Use this instead of press releases
mbites.com
mbites.com
For most companies, TechCrunch is a waste of time (see his note on press releases designed to stroke the writer's ego.)
They are probably not your market. Your market is the people you help. Those people — small businesses, local governments, regular people, video game enthusiasts, whatever — probably don't read TechCrunch.
Find what they read and pitch there.
But what about gaining respect in the Valley? No one whose respect you care about will respect you for seeing your funding round in TechCrunch. Focus on building your business. Focus on building your product. Telling stories is important, but only when you're talking about things that matter. Funding is a means to doing other things, not an end in itself.
Hiring? When I was at ZenPayroll, the toughest time for hiring was right after our Series A. We had tons of people who applied because we had just raised $20 million and they saw us in TechCrunch. They wanted to join a rocketship (literally heard that in an interview.) We wanted to help small businesses, very different motivations.
Pitch your impact. 99% of the time, you are not yet making a big impact. That's okay. Focus on making one, not making up a story as to why you're making one.
But... if you're a B2B startup whose target customers are manufacturing companies, logistics companies, retail firms, finance companies, health-care companies, pharama companies, academia, etc., then TechCrunch likely isn't the best place to reach your potential customers. Sure, their base of readership is broad enough that some of your targets probably read it, but if I want to reach executives in the textiles industry, I'm better off getting something ran in "Textile Manufacturing Today" or a general purpose business publication like Forbes.
Aaah, that's gold. I want to print that out and pin it to my wall now!
It's the same reason why Hacker News, Reddit and other community-based sites matter more than you might think: it lets journalists at larger companies know that there is interest and that you might be worth writing about.
a) cannot find good stories without social proof from TechCrunch b) use TechCrunch as a source for what is up and coming c) value a story already reported in TechCrunch over one that has not received attention.
Your best bet is to build something that matters. Good journalists are smarter than we give them credit for.
So in other words to your point about Techcrunch it can be thought of as it as a filter of legitimacy that you can use to your advantage.
The press release, however, is not dead at all. It's still quite relevant to all mainstream press outlets, regardless of how TechCrunch or other startup sites feel. Don't just ignore press releases. Do them, but do more than JUST press releases. I also have my own non-profit which we do releases for, and you never know when one will land, or how well. Often, random outlets show up interested after a release, even though the big boys ignored it. Do them.
tyre hits the nail on the head in stating that TechCrunch is not your market. As a news site, it may be fun to read, but it's literally a navel gazing Valley hole where the stories of funding only serve to get more funding. It's a cycle, and the more time you spend working to get on TechCrunch, the less time you spend being in the real media, being read about by your potential customers.
Customers read other things. Step out of your comfort zone. Maybe instead of TechCrunch writing about your cooking startup, it should be Bon Apetit? Maybe Bon Apetit doesn't answer the phone, so you go to the next magazine down. Maybe none of them answer the phone, so you go to Diablo magazine, San Francisco Magazine, or in-flight magazines. There's a TON of places to get good press if you look beyond the Web. Radio news programs always need stuff, and local newspapers do too.
For these cases, here is what I recommend: find the lowest media point in your industry and call the editor personally. Don't have a PR person do it. Don't have a marketer do it. Call them as a CEO, or as a VP or whatever you are. Make sure the call is brief, and offer to send them info via email afterwards. But keep calling. Call them back and politely ask about how you could get a story, if they decline. They may only cover product releases, or may only review products. Find out. Maybe they don't cover funding news. I don't. Few do. It's boring as shit.
But maybe they're doing an article about personal data security, or something on the Internet of Things for their newest issue. You won't know unless you call.
Through 2 or 3 phone calls, you could get a great story. Work your connections, get to the journalists anyway that doesn't involve email as first contact. But be careful. If you get nothing after 2 or 3 calls, stop. Don't be a jerk and annoy them.
My inbox is filled with releases, well over 100 a day. You literally have less than 1 second per email subject line to catch my eye there before I just mark them all as read and move on to actual work. Those are shitty odds. Maybe I read your release if I know your name and email address, and that catches my eye, but usually that will only work for a C-level or some-such.
As for impact pitching... I guess that works. What I look for as a reporter is something new. Novelty goes a very long way. Stupid press tricks go nowhere, but knowing just which journalist to go to, and just what type of thing they're looking for is the real key here. Read more magazines, watch local news, and stop reading the Valley's echo chambers. They do nothing of use for your growth.
WHAT IS THE NEW ROUND OF FUNDING?
(Required: Specify Seed, Series A, etc)
WHO ARE THE INVESTORS?
(Required)
HOW MUCH FUNDING (in $) DOES IT HAVE IN TOTAL?
(Required: Specify Seed, Series A, etc)
In reality, who you're funded by is trivia. Yeah, I said it. It's fucking trivia. It's not going to make a difference in whether you succeed or not. IMO, to the extent that it matters, it's a microscopic factor.
You would think that a news outlet would be interested in the what of a company, less than "who's funding it?", ya know? I mean, if somebody has created a ground-breaking new app, (or something they think is ground-breaking) then the app either is news-worthy, or it isn't. You don't need to know who they're funded by, or if they're self-funded, to decide that.
I've said this before and I'll keep banging this drum until I drop... the goal of a startup is to make money, not to raise money. To the extent that you do the latter, it's in service of the former. But raising money is a tactical objective, not the end goal.
People who aren't strictly working in the industry read it too because they're interested in tech more generally, or getting involved in it, or want to know the coolest things to download. For that reason, TechCrunch publishes the occasional entertaining piece. But it's primarily purpose is to brief tech entrepreneurs, C-suite executives and VCs who are active in the industry.
So, what are these people interested in?
They are /absolutely/ interested in who is participating in funding rounds, as well as the level of their contribution.
If I run a fashion start-up, for example, and spot on TechCrunch a story about another fashion start-up securing $5m in Series A funding, the first thing I'm going to ask myself is... who participated in this round? Then I can ping them an email to get on their radar.
Who is investing is crucial market information for tech decision-makers. It's certainly not just a bit of trivia.
Sure, I'm not saying that it doesn't matter to somebody. But in the grand scheme of things, I don't believe it's that important. OTOH, I do believe there are people who think it's important, so in some indirect sense, it matters. But my point is just to say that it's hardly The Most Important Thing, especially compared to the meat of what the company is actually doing.
IOW, if you've invented AGI, that's news-worthy regardless of whether you're funded by A16Z, Bull City Venture Partners, or your crazy uncle Bob.
TechCrunch is essentially a business-to-business
publication, which provides market intelligence
on technology companies
If I run a fashion start-up, for example, and
spot on TechCrunch a story about another
fashion start-up securing $5m in Series A
funding, the first thing I'm going to ask
myself is... who participated in this round?
Then I can ping them an email to get on
their radar.
Here's an example of how/why this doesn't work: http://www.bhorowitz.com/instagram
Investors have much better options for investment intel like CBInsights or Mattermark than TC. It's not a bad source of info, but not always reliable or accurate and definitely not a primary source for VCs/execs (outside of perhaps the SV bubble). A good example of B2B publications would be trade journals and sites like the IDG network that offer much more nuanced articles and insights with very focused categories.
In this world, you do not need to convince anyone that your idea will succeed; you can just go ahead and build it, even if your idea requires investment rounds to execute on.
This is not the world we live in.
I'm not saying that no business should ever raise money. I'm not saying that some businesses don't need to raise money (maybe even large amounts of it) up front.
I am saying that in any case, the actual raise itself is NOT the goal of the company. You're not successful when you raise a round. You're successful when you've built a profitable, sustainable business that can endure while carrying out whatever your original mission was.
Unfortunately, a lot of things in "startup culture" these days emphasize fund-raising in such a way as to suggest that the raise itself is The Most Important Thing. I think that's an unhealthy mindset for everybody involved.
Just imagine how different the world would be under the scenario I outlined, in which this sorting does not occur.
It's not as big as the news if they do solve that problem, but it's still important news.
He could have titled this "An email template for best chances at reaching entrepreneurs" and removed the crap at the beginning.
His business is writing about (or dealing with) tech startups. He make money doing this by being paid for advertising, etc. If he is sick of dealing with us, that's his problem to solve, not ours. Coaching us to target him better doesn't mean that we'll be successful with another reporter with the same approach. Asking us to improve the efficiencies of our pitches only serves to increase his own success - it doesn't actually raise the chances we'll get the exposure (given probability and math happens).
And yes, this general approach would work with PR firms, but then again we're paying them for that service. I had a call with a PR firm a few weeks back and they were struggling to understand what a container stack was and why it is important. They eventually got it, but it took some time. Sometimes complexity happens.
Instead of offloading his work onto us, why doesn't he figure out a way to scale what his is suppose to be doing (listening) better? I have no idea how to solve this, but it doesn't start by telling us his is sick and tired of dealing with us and how we can do a bunch of work to make him not sick of us. That's just rudely blaming us for something that brings him suffering.
BTW, I totally get where he is coming from, but still. Tone it down a bit.
>A final word:
> A lot of this may sound incredibly arrogant. Perhaps it is.
> I don’t dig coal for a living and the Taliban doesn’t shoot at me as part of my job. I’m lucky.
> But Journalists have to parse a lot of information quickly now. It helps the sender out if they are told, in black and white, the best way to get noticed and maybe even read. That’s what this exercise was about.
Why are you trying to rent TC's megaphone? It is TC's megaphone right? Dude's got quite a few asks for being a rando-pseudo-journalist. So, I suggest you take that time and pipe it to figuring out what your market/marketing channel is so you can invest those cycles better. Do some research on exactly how many useful signups TC drives (spoiler: nearly 0, craigslist is probably better (LOL!)[0] ).
Is your target market is even reading TC? Probably not. Which market segments, exactly, read TC? I barely read it. I doubt most people read it, much less for actual insight or anything resembling journalism.
I would steer clear of accept-all startups du jour megaphones (signal:noise is crap) and instead concentrate on outlets your customers care about. BONUS: those will have less prima donna attitudes with silly headshots. GO!
[0] article referencing ironic LOL!. Enough internets for me for today :)
-1 for the title
"Can you do me a favour?" Why don't you ask me to do something and I'll decide whether or not I want to.
"Can I ask you a question?" Really? You're asking me if you can ask me something? Just ask it.
Forcing someone to ask what they want is great because it forces them to actually think about what they want.
Well, I will always be doing SOMETHING, even if that something is relaxing at home. How about you propose your plan, and I decide if I would like to do it with your or not?
This way there's value added for the submitter (prompts, editing for errors and audience, pathway to exposure) and a buffer intake system for editors who want good, new, exclusive content of this sort.
I could probably sketch this out on a whiteboard in an afternoon, would be pretty fun.
...but since I'm writing this out publicly, as part of a group musing an idea, if I find anybody whole-cloth takes this concept and uses it without collaboration or any semblence of attribution, karma will catch you, and your future will be cursed and doomed in equal parts. Don't violate the Bill & Ted rule of "Be excellent to each other"
Make a submission form, let them fill out the answers.
Now, if people are writing up direct pitches to this guy and calling it a press release, then they are simply giving it the wrong label, and then his advice may be applicable. Or maybe he gave his article a bad label. Or he only gets crappy press releases. Whichever.
But declaring that the entire mechanism of press releases is outdated just because he doesn't like them... well, he did say that it was all incredibly arrogant.
Moral: Treat people as individuals.