Creating engaging, emotional stories that

Get things done

Raise funding

Win pitch competitions

Convert customers

Persuade partners

Share your vision

Motivate teams

Learn More

How We Shape Your Story

Workshops

Leading an entrepreneurship education program?
Offering an incubator or accelerator?
Looking for mentors?

Discuss Your Storytelling Workshop Needs

Workshops are in person or virtual opportunities to teach students & founders:

Why storytelling is essential for startups.
How to tell the most persuasive stories.
When to tell which stories to which audiences.

Team

Investors

Customers

Workshops also focus on impactful verbal and nonverbal persuasive delivery both virtually and in person.

Office Hours

Ideating on a new endeavor?
Drafting an investor pitch for the first time?
Persuading potential partners to work with you?
Motivating your team as its fearless leader?
Refining a new marketing strategy?
Searching for a prompt engineer to generate your best text?
Have a vision that you need to get out of your head and into the hearts of your customers?

Schedule Your StoryTelling Office Hours

Office Hours are one on one virtual sessions to refine or craft a startup story.

Sometimes one session is sufficient. Sometimes several sessions are necessary to achieve a larger goal. Spend dedicated one on one time learning with a communication studies professorpreneur who specializes in the stories startups need to tell to be successful. Develop storytelling strategies that can be used throughout the life of your business.

One on One Virtual Sessions

Asynchronous Review

Signed up for a pitch competition?
Submitting a deck for potential investors to review?
Updating website copy?
Posting a job description?
Cleaning up ChatGPT text?
Need a little help but don’t have a lot of time?

Start the Review Process

The asynchronous review service offers busy entrepreneurs an opportunity to receive feedback on their decks and pitches without committing to a consulting schedule.

Simply submit your content along with a questionnaire about your audience, goals, concerns, and deadline. We will reply with comprehensive feedback on your structure, story, vocalics, graphics, and/or nonverbal communication. The feedback format will be based on your learning style.

Written

Audio

Zoom Session

Recording

What's Our Story?

Play my Story

Ebony A. Utley, Ph.D. is the founder of Storytelling for Startups.

As a Professor of Communication Studies

As an Intrapreneur

At California State University Long Beach, Ebony A. Utley, Ph.D. researches and teaches communication skills for entrepreneurs — including but not limited to ideation, persuasion, negotiation, leadership, and storytelling.

Dr. Utley has been program manager of the Apostle Enterprise Lab, Associate Director for the Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and the founder of the Social Justice Entrepreneurship program all at CSULB.

65+ blogs, articles, and chapters published

1K+ attendees served

20+ years of teaching experience

As an Entrepreneur

As an Emerging Investor

She translates her research into socially impactful experiences, services, and tech products in the realms of storytelling, edtech, wellness, and domestic violence prevention.

She has co-founded Ensemble Innovation, a founder-friendly venture studio that starts, buys, partners, and invests in scalable enterprise SaaS technologies built by ambitious BIPOC founders creating economic engines in unexpected places.

60+ public speaking invitations

45+ storytelling clients

4x founder

We specialize in the three stories your startup needs to tell:

Pitching Stories ensure founders get funded

Pitch competitions

Fundraising

Investor meetings

People Stories are leadership stories that assist founders in motivating others by effectively sharing their vision.

Motivating the team

Hiring

Vision-sharing

Product Stories are not about the product but about the people whose lives are improved because of a startup’s product, service, or experience.

Success stories

Happy customers

Contact Now

Success Stories

Discover How Our Clients Turned Narratives into Success.

Contact Us

Dr. Utley captivated our MBA students as she urged them to use their imagination to tell engaging stories. The workshop not only helped them prepare their slides and their story, but it gave them the confidence to pitch. Dr. Utley is welcome back every year to prepare the next generation of student entrepreneurs.

Dr. Ingrid Martin, Professor of Marketing,

California State University Long Beach

My office hours with Dr. Utley helped me streamline my ideas and stories into clear, concise messaging. Since working with her on storytelling for my business, my social media following has increased by 15%. I definitely have a better understanding of how to communicate my creative ideas clearly to my audience.

Maachelle Farley,

Wellness Music Creative

Creating meaning and valuable website copy is difficult. Dr. Utley’s storytelling skills helped us simplify and focus our messaging on the website. The result is that our value proposition is clearer and better aligned with the persona of our target market. Dr. Utley did a great job of leading us through this process!

Jim Zordani,

Elastech

Thank you for the storytelling session with Space Redi regarding our messaging and leaning into our story to make a stronger connection with people. We tested it out and got much better responses.

Olaoluwalotobi Thomas,

Space Redi

Before working with Dr. Utley, I struggled to clearly articulate my business offerings, but she helped me transform my ideas into compelling and concise messages that resonated with my target audience. After implementing her suggestions, potential clients were finally understanding the value I provided, leading to more inquiries, and ultimately more sales!

Ashley McArthur, Founder B.O.S.S,

Back Office Support Shop, getboss.io

Dr. Utley’s storytelling superpowers left us with a lot of positive food for thought! Thank you for asking the right questions and encouraging us to think differently about how we present ourselves and our company. We gained a tremendous amount of insight from our call.

Clara Dobson,

Epicurate