How to Write Your Company’s Origin Story (With Example!)

Does your company have an origin story? Every company does—but is yours documented?

An origin story isn’t just history—it’s the foundation of your company’s values, mission and culture. It’s the story of how your company began, why it was created, what drives it forward and often the founder’s journey that started it all. And here’s the best part: if you’re shaping how people see and connect with your company—through Recruitment Marketing, employer branding or building company culture—you’re in the perfect position to bring this story to life.

I first wrote an origin story when I worked for a company called Red Bend Software. Recently, I read the story again and felt all those warm, fuzzy feelings come rushing back. I remembered how much our employees loved reading it too—especially the new people who had joined Red Bend during a time of rapid growth and weren’t there in the early days. Once the story was shared internally, everyone started talking about “the pen.” (You’ll know what I mean when you read Red Bend’s origin story—I’ve shared it below as an example that I hope will inspire you.)

So last month I got in touch with Red Bend’s founder, Sharon Peleg, and sent him the story again. He was so happy I had a copy—he said it brought back a flood of wonderful memories for him too, and he was happy to hear I was sharing the story with all of you.

But first, let’s talk about why documenting your company’s origin story matters, when it’s the right time to do it, how to get started—even if your founder isn’t available—and why you don’t need permission to take the lead. The truth is, this work is part of building a stronger culture and employer brand. And you’re exactly the right person to do it.

Why Every Company Should Document Its Origin Story

We all know that people want to feel connected to their work, their company and the people leading it. And we also know storytelling is one of the most powerful ways to build that connection. An origin story does more than fill a page on your website—it builds trust, authenticity and a sense of belonging. It gives context to your culture, values and traditions, and it helps employees and candidates see the bigger picture of where you’ve been, where you’re going and how they fit into it.

When you share your company’s beginning—the messy, imperfect, sometimes nerve-wracking moments—it makes your employer brand more human. It helps people understand your company’s purpose and gives them a reason to choose you, stay with you and grow with you.

Best Times to Capture Your Company’s Origin or Founder’s Story

While anniversaries and big milestones are natural moments to reflect and share your company’s beginnings, your origin or founder’s story isn’t just something to look back on—it’s a tool you can use to strengthen your employer brand, attract and retain talent, and build connection and pride in your culture.

Here are some times when you may want to do this important work:

• When you’re launching or refreshing your employer value proposition (EVP)
• When you’re strengthening your company culture or reinforcing traditions
• When leadership transitions happen, or when founders step away
• When you’re working to align messaging across channels, from the careers site to social media

The truth is, there’s no wrong time to document your origin story. If you’re thinking about it, now is the right time.

How to Research and Write a Compelling Company Origin Story

When I interviewed Sharon to write Red Bend’s founder story, I did it out of my own curiosity and because I knew it could help tie our growing global culture back to our roots. I was employee number 30, and the company was quickly reaching 300. At that point, most people only knew Sharon by name. And honestly, Red Bend was becoming successful—and every great startup has an origin story. I wanted us to have ours too.

Here’s how I approached this, and I hope these tips are helpful to you as you think about capturing your own company’s story:

• Start with interviews: Talk to the founder (if possible) and/or early employees. Ask about the origin of the company name, the first product or service or invention, the biggest risks taken and the toughest challenges they faced. Don’t just get the facts or the timeline, but ask the founder how it felt. Ask what kept them up at night, what moments they’ll never forget and what they’re most proud of.
• Look for symbols and traditions: These small details often carry big meaning—like Sharon’s lucky pen. For your company, it could be why your first office location was chosen, the story behind your original logo or a tradition that still exists today.
• Capture defining moments: Everyone who was around in those early days will remember the big decisions, near-misses and pivots that made your company what it is now. Like the first big customer win that was almost lost, until…
• Don’t sanitize the struggles: Every successful company has stories about the tough times—that’s part of the lore. People love getting the inside scoop on the drama, the moments when it almost fell apart, the David vs. Goliath battles. Being real about the failures, doubts and hardships makes your company’s founding not just relatable, but memorable and worth rooting for.
• Write like you talk: Use a conversational tone. Let the voices of the people you interview shine through. When I wrote Red Bend’s origin story, the only way it felt authentic was by keeping it as an interview. I wanted our global team to not just hear the story, but feel like they were getting to know Sharon himself.

If you’re in Recruitment Marketing, Employer Branding, Talent Attraction, HR, Marketing or Corporate Communications, you don’t need permission to do this work. You’re already the steward of your company’s voice, the connector of people to your brand story. You’re in the perfect position to document the journey and share it with the world.

A Company Origin Story Example You Can Learn From

I hope this inspires you to jump in and start documenting your company’s origin story. Don’t overthink it—just start. It doesn’t need to be perfect. The important part is capturing the voices and real moments that shaped where you are today.

Below, I’m sharing the Red Bend origin story I wrote years ago. I hope Sharon’s founder story is as inspiring to you as it was to me and to all of Red Bend’s employees. Enjoy!

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Looking Back on the Journey – Reflecting on Red Bend’s 10 Years
An Interview with Sharon Peleg, Founder and CTO

This year, Red Bend celebrates its 10 year anniversary. To mark this special occasion, Lori interviewed Sharon to reflect back on when he founded the company and to discuss some of the significant events along the way.

Lori: People always ask me about the company’s name, about where it came from and what it means. Can you tell me about the name Red Bend Software?

Sharon: Ok. But first, let me say that in our marketing literature it says that Red Bend was founded in 1999. But actually it’s 11 years since the company was first registered. It was registered under a shelf company created by the lawyers in March 1998. The original name was Gvanim, which means hues in Hebrew.

Immediately I changed the name to Incremental, because I was working on incremental compilation. Then after a month or so, the registrar said sorry, there is another company or something similar that prevents you from using this name. So I had to change it.

My wife Smadar came up with the name Emony, pronounced eh-mo-nee, with an accent on the eh. The reason behind the name is our own little secret. 

A year later, a baby was born named Emony, and the family kept a web site which I found. She must be 9 years old by now, but I can’t seem to find the site anymore.

Unfortunately, the Emony logo made people think the name was pronounced e-Money and also it had a resemblance to the AOL logo. So our investor Carmel insisted that we change it. Interestingly, AOL became one of our first customers.

During the summer of 2001, the company had a US office in California. So we were located in California before Boston. With only a small budget like $5,000, we hired a marketing agency to rebrand the company. We focused on the innovative spirit of the company and the idea that we were bending the rules. Then “Red” was added to represent our passion. Within a few weeks, we had the name Red Bend and a logo. Adding “Software” to our brand name came later.

Lori: So the name Red Bend Software means that we are passionate about changing what’s possible. I really like that. Tell me what it was like in those early days when you started the company.

Sharon: Back in March 1998 when the company was founded, I was all alone and the company was not officially operating yet. I basically had two pieces of paper – the company registration and a patent filing.

My patent attorney introduced me to Gadi Gonen who could be my business partner, to help write a proper business plan in order to get seed money. He was the first CEO, 3 years before Yoram joined.

During this time, I was still working for another company, while my business partner was looking for investment. It took us about a year to raise the first seed money, and in April 1999 the company was officially operational. I joined one month later as the second official employee.

Lori: Wow, so you were not the first official employee of the company. The first CEO was the first employee. I’m sure some people will be surprised to learn that. How does it make you feel when you see Red Bend as a thriving company 10 years later?

Sharon: When I see what Red Bend has become today, I feel like a happy father. To be more precise, I have an ongoing great sense of gratification. Every time I look at the capacity of our activity, I sometimes find it hard to believe that this is what we are, this is what we have become. 

But also I understand this is the nature of business – someone somewhere starts a seed and it grows. I know I started this seed, but it’s the rest of you who have grown it to where we are today.

Lori: When you reflect back on the last 10 years, there must be some big moments, some big events that led us to where we are today. Can you think of any?

Sharon: Looking back, there are several big moments that I remember that shaped the path of the company. I remember one big moment for Red Bend that was almost the last of Red Bend. We were just getting the company going, approaching our first customers and looking for potential investors. A company named BackWeb approached us and offered to immediately buy the company. I still remember sitting in this meeting, and feeling my belly shake with nervousness as I said no on the spot. I was the majority shareholder, and so I could make this decision myself. I remember saying no, and immediately feeling that I hope no one thinks I’m stupid. I could have been half way to being rich and almost retiring on that very day. But I said no. I’m so happy that I said that.

Lori: Me too. I’m sure getting the first investment was a big moment. Can you tell me about that?

Sharon: Yes, another big moment was getting the first investment. Not the seed money, I mean getting the first round of venture capital. By that time, Evyatar Meler had joined as employee #3. After half a year of hard work with Evyatar, we reached the milestone of having a Proof of Concept. And that’s when we got the attention of our first investors led by Carmel, which shortly followed with their investment of $4M. I believe we were the third company that Carmel ever invested in.

Lori: $4M is quite impressive for a company of just three employees and a proof of concept. Don’t you think so?

Sharon: Yes, it was just the three of us – me, Evyatar and Gadi (the first CEO). We would laugh in the office, saying this young company already has all the necessary representatives: the one from the management, the one from the shareholders and the one from the workers’ union.

The money from the first round was transferred in October 2000. It was an amazing day.

Lori: So when did Yoram join as CEO?

Sharon: Well, following Gadi there was another CEO, Ami Rosenblat who started building the company, and finally Yoram joined on August 1, 2001. Yoram joined us together with all his energy and turned us into a real company.

During the summer of 2001 we had our first customers: ICQ, RichFX, then AoL. The deal with AOL was huge for us at that time. It was a big company but rather a small deal in terms of money.

But as you know, right around this time broadband networks were starting to be deployed and replacing dial-up. It was clear that we could not survive staying focused on the PC market. So starting at the end of 2001, Yoram began moving the company towards the mobile space and we gradually left the PC market. In March 2004 we officially put our last PC product on the shelf.

Lori: It must have been quite difficult to refocus the company from PCs to mobile phones. I think a lot of companies whose value propositions were focused on dial-up networks probably failed during this time. How did Red Bend survive this?

Sharon: It was definitely a difficult period for the company, and Yoram and the others who were here during this time can probably write a book about all the challenges we faced and how we overcame them. It took us a few years to win our first mobile customer – BenQ Siemens. But I would say that the next big event for Red Bend was winning Nokia. This was the big validation for Red Bend in the mobile space. Winning Nokia was a massive effort for the young company with many ups and downs. It took us exactly 2 years. I remember that when we signed the deal in the beginning of 2005 I felt happiness muffled by exhaustion. 

Speaking of signing the deal… When I started the company, my wife Smadar gave me a pen. Every time I signed an important document, I used this pen. In May 1998, I signed my first salary check with this pen and later the first round of investment. This is my lucky pen. Every day I carry it in my briefcase. When we closed our first deals, including the one with Nokia, I asked Yoram to use this pen. After that, the deals started coming too frequently and it became impractical to use this pen.

Lori: I can’t believe you still have the pen – that’s really a part of Red Bend history. You know, I want to ask you about your role as founder. I’ve worked with founders who became the CEO and then had difficulty turning over the reins to an outside CEO. Why did you never serve as CEO?

Sharon: In the beginning, I was doing everything – from maintenance of the office and cleaning the floor to designing, coding and fund-raising. When I founded the company, I took advice from smart people and I listened to them. They said, when I get the investment, I should focus on what I’m good at and not be the CEO and not even manage the R&D when it will grow. It’s been very gratifying to see all the professional people join this company and do what they do best. 

I’m a true software engineer. But I also realize that I don’t want to live my whole life as a software engineer. There are also other areas of exciting interest. Like learning how to develop and manage IP, although now it’s time for me to move on from that now that Tali is here. Now I can concentrate on bringing new technologies to the company and this is very exciting.

Lori: You consider yourself a software engineer, but actually I consider you an inventor, because you invented the algorithm that formed the basis of our product portfolio. In my mind, this is probably the biggest moment for Red Bend, because if you hadn’t invented this algorithm, maybe the company would not have gotten funded, or we could not have competed successfully in the FOTA market.

Sharon: I do consider myself an inventor. I’m a playful inventor in my soul. I want to invent and I want to investigate. I can remember the exact second that I completed the first algorithm. It was an amazing Eureka moment, the moment when you find something big in your own brain. It’s something hard to explain. The idea doesn’t have to get confirmation by others. In mathematics, the moment you find something, it’s there. Therefore you get the wonderful sense that maybe other people need a long period of validation to receive, like a painter for example.

That discovery came after a long quest of experiencing hardships and taking big personal risks. It happened in the beginning of 1998. I had quit my job in April 1997, and spent almost 10 months working on a solution to incremental compilation. The interesting thing is that I went to find one solution, and I ended up finding another – which today we call EXE-diff or computational diff. This is in contrast to the padding and patching approaches used later by our competitors. Probably you are right – without this computational algorithm, perhaps we would not be where we are today.

Lori: How much of our success over the last 10 years do you think is luck versus hard work?

Sharon: I was lucky to start the right seed and at the right time. Actually, it was chain of events that led me to be there to found the company, and a chain of events that led us all to come together to this point. Nevertheless, I truly believe luck prefers those who work harder and in particular who are perseverant. I look forward to seeing what this amazing company of talented, dedicated and fun-to-work-with people can do next.