After working together for years — including at Seattle logistics startup Flexe — Adam Kapel and Ryan Morel reunited this spring to launch Kompeld, a Bainbridge Island startup focused on helping companies build better narratives.
Kompeld has developed a system for measuring how well companies explain what they do and why customers should care. The startup has tested it on more than 150 technology companies and found that about half have messaging that falls somewhere between average and weak.
The two-person, bootstrapped startup is using AI to turn the founders’ experience in business messaging into a system that helps companies focus their sales stories on what customers need, rather than on the products they sell.
We caught up with Morel for this edition of GeekWire’s Startup Spotlight to learn more about the startup.
In 50 words or less, give us your startup’s elevator pitch?
Kompeld narrative systems turn subjective storytelling into an objective revenue driver. We continuously diagnose, architect, improve and align commercial messages across every revenue funnel stage. We replace gut-feel branding with the structural logic that creates demand, increases win rates and accelerates growth.
What problem are you obsessed with solving?
The hidden revenue barriers caused by self-centered, product-first corporate messaging. Most B2B organizations plateau at one point or another because they focus entirely on themselves rather than the buyer’s operational reality.
What surprised you after talking to customers?
How many B2B leaders passionately want to be customer-centric yet lack any concrete framework to actually be customer-centric? Everyone treats it as a core goal, but struggles to turn that into action across the organization. They simply do not know how to hardcode buyer perspectives, behaviors and outcomes into their daily revenue process. That leaves customer-centricity as an abstract aspiration rather than an institutionalized system. And without that, go-to-market teams default to product-first habits, dilute messaging impact and hinder pipeline growth.
How has AI changed the way you build your company?
Three direct ways. First, AI allows us to turn our narrative expertise and best practices into the repeatable, defendable diagnostic structures and processes that customer-centric narrative systems require. Second, AI tools automate routine steps so we can deliver much faster. Third, AI shapes our delivery model. Instead of traditional software, we can deliver purpose-built narrative protocols based on customer’s specific needs.
What’s one thing people misunderstand about your startup?
Executives misunderstand the difference between a creative brand story and a revenue narrative. And as a result, they misunderstand the focus, approach and value of narrative. Brand stories serve a subjective purpose aimed at emotion, whereas narratives are structured, repeatable systems built strictly to drive revenue and growth.
What’s the toughest decision you’ve made in the past year?
Telling Adam (Kapel) he had to come out of semi-retirement to build Kompeld.
What’s the one piece of advice you give to other entrepreneurs?
Recognize that it’s not about you. Founding a company requires deep personal passion for your idea, but winning requires turning that perspective entirely toward the buyer. Step away from the internal origin story and feature pitches and focus on the customer’s operational reality, their daily disruptions, their urgent challenges and their decision-making criteria.
We’ll know our company has made it when:
Adam retires.
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