Consumers Aren't Buying Products. They’re Buying You.

Your story matters a lot more than you think, according to emerging research. Here's how to make Sure it sings—and Sells.

- CHELSEA GALONI

As a founder, you and your company's origin stories are more important than you think.

Yes, that's become conventional wisdom in entrepreneurship circles but it is now being backed by emerging research, including my own work at the University of Iowa and colleagues' work elsewhere. Data shows that a founder's story isn't just appealing; it is central to whether consumers buy what you're selling.

There's a good reason for this. We live in an age of manufacturing excellence, where what differentiates a product is not necessarily its quality or durability, or even its specific functionality. Instead, it is a story: Where the product comes from, what makes it unique, and who inspired it.

Consider Toms canvas shoes. Why would a consumer choose Toms over other canvas shoes? Keds and Vans have been around for much longer and have a deep history of quality and durability.

Toms, however, became attractive because of its founder's story: Blake Mycoskie went to Argentina, noticed many children were shoeless, and developed a canvas shoe with a unique "buy one, give one" model. For every pair of Toms purchased, Mycoskie would donate one pair to a child in need. Consumers could get behind that and they did.

Within six years, Toms was available at over 500 retailers globally and had donated over 2 million pairs of shoes.

But this effect isn't just limited to mission-oriented brands. Instead, the critical factor here is authenticity-a coveted quality of products that often guides consumer choice and impacts how much consumers are willing to pay for something. When consumers buy Toms, for example, they are not just buying a pair of canvas shoes, or doing a semicharitable deed. They are, in their minds, also buying an authentic representation of Mycoskie himself.

That raises a literal million dollar question: How does a consumer decide if something is authentic?