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One small piece of advice for anyone following along, make sure you have measurable retention before you reach out to the press. They will inevitably get you a

One small piece of advice for anyone following along, make sure you have measurable retention before you reach out to the press. They will inevitably get you a huge boost in downloads and/or traffic, but if you don't have a sticky product, this will have the reverse effect of driving away customers that will be almost impossible to recover.

shostack 10y ago
It is interesting how many products flame out with a bad initial press reception. That can be hard to recover from. But it even happens with big companies (see Google Glass). That said, I think there is a balance, and getting that sort of feedback early on for what is typically a pretty small investment of time and energy in terms of PR can be immensely helpful. It can be a defining moment of understanding product/market fit, especially if you get any negative press that spells out exactly what you're doing wrong.
- metafunctor 10y ago
  Negative press rarely spells out exactly what you're doing wrong, though. It can be helpful, sure, but PR is not a good tool to discover product/market fit for two reasons. First, it is way, way too slow to iterate. Second, the press is not your customer.
  - shostack 10y ago
    While I agree the press is not your customer, I disagree that it is too slow or doesn't spell things out. For starters, if the press doesn't like your product, odds are they will give some hints as to why. They may not spell out exactly what you should change, but they should give some hints as to why they are not happy (and it may not be what they say you should change). In terms of speed, odds are you aren't going to get a massive press hit right off the bat. It will probably be some industry/niche blogs, local publications, etc. You only need a couple to start observing trends, and from there you iterate. Roll out the improvements, test it, and hell, even reach out to the reporters and ask if they like it better. It may get you follow-up press, and even if it doesn't, hopefully you'll get some useful feedback.
metafunctor 10y ago
If you want paying customers, then yes, you need everything in place to capture them and retain them. If you want attention from VCs, or to boost your personal brand, it's less important to have product/market fit, a scalable product, an optimized funnel, or even a published product. Step 0 is to figure out why you want to do press outreach in the first place.

shostack 10y ago

It is interesting how many products flame out with a bad initial press reception. That can be hard to recover from. But it even happens with big companies (see Google Glass). That said, I think there is a balance, and getting that sort of feedback early on for what is typically a pretty small investment of time and energy in terms of PR can be immensely helpful. It can be a defining moment of understanding product/market fit, especially if you get any negative press that spells out exactly what you're doing wrong.

metafunctor 10y ago
Negative press rarely spells out exactly what you're doing wrong, though. It can be helpful, sure, but PR is not a good tool to discover product/market fit for two reasons. First, it is way, way too slow to iterate. Second, the press is not your customer.
- shostack 10y ago
  While I agree the press is not your customer, I disagree that it is too slow or doesn't spell things out. For starters, if the press doesn't like your product, odds are they will give some hints as to why. They may not spell out exactly what you should change, but they should give some hints as to why they are not happy (and it may not be what they say you should change). In terms of speed, odds are you aren't going to get a massive press hit right off the bat. It will probably be some industry/niche blogs, local publications, etc. You only need a couple to start observing trends, and from there you iterate. Roll out the improvements, test it, and hell, even reach out to the reporters and ask if they like it better. It may get you follow-up press, and even if it doesn't, hopefully you'll get some useful feedback.

metafunctor 10y ago

If you want paying customers, then yes, you need everything in place to capture them and retain them. If you want attention from VCs, or to boost your personal brand, it's less important to have product/market fit, a scalable product, an optimized funnel, or even a published product. Step 0 is to figure out why you want to do press outreach in the first place.