Giving early-stage founders the insights they need, alongside HSBC Innovation Banking

HSBC Innovation Banking exists to support the UK's most ambitious founders as they start and scale new ventures. For its first Founder Success programme, the bank's content and resources needed to put founders first. Read on to learn how narratives.work designed and built a best-in-class content engine that delivers quality insights to HSBC Innovation Banking's early-stage founder community.

HSBC Innovation Banking is the UK's most trusted bank for founders and early-stage startups.

The client

Emily Wood is Senior Vice-President in HSBC Innovation Banking's early-stage division. After joining the team in 2024, she established the bank's inaugural Founder Success programme, working in collaboration with Glen Waters, Head of Early-Stage Banking. The vision for the programme was as a multi-pronged effort to equip early-stage founders with the tools to succeed, from community events and startup advice through to expert resources.

Emily and Glen knew that Founder Success content had to enlighten founders, telling them things they didn't know already. It also needed to leverage the internal expertise of the early-stage team and other senior leaders, helping HSBC Innovation Banking communicate its authority to the bank's startup customers.

The planned content would cover many of the burning issues for founders, from fundraising to hiring. But Emily knew she didn't want the programme's content to look and feel like 'just another blog from a bank'. So she enlisted narratives.work to structure a programme of content that would do much more than just fill up inboxes.

"The quality of the work, and the thoughtful way we approached our collaboration, really made an impression from the outset."

The process

One of HSBC Innovation Banking's core differentiators is its deep connections to the UK's community of founders, as the most trusted bank for early-stage companies. Content that undermined the bank's credibility – any inaccuracies, any vague jargon, any surface-level generalities – would put its hard-earned reputation at risk.

One important principle was established early on: in every piece of the programme's content, perspectives from founders and other senior operators would need to be central. Time-poor founders want to see how other founders in their position have tackled similar problems. Each new piece of content saw narratives.work conduct multiple interviews with founders, investors and other senior operators, ensuring that readers benefit from the real-world examples of others who've walked in their shoes.

Initially, narratives.work led an extended planning session which had two aims: first, to define the core principles that would underpin each piece of content, and second, to plan a six-month roadmap for Founder Success content, establishing which pieces of content would be released when. The plan mapped content to the early-stage team's calendar of events, giving Emily and the team multiple touchpoints with customers before and after each event.

After defining core principles for new content, and integrating content planning into the early-stage team's event calendar, narratives.work began executing on a series of in-depth articles on key issues for early-stage founders. Emily, Glen and the team quickly saw evidence that the quality of narratives.work's content was paying off, from organic social conversations to event registrations. People spend around three times longer reading Founder Success articles than the average of the bank's other on-site content.

Why narratives.work?

For content to resonate with founders, it needs to be written from a position of authority. The narratives.work team have helped to scale some of Europe's fastest-growing and most innovative startups (including Signal AI, Tessian and Ledgy), working directly with founders on communication and thought leadership.

Glen says, "I don't think we could have built out the Founder Success content programme in the same way without Joe and narratives.work. The quality of the work, and the thoughtful way we approached our collaboration, really made an impression from the outset." Understanding the founder perspective, and having the right approach to deliver lasting, impactful work within mature, complex organisations, meant that HSBC Innovation Banking's early-stage team is benefiting from content that's built to last.