Founder Stories
Seven founders from LSE Generate on what starting a company took, and where 1st Formations came in.
Part two of our campaign for 1st Formations. After asking people on the street what was stopping them, we filmed founders who had already done it: seven start-ups from LSE Generate, talking through the fear, the paperwork and the help they had along the way.
The brief
Let founders who have done it make the case.
The street interviews showed that people act when an ad starts with their doubt. For part two, 1st Formations wanted the other side of that story: real founders, one business at a time, telling how they got started and where 1st Formations helped. The same interviews also had to feed their content team’s blog posts, case studies and LinkedIn.
The day
One room at LSE, seven founders.
We wrote the questions around the sequence that made the street hero work: the moment they decided, the doubt, the admin nobody warned them about, then the help. The interviewer sat just off camera, so each founder talks to a person rather than a lens, and the edit can build any story from their answers.
The main film
Seven voices, from fear to finished.
The main film runs 65 seconds and cuts between the founders so their answers run as one story, start to finish. Play it with the sound on.
0:00 · Step 1A title card sets the frame: Founder Stories.
0:02 · Step 2Each founder, named on screen, says what starting felt like. “Starting a business is scary.”
0:08 · Step 3The questions every new founder asks. “Do I need to do tax?” How do I do this on my own?
0:16 · Step 4How 1st Formations handled the details: the paperwork, the company information, the address.
0:44 · Step 5“I actually received all my documents.” Ready to trade.
0:56 · Step 6Real founders, real stories, then 25,000+ excellent reviews on screen.
1:04 · Step 7“Formation, compliance, and everything in between.” Signed off with 1st Formations and LSE Generate.
Three cuts, three jobs
Each social film does something different.
The same footage, cut three ways, with 1st Formations woven into each one differently.
Every screen
The same films, made for phones and feeds.
Alongside widescreen, the films were cut for portrait, square and vertical placements.
The finish
Built to be trusted and to travel.
Every film carries subtitles throughout, each founder’s name, title and company, and a closing lockup with LSE Generate. Individual interview films, cut to around two minutes with the questions on screen, gave each founder a story of their own. In May, 1st Formations signed a second programme with us: product films, animation and a static ad system.
What it proves
The strongest proof a formation company has is a founder, on camera, saying how it went.
Where does your brand sit against the business?
Every engagement starts with the Brand Alignment Diagnostic, a fixed first step that scores your brand against the business and shows what to fix first.