Meet 30 Cool Young Entrepreneurs
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Most reporters are not going to do days of research to find the companies - they will just go for the low hanging fruit. They will think of the companies they remember, look through some lists and that's basically it. If you have a clear hook, then they will remember you and will feature you.
So for example, the Visual Website Optimizer (that A/B testing guy), he lacks a hook. Where is the user interest - he won't appear in such a list. But if he creates a hook, writes his own story, and makes sure the relevant reporters see it somewhere, such that they can remember it when they are writing an article, then it will be featured sooner or later.
Your business has basically years to get featured. You can build your human-interest angle somewhere within that time.
Perhaps I'm just a bitter "old" person (over 30), but I'm not convinced it matters that much.
IMHO The Visual Website Optimizer guy should concentrate on providing value and cool stuff for customers rather than pandering to journalists fashion tastes. If he's providing real value, it's fairly simple to start paying for advertising and driving new customers to sign up etc.
My original point was just about why it seems that it's always the same people being featured. It's because those people just have more human interest in their concepts than other people, and the fundamentals of their businesses have little to do with their being featured.
Also, I think writing off successful PR (even in this particular article) as being a company with or without a human interest angle is wrong. I don't think there's anything particularly human interest-y about Posterous, or syncing cell phone data to computers. Certainly the fundamentals of the businesses are not the high order bit either, but that doesn't seem any more like any inherently good decision basis than many other things.
The human interest bit is that "These are all 'young' people (under 30 or something)". If it was just a list of "hot new startups" it wouldn't have that same angle.
Why do you think these people had to pander to journalists to make this list? They were just doing their own thing.
There's so much thinly-veiled jealously in this thread, which, sadly, is exactly what I expected.
I think it could be a bad thing if you make decisions in order to get on such a list, if you're spending time trying to get on such lists rather than doing what you think is best for the business. Getting featured on Techcrunch/Inc/etc won't make or break your business.
My comment about pandering to journalists was a more general point. As was stated by TechCrunch, they ignored "Visual Website Optimizer" basically because they thought the name was unfashionable. I'd be very doubtful that any customers or potential customers would care.
Journalists write about what people want to read about - extremes/freaks/car crashes/drama/soHotRightNow/epicFails etc. Which may well not be your business or your product. But that doesn't mean you have a bad business/product...
This is definitely not fairly simple. Getting the attention of potential users is a huge problem and a difficult, valuable one to solve. This is to say nothing of what the founder of VWO should be doing, but whatever the answer is it shouldn't be because getting customers is fairly simple. It's super hard.
But, yes I agree that pandering to a journalist's taste isn't a great idea. But that's not because I think it is against my philosophies (or such), rather it takes so much time to figure out what works for him/her. As I commented above, I still haven't found my hook. And I'm vaguely aware that the hook will vary from journalist to journalist.
Or are we talking companies without business models here?...
This is advertising.
A journalist's goal is to communicate (usually new) information, not necessarily to write about harder to find, harder to describe stories. I don't think this is a question of low hanging fruit, but one of form factor and audience.
From a company's point of view, especially a startup, communicating a message that is both beneficial to you and interesting to others is damn hard work. To take your VWO example, and the context that it came up in last week with Optimizely, I think there is a lot more than having or not having a "hook." The people at YC do an awesome job of prepping new startups for their first press coverage, often on TechCrunch. There is the obvious benefit--that the company is funded by YC--but also the non-obvious benefit that the company is drawing on lots of experience in successfully getting good press coverage and avoiding mistakes that others make.
Slumdog Millionare Hook: "I'm a pennilless indian guy who has taken over the market from american companies." They will call you when they are writing articles comparing india to U.S.
Deformation Hook: "I have only one arm, one eye, in a wheelchair, can't read". But I still managed to make this company.
Location Hook: "I live on a mountain in Tibet, but I'm competing successfully with startups living in silicon valley"
Technology Hook: "Look, I applied my technology to these peoples websites without them knowing and it increased 20%. Then they hired me"
College drop-out hook: "I was kicked out of college, failed, lived on the streets as a bum. Then I came back to make this."
Romance hook: "I lost my girlfriend, and decided to A/B test a bunch of profile pictures. I ended up with the best picture, and decided to start a business out of it"
The key is this: Would a tabloid be interested in writing about this? It has to be dumbed down and sensationalist, and most difficult of all, unique, while fitting within a general pattern.
Difficult to do.
Practical advice for your case: You already have your hook. You are the A/B testing guy that nobody wanted to cover because you were not sexy enough. That's why I remembered you. That's why all these other posters remembered you.
But no journalist knows that story. You can package it and sell it. But like I said at the start - it's dangerous. If it seems fake, it will hurt your credibility.
Its really kind of simple to be on this list. You just need to apply. Every year they ask for submissions to be included on the list. PR companies will send in their clients names or people will send in their own names. You really want press? First - and this is obviously simplified a little - live in NYC, SF, LA or some major city. Way easier if you live in NYC or SF because that is where all the reporters for big publications in the tech space are based. Then hit up some networking events, have a little personality, and try to sell a story. A story is something as simple as I have been working on this for three years, and it will change the world to my mom is dying and I am doing this for her. Then hustle, hustle, hustle. Present at everything you can. Meet everyone. Tell everyone what your doing. Find reporters, meet reporters friends, if that is really your goal you can make it happen. Cold call reporters. Send in your article. Get on HARO and respond to requests. The Press needs you bad, they need you more than you need them. They HAVE to tell fun and interesting stories. Make your story awesome.
Some interesting companies though. Glad to know I'll still be considered a "young" entrepreneur for a couple more years. :)
As for the comments here about how we pick the list and finding good hooks and all of that, I guess I would simply say that we look each year to create a list with a variety of entrepreneurs who are doing creative things, building interesting companies, and challenging the status quo in their industries. Celebrated start-ups such as Foursquare and Posterous were on our radar from the get-go, but we were equally interested in writing about less showy companies such as the e-mail marketer iContact and the fabric retailer CityCraft. I think the result is a fairly unpredictable list; some people are very familiar with some of the companies, but I doubt that anybody is familiar with every company (SuperJam is pretty great, don't you think?)
Finally, for those of you who think young people are not particularly interesting, I'd recommend our regular "How I Did It" feature, or the section on our site devoted to serial entrepreneurs: http://www.inc.com/serial-entrepreneurs
Best, Mike Hofman Editor, Inc.com mhofman [at] inc.com
any press like this is good press for these startups/entrepreneurs. I was recently featured in the local paper here for 20 under 40, and got a lot of good feedback, and built up my local rep that way.
I found excellence to be too much work, and now aim for adequacy.
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There's nothing wrong with focusing on a particular demographic.
It may have a few grammatical errors, but at least this isn't another here are another ten companies run by guys from silicon valley. Sure it has some of those companies, but I'm glad to see some variety.