👋 Hi, it’s Kyle Poyar and welcome to Growth Unhinged, my weekly newsletter exploring the hidden playbooks behind the fastest-growing startups. Join 83,000+ growth pros who get this newsletter delivered straight to their inbox.
Against all odds, storytelling has become one of the most in-demand skills in tech.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the number of LinkedIn job posts in the U.S. mentioning “storyteller” doubled last year. 50,000 companies are hiring storytellers, pretty crazy for a role that had seemed to be at death’s door.
This isn’t 2010s era content marketing. Anthropic posted a $300,000+ job for a Head of GTM Narrative. Plaid acquired its first newsletter business (This Week in Fintech). OpenAI spent “low hundreds of millions” on a popular tech industry talk show (TBPN).
Being great at storytelling matters whether you’re launching your first product or on the verge of IPO. Here’s why:
Scarce attention: Product isn’t a bottleneck anymore. Attention is the scarcer resource.
Going direct: Traditional media has been collapsing for years. Companies need to tell their own stories.
More noise: AI has made it easier to produce halfway decent content. As mediocre content explodes, only the best rises to the top.
More channels: Content needs to live everywhere – LinkedIn, video, podcasts, newsletters, blogs, email, ads. This is all wasted effort without compelling source material.
I’ve partnered with beehiiv to study how the best creators and creator-led brands crack the code on storytelling. beehiiv powers many of the best storytellers (including this newsletter 😉) and so has firsthand insight into what’s working right now across creators, media brands, tech companies, and independent journalists.
We’ve observed five archetypes of great storytelling in 2026. Today’s newsletter shows you how to choose your archetype, and how to level up your storytelling game.
Archetype 1: Advocate
What it is: The leading voice for your product ecosystem
Best-fit content: Third-person narratives
Channels: Newsletters, webinars, podcasts, LinkedIn, events
Who it’s for: Products focused on a specific role or industry
Examples: Creator Spotlight from beehiiv; Mostly Metrics from CJ Gustafson
Advocates are champions for the people in their product ecosystem, ideally becoming the de-facto destination for a niche audience. They’re part-curator and part-community hub.
Trade publications historically played this role. Now it’s getting filled by creators like my friend CJ Gustafson, who’s built the leading destination for startup and tech CFOs.
From a company perspective, this works best if you’re targeting a hyper-specific audience that’s been underserved. You don’t necessarily need to be an expert to fill this gap. You do need to be an insider with access to experts and an ability to spot trends. Importantly, this must feel unbiased – anything overly promotional erodes trust.
Your go-to storytelling format: the third-person narrative, which covers an experience of a person or business unrelated to your brand.
Third-person narratives are relatively quick and inexpensive. You might interview an expert for 30-45 minutes and get help from ChatGPT or Claude to turn the raw transcript into a finished post. Growth comes from these experts sharing the content on their social media platforms, pulling in others and adding legitimacy to what you’re doing.
The best advocates constantly repurpose source material across channels. Each interview is its own podcast or webinar, recaps go in the newsletter, and clips get posted on LinkedIn and YouTube.
As you become the go-to destination, you can extend into other types of content. This usually includes audience surveys, network-based content (i.e. bylines or third-party contributions), and covering trends or events.
My favorite company example right now is Creator Spotlight, a newsletter from beehiiv focused on creator-first businesses. Creator Spotlight has gotten so popular – 389,000 subscribers, 39.7% open rate – that it’s become a full-on media brand with a podcast, website, events, and big ad partners like Google.
Creator Spotlight publishes weekly profiles about how top creators grow and monetize their audiences. The publication has branched out into essays and original research, too, including a flagship creator monetization report. Many readers probably have no clue that beehiiv is behind the newsletter; the integration is subtle (although the newsletter is hosted on beehiiv and regularly features beehiiv users).
Archetype 2: Analyst
What it is: Use your data to become the trusted source in your space
Best-fit content: Data studies based on proprietary information
Channels: Newsletters, LinkedIn, PR, conferences
Who it’s for: Products that collect proprietary data
Examples: Data Minute from Carta; Ramp Economics Lab; Adam’s GTM Report from Keyplay
Analysts use research and data to produce unique, original content. These data studies can break through and go viral: hundreds of backlinks, thousands of shares, press coverage, inbound speaking opportunities.
This has historically been the domain of firms like Gartner, Forrester, or eMarketer. The reports these analyst firms produce are inaccessible to the average person, though; annual subscriptions could cost anywhere from $15,000 to $50,000+. Traditional analysts aren’t known to be on the cutting-edge, either. You could fill these gaps for your target audience.
Your go-to storytelling format: the data study, which brings either third-party or proprietary data to cover an interesting topic. The best data studies make complex information digestible with visuals or infographics, which are perfect for LinkedIn.
Data studies can be a bigger investment, taking anywhere from one to four months. The steps involved: (a) collecting and cleaning the dataset, (b) pulling out the most interesting insights, (c) turning insights into infographic-style visuals, (d) writing the report itself, (e) promoting the report on social, your own channels, and influencer outreach.
I’m obviously a fan of this content myself, publishing data-backed reports like the 2025 State of B2B GTM report. Tech companies are well-positioned to be analysts, too, since they can tap into data from their own products and customers. Two of my favorite examples are Peter Walker at Carta and Ara Kharazian’s Ramp Economics Lab.
You don’t need to be a big company to pull this off. Adam Schoenfeld from Keyplay does a fantastic job with his GTM research-focused newsletter, Adam’s GTM Report. Success comes down to the data quality combined with the visual storytelling skills of the team.
The biggest trap is putting so much effort into creating reports that you’re only able to release new content a few times per year. This puts too much pressure on each individual report and stops you from developing an ongoing relationship with your audience. You’re left starting from scratch with each release. Shift to shorter, more continuous releases to get more mileage. (Modern platforms like beehiiv help make data reports look polished without requiring weeks of custom design.)