always there. If your metaphor needs a setup to land, it is not simple enough yet.
ACTION: Say your metaphor to someone who knows nothing about your business. If they get it instantly and can repeat it, keep it. If you have to explain, cut it and start again.
Fun Fact: The Metaphor Effect
In a Stanford study, psychologists Paul Thibodeau and Lera Boroditsky gave people a report about crime in a city. One group read that crime was a “beast” preying on the town. The other read that crime was a “virus” infecting it. Same facts, one word different.
When asked how to fix it, the “beast” readers wanted more police and harsher penalties. The “virus” readers wanted to find the root cause and treat the conditions. A single metaphor changed how people wanted to solve the problem.
Meaning = the frame you hand your audience is doing more work than you think.
Video to Watch: Make It Click
In the video, “3 Reasons Why You Need to Use Metaphors in Your Entrepreneurial Story,” I explain why metaphors help people understand new ideas faster and feel them more deeply. The video covers how metaphors connect the unknown to something familiar, tap into the senses, and trigger a visceral response.
It is a practical look at why the right comparison can help your pitch, vision, or founder story land in seconds. Watch here:
3 Reasons Why You Need to Use Metaphors in Your Entrepreneurial Story - 019
Need help with your story? I got you.
Send an email to [email protected] and someone from my team will circle back with you.