Founder storytelling

The outlaw brand story: how founders move people from doubt to belief

Your outlaw brand story is not just the time you went against the grain. It is the time you felt like a loser, full of fear, and then chose to believe something better about yourself and the world.

By Dee Patience·Founded on Faith·8 min read

There is one story every founder carries that people remember more than any other. It is the time someone told you to sit down. The time a boss, or the world, or even your own voice said you would never amount to anything. And you did the thing anyway.

Dee Patience calls this the outlaw story. The video below is called The Story That Makes Founders Dangerous, and it is the second part of her founder storytelling system. The first was the origin story, where a belief is born. This one is different. This is the story of a time that changed you.

If you are a high-achieving woman who still second-guesses her own decisions, this is the story that gives you a way to brag without bragging. It shows what you did, how you think, and why people should trust you. And it moves a doubtful audience to belief in a way nothing else can.

What is an outlaw brand story?

An outlaw brand story is not just a story about being different, unique, or special. It is not just that you took a chance. Lots of people take chances. That alone does not connect.

The real outlaw story is about a time you felt rejected by the world, or a time you rejected the world. You rejected what they said about you, what they said you could achieve, and the way things were supposed to be. Someone, somewhere, told you that you should be fearful. That you would never be able to do this. And you did it anyway.

That is why this story is also called a going against the grain story, or an against all odds story. It carries a kernel of hope inside it. When you tell it, you are not just talking about yourself. You are quietly handing that same hope to the person listening.

Dee says she first taught this idea at a Lean Startup talk at Capital Factory, standing room only, a hundred or so founders in the room. She had barely prepared. She was just trying to name the kinds of stories founders tell. The outlaw story was the one that landed.

It is a time where someone, even you, did not believe in you. And you did it anyway.

How is the outlaw story different from the origin and phoenix stories?

This is where most founders blur their stories together, and it weakens all of them. Each story does a separate job. Keep them apart and each one hits harder.

The origin story is the beginning of a belief. It is the moment your view of the world was shaped, or the moment you first believed in your own gift. Dee tells hers through a Snoopy, the one thing she pulled out of an apartment fire that burned down and changed her family’s life. That is where a belief was born.

The outlaw story comes later. It is when you said, I cannot keep this gift to myself. I have to do this. I have to give that speech. I have to help this person. You put something into the world that went against what people said you were even capable of. The origin is the belief. The outlaw is the action that proved it.

The phoenix story is a third thing entirely. It rises from the ashes of anxiety, pain, and trauma, the kind of memory a hard day like 9-11 burns into you. That one comes in its own video. For now, do not let your outlaw story collapse into either of the other two. Knowing which story you are telling is the whole skill. If you want help getting your core message clear before you tell any of them, the free Six Second Pitch™ is a good place to start.

Why does the outlaw story shift an audience from doubt to belief?

Most people meet you in disbelief. They do not know you, they are not sure you can help them, and they are quietly waiting to be unimpressed. A list of your wins will not move them. It reads like posturing.

The outlaw story works because it lets you show your process and what you accomplished without sounding like you are showing off. You take the audience back to a moment when you did not believe in yourself either. Then you walk them through what you actually did. They watch you earn it in real time, so the win feels true instead of boastful.

Dee lived this through four rounds of layoffs at Apple in her 20s. The downturn around 2000 was brutal. Companies were locking the doors overnight and mailing out pink slips, an inhumane way to treat people who had poured themselves into the work. She was often the youngest person in the room, so young that people assumed she was there to take notes for everyone.

So she made herself the most useful person in the room instead. She would show up early. She would spend days building one question no one else would think to ask, often crediting the agent on her team who sparked it. She always asked third, after the two easy questions were gone, so hers was the one the leader remembered. She got promoted through every reorg. That is the shift. The audience stops doubting and starts believing, because they saw exactly how she did it.

An outlaw story gives you a reason to brag about something you did, without bragging.

How do you find your own outlaw story?

Take a step back and look for a time you did not believe in yourself or your own ability, and yet you pulled off something amazing. That gap, between the doubt you felt and the thing you achieved, is where your outlaw story lives.

Often it connects straight to a gift you were given. Dee is a writer who built her speaking skills over time. She does not draw, but she has a client who is a gifted graphic artist. The point is that your gift is the thing you feel compelled to do, the thing you cannot not do. Your outlaw story is the day you finally put it into the world anyway.

Dee makes this concrete with what she calls the This Old Thing Challenge. Grab something old you have kept. A plaque. A medal. A water bottle from a race you ran as a sick kid. A shirt. An award you earned by pure effort when you were not the athletic one. Hold it up and tell the story behind it.

Why keep these things? It is illogical. And that is the point. AI has to be logical and standard. You are allowed to be illogical when you tell your stories, and that is exactly what proves you are a real human and not a bot. That small, odd, kept object is a doorway your audience can walk through.

What does a real outlaw story sound like in practice?

Dee’s own object is a small Chutotoro figure, from the world of My Neighbor Totoro. Here is the story it holds. She had become a global project manager at Apple in her 20s, flying to a call center in Cork, Ireland, to decide whether hundreds of people would lose their jobs or get a chance to turn things around. She and her team had basically invented their own roles by pitching management on the idea.

She got to the hotel and did not feel elated. She felt lonely and full of doubt. She did not know if she could walk into that call center and provide any value at all. Then she opened her suitcase and found the little figure. Shane, her best friend at the time and now her husband, had snuck it in on top of her clothes. It reminded her of home, and it reminded her not to be afraid. He believed in her when she did not believe in herself.

She set the figure up around the hotel and sent photos back to him, like a little Where’s Waldo, to show she was okay. Then she and her team went in and did the work. They were not there to get anyone fired. They were there to help people survive the downturn and keep their jobs, the same promise Tim Cook had once made to her own team face to face. Because they led with that trust, people told them the truth about what was broken, and they could actually fix it.

Notice what the story really does. She could have name-dropped Tim Cook and stopped there. Instead, the story says more about her than any credential could. It shows how she thinks and how she treats people. And she ends holding up a cute little figure, so a stranger who has never cared about Apple can still say, I have one of those, or I love that movie. That is the connection. If you want to keep building stories this way, Dee teaches the method at No Script Storytelling.

It says more about you through your story than anything else.

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