Startup School 14: How to Think About PR – Sharon Pope

This is a good starting point, but I think founder-led PR needs to go a bit deeper. You need to connect with reporters, and there are several ways to do that.

* Give before you ask, and give a lot. Start with generosity. That could be information about your sector, introductions they need, or story ideas that have nothing to do with you. Keep giving. Relationships develop over years. One of the things you have to give is honesty. Never lie to a reporter. If you don't want to answer something, just say you can't answer that, but don't lie.

* Speak normal. Try very hard to talk in a language that intelligent outsiders who don't know tech jargon would understand. That will make your quotes shine, and allow the reporter to understand a sector that you're more familiar with than her.

* Get to the point quickly. Reporters are overwhelmed with pitches. Don't be frustrated with they don't respond.

Remember: product development is a long game, and so is PR. At a certain point you have to accept that you're doing both at once. Good press can get you the attention that leads to users and investments, and that gives you a foundation for building a better product.

Amazon has an interesting technique that combines product development and PR. That is to write the press release that will launch the product in such a way that will actually interest someone; that is, in a way that shows the important problem you solve, and for whom.

https://www.quora.com/Amazon-company-What-is-Amazons-approac...

Disclosure: I was a reporter at the NYT. I'm now a start CEO. In the last month, we were quoted in WIRED, CNBC, TNW, CIO, and TechCrunch using these techniques.

https://www.google.com/search?q=news+skymind&rlz=1C5CHFA_enU...

The main takeaways:

1. Pitch journalists yourself as the founder - don't bother hiring a PR firm 2. Pitch journalists who previously covered related companies 3. Pitch what your company does from an interesting angle so it's easy for the journalist to see its story potential - different possible angles:

Your personal story / background Exciting new feature Company hit important milestone Your product is truly innovative Interesting user behavior patterns Broader social/political/economic issues your product touches upon Pitch to local publications (you founded your startup in this city) Create a landing page/resource related to product and pitch that

* From: http://www.artofemails.com/pitch-press

"Startup PR Mistakes": https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z6v6Um-hBT0

(Above is another recent presentation by YC on PR covering some of the same points, but also with a few different points too.)

Recently I stumbled upon this on press kit [1], which I've found pretty interesting.

I think the 3 "must have" are pretty solid:

1. Focus your press kit on clear, branded messages.

2. Give your press kit a founder story and a company or product core story

3. You have to create the focus with repetition, and repetition, and more repetition.

[1] https://artplusmarketing.com/3-must-haves-for-your-startups-...

During the presentation, there was a reference to a presentation by YC's Kat Mañalac to the YC batches.

Does anyone have a link to an example of this presentation, slides, etc?

Also, are there any presentions, materials, etc., that are given to the batches that are not used in YC's Startup School, and if so, what are they?