How it all happened

as remembered by co-founder Jonah Sachs

It was 1998 and I was talking to Louis Fox, my best friend since I was 7.

“You gotta come down to DC.” 

We were both just out of college, looking for something — anything — that would earn us a living and keep our creative collaboration going.

“Something big is happening.”

I was talking about the Internet and the fact that suddenly, anyone with a computer and a connection could be heard by millions. Unlike the broadcast era — where you had to have money or special access to get your message heard — the Internet was the opportunity we'd been waiting for. Louis packed up a truck and agreed to learn how to use a computer.

We had long been human rights and environmental activists. We saw so much passion in these movements but the messages needed to spread them further had been shut out of the media marketplace by those who controlled its few channels. No more. Thanks to the Internet, audiences could now choose what media they consumed and what they passed along. We believed a new culture was about to emerge — a meritocracy where the best messages, not the richest communicators, would win. We set out to explore this new landscape and quickly realized that the secret to being heard in this brand new era was actually an ancient one — the art of storytelling.

So we started a graphic design and digital storytelling agency. We began crafting stories online for organizations like Amnesty International, Greenpeace and the Organic Trade Association. People freaked out. A swiftly-developed, three-minute video got a Conflict-Free Diamonds bill passed on Capitol Hill. Twenty million checked out Grocery Store Wars, our organic foods movie. We teamed up with the Beastie Boys to save a Tibetan monk from execution by the Chinese government. It seemed like this formula — the Internet plus storytelling — could do anything.

Suddenly everyone wanted stories — stories told through logos, websites, interactive games. We grew. A few of us headed west and opened a California office. We realized that it’s not just non-profits that make positive change. Pioneering businesses are doing it too. So we teamed up with leaders like Green Mountain Coffee, Levi’s and Stonyfield Yogurt. 

Louis and I hired designers who could design circles around us, illustrators who scared us with their talents, technologists who took the vision well beyond what we could have imagined and folks who actually knew how to run a business. Free Range has grown far beyond our friendship – and it continues today.

But things have also become far more more complex. When we started, YouTube and Facebook didn’t exist. There was little competition for our stories. Today, audiences are flooded with content. It takes a lot more to break through, and you have to do it again and again to get results for your brand or cause. That’s why we focus not just on creating media but also on designing brands based on great storytelling. The world changed fast, so we’ve changed with it as we continue to try to stay one step ahead.

Over the past decade or so, we’ve studied stories, social change and the Internet from every angle. But the most important insight we’ve found came from digging into ancient myth and the history of marketing. It’s this:

For all of human history the stories that have broken through have empowered people to step up to be their best selves. For a few decades, the broadcast era flipped that rule on its head, introducing us to a language of fear, greed and inadequacy. The broadcast era is now dead and soon the inadequacy marketing of that time will be dead too. Empowerment marketing will — and already is — taking its place. We’re out to accelerate this change with the only tool that’s ever changed anything — great stories.

Thanks for reading our story. If you’re out to make the next big thing happen, we’d love to help you tell yours.