Before or After? How to Build a Story to Sell Emerging Technologies

Whether you start with a story or build the product first, what matters is how you turn one into the other.

With emerging technologies, it is common for a product to be built first, driven by what the technology can do, with the story coming later. That can work, but it often takes longer to find traction. Without a clear story, even brilliant technology can be difficult to explain and even harder to sell.

Amazon takes the opposite approach. Working it Backwards is the practice where every new idea must begin with a hypothetical press release that explains what the product does and why it matters before a single line of code is written. If you cannot explain it clearly to the world, it is not ready to be built.

This shows a core truth about product development. You can start with the story and build a product that brings it to life, or you can build the product first and later find the story that explains it. Both paths can work, but they shape the journey in very different ways.

A story-first approach gives you clarity of purpose and can reduce risk. Testing the story before you build is a cheaper way to validate belief. A product-first approach gives you proof through action, evidence of what works. What matters most is how you turn one into the other, translating belief into proof and proof back into belief as your product grows.

Both routes can lead to success, but the movement between story and product is not a single decision, it is a continual process of learning. Understanding how to shift between belief and evidence, knowing when to test, when to build, and when to listen, is the skill that turns ideas into traction. The sections that follow explore what each path teaches you and how to bring them together.

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When You Build the Story First

This path begins with conviction. You see the world a certain way and want to build something that expresses that belief. The story shapes the product from the start. It sets the boundaries, guides the tone, and defines what “good” looks like.

Often, this starts with a problem you have experienced yourself, or a frustration you genuinely believe is worth solving. That personal connection gives the story energy, but it also risks bias. You need to test whether your belief holds true for others before investing too far in the solution.

In practice, dealing with this often means:

• Interviewing people to determine whether the problem truly exists, without leading them toward your expected answer

• Building and testing lightweight prototypes that validate both the problem and the story around it

• Keeping the story grounded in what customers actually experience, not just what you hope they feel

When done well, this approach creates products with clarity. These are the products that just feel right the moment you use them. The risk, however, is that you may oversell what is desirable and underdeliver what is feasible or viable.

A story-first product succeeds when it focuses on real user value because the balance of belief and evidence is what turns a bold story into something people can touch. For practical guidance on how to find and interpret that user insight, you might find Making Sense of Customer Insights a useful companion.

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When You Build the Product First

Products built with the technology in mind often start with a bold vision. The ambition is clear, but the story is not. The product is built to realise that vision, yet the audience cannot always see what the creator sees. This is when the story must be uncovered, not invented, and where bringing in outside expertise can help make the hidden meaning visible.

This approach begins with a deep understanding of the solution itself and works backwards. Every decision made during development carries intent, trade-offs, and value that may not be obvious to users. The story emerges by making those choices understandable, then evolves further as you observe how people actually use the product.

In practice this means:

• Speaking with engineers to unpack features and understand the value behind them

• Paying close attention to how early customers describe your product and the words they naturally use

• Looking for emotional value in what seems purely functional

• Framing your narrative around the outcomes people already care about, or revealing how your product solves problems they did not yet recognise

If this sounds familiar, you may find it helpful to read How to Make Your Product Essential, which explores how to turn a product you have already built into something people truly love.

The more you understand both approaches, the easier it becomes to switch between them. Story-first founders can use product feedback to test conviction, while product-first founders can use storytelling to reveal meaning. The skill lies in moving fluidly, letting each inform the other at the right moment. That movement is often what transforms a promising idea into something people can understand, trust, and buy into which is the foundation of selling emerging technologies successfully.

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Bringing It Together: How to Sell Emerging Technologies

Whether you begin with a story or the product, the challenge is rarely about which comes first. The real skill lies in knowing when to switch gears. You move from story to product when belief needs evidence, and from product to story when evidence needs meaning. Mastering that rhythm is what turns iteration into progress and progress into traction.

A story-first founder begins with belief. A product-first founder begins with evidence. Each gains clarity in a different way.

The story-first path creates clarity of purpose. It helps you define what the world could look like and gives your work direction from the start. The product-first path creates clarity through proof. It lets you see how people actually respond, revealing what matters most.

Neither is right or wrong. What matters is how you move between them. Belief without evidence is fragile, but evidence without belief is forgettable. The strongest products are the ones that balance the two, where the story is proven in practice and the product brings the story to life.

If you are leading a startup or scaling a product team and want to learn how to sell emerging technologies through story, let’s talk. I help founders and product leaders move from idea to clarity, and from clarity to traction. Reach out at info@crwburgess.com.