From Tech Sales to Tech Stories
After 15 years of sales and enterprise marketing at Dell, Kevin Smith started The Story Architect. It was time to apply the story selling skill to our real passion: Tech Startups.
Years of Experience
Stories Architected
Pitches Made
Startups Advised
Chief Story Architect & Executive Producer
I was six when I started taking apart my toys to see how they worked, especially the electronic ones. I’d get right down to the motors, and wonder at how the magnets covered with copper wire moved. I was intensely curious about how things worked.
It started with my father, I guess. We always had computers in the home, starting with a Vic20, then the Commodore 64, then PCs. Eventually I was building my own PCs while going to school for business and entrepreneurship.
I always wanted my own company, but before I could start one I got a job at Dell. It was in sales, which I didn’t want. I wanted a tech job, but I had a recruiter talk me into it. It was at the height of the Y2K crisis, and I’d be able to make a good amount of money in a short period of time because almost every computer in the world needed to be replaced. My recruiter promised to find me a better tech job in a few months.
But something funny happened. I fell in love with sales. The combination of tech and sales was a great fit. And I became great at it. Eventually that led to me becoming a Brand Manager for servers and enterprise products. In taking on marketing, I built a number of my own processes to help sell, pitch, and market better. These were the early foundations of this company I run today.
But before I got to that, I had another career pivot, moving into the M&A group at Dell, during a startup acquisition binge. I got to work with some incredible founders as we worked to expand and scale their ventures within Dell. And I re-fell in love with entrepreneurship and startups.
It wasn’t too long after that, that I decided the time was right to start my own company, and I wanted to help tech founders get better at telling their story to their customers.
I’ve been doing that now for 10 years, and since then I’ve helped thousands of founders pitch better, market better and sell faster.
I’ve built a strong virtual team that helps me execute on every project we take on, and ensures the highest quality outcome for every customer.
Let’s get in touch. I’d love to help you with your story.