When I’m walking the halls at the Ion in the Ion District or at Rice Nexus, sitting down with a founder at Rice Innovation, I often witness the same phenomenon. I sit and listen to a very smart and passionate person explain an innovation they’ve developed. Typically, this takes some time; they then have to answer a number of my questions so I can figure out what they are really trying to accomplish.
The tech we’re talking about here is off-the-richter-scale innovative. Rice Innovation is an amazing organization and truly the bedrock of the startup ecosystem here in Houston. Our founders are building tech that saves lives, goes to space via NASA or SpaceX, or revolutionizes industries like Oil & Gas, Manufacturing, and Transportation.
When I first started as a mentor, I initially thought I’d be mentoring primarily about Product-Market Fit and Go-to-Market strategy. I may get there eventually with every founder I meet, but what I’ve discovered is that these startups need help with describing their awesomeness first. When I ask them to tell me about their company, it can be really hard to see how incredible they are because the value is buried under technical jargon.
As a mentor and the founder of Kerns Dynamics and Approachable PR, my goal is to nurture this community of innovators and help them anyway I possibly can. It starts with strong story telling - helping them find the human centered thread in their innovation. To do that, we have to look back to 1949.
The 1949 Blueprint for Modern Branding
In 1949, Joseph Campbell published The Hero with a Thousand Faces. He mapped out the "monomyth," a universal structure found in every great story from ancient mythology to modern cinema. Decades later, the Storybrand methodology took those same principles and applied them to business.
The core realization is this: Humans are biologically hardwired to process information through stories. We don't buy "products"; we buy "solutions to our frustrations." For a startup founder—or any established brand—the hardest hurdle to clear is often this: Your innovation is not the hero.
In Campbell’s framework, the hero is the one with the problem. In your business, that’s your customer. If you position your technology as the hero, you’re essentially telling your customer that there’s no room for them in the story. Instead, you need to position your brand as the Guide.
Why Founders Aren't Messaging Experts (And Why Design Needs Narrative)
I see it every day: a founder’s tech is their "baby." They have sacrificed sleep, capital, and comfort to bring it to life. Naturally, they want to talk about every intricate detail of how it works. But because they are so close to the "how," they often lose sight of the "why."
Startup founders are typically not messaging experts, and they shouldn't have to be. Their genius lies in the innovation itself. This is exactly where the value of the Houston mentor network comes in. We provide the "outside-in" perspective to help the founder detach from the technical specifications long enough to see the customer’s journey.
This narrative work is the essential precursor to Brand Identity. You can have the most beautiful logo and the sleekest website in the world, but if the story underneath it is cluttered, the customer’s brain will tune it out to conserve energy. Design is the "skin," but the story is the "skeleton." Without a clear skeleton, the skin has nothing to hold onto.
The Guide: Empathy and Authority
To win brand devotion, a brand must express two things to the "Hero" (the customer):
Empathy: Showing them you "know how they feel." You understand the frustration of their current inefficiency or the high stakes of their unsolved problem.
Authority: Demonstrating you are capable of leading them. It’s the brand saying: "I’ve been doing this for 20 years; I know what I’m talking about."
Major brands like Amazon or Uber do this perfectly. They don't lead with their server architecture; they lead with the hero's need for ease and their own authority to provide it at scale.
Bridging the Gap to Brand Authority
Once a company finally nails its narrative, a second problem usually emerges. You have a clear story and a beautiful visual identity, but does the world believe you have the authority to tell it?
In our current digital ecosystem, "authority" is a data point. When a potential partner, an investor, or even an AI-assisted search tool like Perplexity or ChatGPT looks for your brand, they are looking for third-party validation. If you aren't being talked about online, you effectively don't exist to the algorithms that now guide our economy.
Historically, the solution was Public Relations. But traditional PR is an expensive proposition. I’ve seen agencies charge thousands of dollars a month on long-term retainers, making professional media coverage inaccessible for most of the startups I mentor. This creates a gap where competitors with perhaps inferior tech—but louder voices—claim "expert status" while the real innovators stay hidden.
Democratizing the Ecosystem with Approachable PR
This is why I’m launching Approachable PR in January 2026. My goal is to make the tools of brand authority accessible to the Houston innovation community.
PR shouldn't be a luxury for the few. By using strategic press release campaigns, we can help startups and established brands alike establish a digital bedrock of authority that supports their visual identity.
● Control Your Narrative: We use the Storybrand framework to ensure your press releases frame you as the expert Guide.
● Dominating Search: We ensure that when the world asks "Who is the leader in this space?", your brand—with its clear story and professional look—is the answer they find.
● Cost-Effective Growth: We provide the same results as expensive firms because we focus on the power of the story, allowing brands to build lasting authority at a fraction of the traditional cost.
A Holistic Path for Houston’s Best
The most successful companies understand that brand building is a sequence.
Brand Narrative: Clarify the story using the Hero’s Journey.
Brand Authority: Establish your expert status online through accessible PR.
Brand Identity: Design the visuals that match that authority.
Social Marketing: Distribute that narrative to a community that now trusts you.
I’m thrilled to contribute to our Houston Startup Innovation community and am grateful to help any way I can. We have the tech to change the world—now let’s make sure the world knows how to find the hero in your story.