Publictivity originally started out as an organic startup- theWeblogWire, which was meant to connect startups and bloggers together. You wanted to launch something, we would make sure bloggers got it. We had a really successful launch (mashable, front page of digg, lifehacker, downloadsquad,etc. for press and we had bloggers from: all of gawker, weblogs inc, techcrunch,mashable,etc.). There were even paying customers too! We had been invited out to the valley to meet a bunch of important people that wanted to help us/advise us/etc.
Shortly thereafter, one of the cofounders Frank, went to someone he knew from way back in the day. His friend was the cofounder of pr firm. They thought what we were doing was great and gave us a bit of office space. One day the owner pops in and says: we need this software for PR! and we'll give you money to build it. This was the point Publictivity was born. We (stupidly beyond belief) shuttered theweblogwire for Publictivity, because it made sense to concentrate on only one thing + software seemed like a better startup path. We spent about two months in their offices so we were close to feedback and took meetings every few weeks to get feedback on how the "PR process" worked. We ourselves were clueless on Public Relations from a firm standpoint. We knew how it worked according to being a startup, but that's a fairly different process.
In hindsight, knowing what I now know just from startup experience, I would have never started down the path of Publictivity and continued onwards with theweblogwire. Why? theWeblogWire was meant to cure a need I really had.