How Paperly builds story-first product narratives

When we build narratives at Paperly, we stay grounded in customer truth while choreographing a story that partners across product, engineering, and go to market can rally around. That means starting every project with a shared brief, aligning on intent, and mapping artifacts to the rituals that already exist inside a team.

In this essay, I break down the playbook we use with clients and within our own storytelling practice. You will see how we gather inputs, how each artifact is drafted, and the support kit teams receive to scale the story without losing fidelity.

1. Kickoff and narrative compass

We begin with a 90 minute kickoff session designed to calibrate expectations. Stakeholders walk through the audience they must persuade, the decision we are helping them reach, and the obstacles that could derail momentum. The outcome is a narrative compass: a simple document that clarifies the protagonist, stakes, and proof points.

"The best stories are not invented, they are remembered after we connect the right dots."

2. Interview loop and insight mapping

We interview three to five cross functional partners within the first week. Each conversation is logged in a shared workspace so patterns surface quickly. We tag stories with friction, desired outcome, and the emotional moment the story must resolve. This makes the eventual draft feel inevitable rather than aspirational.

• Anchor every section with the customer or teammate who feels the pain.
• Write the end state in present tense to make the promise feel real.
• Use metrics sparingly, pairing them with a qualitative story that gives them meaning.

3. Artifact stack

Once the story draft is approved, we produce a set of companion assets. Each artifact is designed to be copy pasted, remixed, and presented in under ten minutes.

4. Sustain and evolve

Stories are living documents. We schedule a 30 day retro to evaluate how the narrative performed, track adoption metrics, and capture new anecdotes. Teams often fold this into their standing post launch retros, keeping the story active for future iterations.