Go into debt if you have to…
Narrative determines who gets capital, talent, and market position. The most successful entrepreneurs understand this and engineer their stories deliberately rather than leaving them to chance.
But the marketplace hasn't recognized narrative as a capital formation tool. So ownership of this critical function has fallen by default to public relations—an industry that was never designed for this role and doesn't attract the caliber of people capable of handling it.
The result: one of the most important functions in venture-backed companies is now managed by people whose instincts run counter to everything breakthrough innovation requires.
The market failure is perfectly illustrated by the two options available to founders: agencies that promise flexibility, or internal hires that promise control. Both options reflect the fundamental problem—you get people whose instincts and capabilities are misaligned with your needs.
Premium agencies charge $25-50K monthly retainers indefinitely. Their business model requires dependency—success would mean shorter engagements and lower lifetime value. Most billable hours come from junior practitioners at senior rates. Everything gets marked up. You pay coordination overhead between account managers, strategists, and execution teams who dilute strategic vision.
The communications industry selects for people who accept consensus rather than hunt signal. They measure what's comfortable rather than what's true. But the deeper problem isn't cost—it's that agencies are operationally incapable of breakthrough positioning.
The senior "experts" from your pitch call disappear, replaced by junior practitioners using rinse-and-repeat playbooks. They bill for hours, not outcomes, and fundamentally don't care whether they're moving the needle—they'll only agree to measure results if you pay extra, using completely fraudulent metrics.
They will never develop the context necessary to understand what makes you different. Every founder knows the internal death they feel on agency calls—watching someone who fundamentally doesn't understand their business charge thousands of dollars to execute poorly on their own ideas.
In-house comms hires promise strategic control and institutional knowledge but most (not all) deliver zero to negative value compared to agencies, just with higher fixed costs and longer-term commitment to mediocrity.
Most PR hires are trained in an agency environment and bring the same instincts that make agencies ineffective. While there are examples of unicorns who understand the idea behind narrative capital, think strategically, and amplify rather than dilute vision—they are the exceptions and not the norm. You're far more likely to get this hire wrong than get it right.
The wrong hire infects your narrative with cancer instead of building it into capital. They are risk-averse, intellectually uncurious, and strategically passive—reflexively softening any bold positioning because they're fundamentally uninterested in transformative outcomes.
They treat innovation and inspiration as communications risks to be managed rather than strategic advantages to be amplified. They turn innovative founders into corporate speakers who sound like everyone else in their category.
Most critically, they have no real investment in your mission because after years of toiling away in the agency world they're optimizing for work-life balance and career safety, not your success. When their risk-averse approach inevitably produces mediocre results, their solution is predictable: hire an agency. You end up paying for both while no one takes accountability for outcomes.
Neither model treats narrative as foundational capital. Both optimize for activity over outcomes, measure coverage instead of competitive advantage, manage messages instead of building market position.
Traditional models assume narrative capital requires teams. DSA operates on the opposite principle: one high-agency individual, empowered by AI agents and competitive intelligence systems, outperforms entire communications teams.