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The Emails That Got My Unsexy Start-Up Covered By TechCrunch

118 points by jamesdeer 14y ago

raheemm 14y ago
Thanks for sharing the actual emails you sent.
jeffehobbs 14y ago
I have not read the article, nor am I conversant in modern technology company acronyms, but congratulations on your Bed 2 Breakfast start-up!
- jamesdeer 14y ago
  Haha.
thejosh 14y ago
That's actually a really good startup idea. Would be nice if pricing wasn't stuck down in the footer....
- jamesdeer 14y ago
  Thanks Josh.
mvkel 14y ago
Based on the organizations you say are signing up for your product, you're spending an awful lot of time trying to get coverage on a site that doesn't focus on your core markets whatsoever. All the time you spent literally begging TC to respond to your emails could have been spent getting published in trade blogs/magazines/sites that talk directly to your customer. Get out of the startup bubble and focus on your customer. Companies that stay under the radar and are killing it are way cooler than a rewritten press release on TC.
- jamesdeer 14y ago
  I didn't really spend a huge amount of time doing it to be honest. A little research, a few emails and Skype call, half a day tops. We've actually been talked about in a number of trade blogs/magazines/sites and conferences. We saw some really good results from those as well, and yes, obviously a higher percentage of converting customers came through those sources. I'm not in any bubble. I'm working really hard. We've got some really healthy revenue and within a month or so based on our current growth, we'll break even. Not bad for only launching a couple of months ago. I appreciate your comments none-the-less :)
  - avree 14y ago
    >We've got some really healthy revenue and within a month or so based on our current growth, we'll break even. Not bad for only launching a couple of months ago. A blog post describing this would be more interesting to me than how you e-mailed a TechCrunch author and he wrote an article about you. I don't mean for this to come across as snarky or belittle your post—it's just that you basically e-mailed a short pitch to a TechCrunch article and got an article out of it. That's not really revolutionary; lots of 'unsexy' (see: Enterprise) startups get covered on TC. EDIT: Or, comparing the effects of your TC coverage against more targeted 'focused coverage'—since I think a lot of startups fall into the "we need to be techcrunch'd" trap and don't realize how effective other less buzz-worthy but more targeted media can be.
    - jamesdeer 14y ago
      Sure, I'd be happy to write something about that, and I love the idea of comparing the TC "results" with the other, more targeted places that wrote about us. You are right, all I did was pitch them in a certain way. I wouldn't call us an Enterprise focused start-up yet and I wasn't trying to come across as revolutionary— just sharing an experience of how I managed to achieve something :)
      - mvkel 14y ago
        I'd appreciate that as well. It can be a challenge to establish relationships with these trade pubs and develop beneficial content. Interested to hear your take on it.
irisshoor 14y ago
Great article. Sharing the actual emails (full version) really makes the difference. I struggled with this problem as well in two different startups (getting B2B product into main stream tech blogs). Two things helped me - 1). trying to wrap it as horizontal product with fun videos and interesting customer stories 2). Admitting we're not sexy, the "we're not sexy but doing something really important" works. I like this part from his email : "It's not a particularly sexy problem, however it's a complete pain in the arse for those who manage the process of content collaboration & organisation"
jonmc12 14y ago
I've been looking for a similar product. Wondering if anyone is aware of a product that has following features: 1. Upload web app interaction design specs (wireframes) from psd 2. Link related graphic specs (pixel perfect) from psd / png 3. Allows commenting by collaborators on each page 4. Has API for Integrating updates from 3rd party sites. For instance, noting in comments that a ticket for this part of the spec was made in Pivotal Tracker, and then updating status when the ticket is completed. The author mentions Cageapp.com - this is the general idea, but I don't see that they have any image linking or basic APIs for integration with 3rd party tools.
noinput 14y ago
One overlying question here is in your contact with Anthony in particular over every other journalist out there, and how that came about. Did you know him already, have his email from a personal reference or similar, find it online, take a guess and hit send? I suppose anyone can blindly email anyone else with hope there is interest for followup, but having that genuine starting connection makes a huge difference.
- jamesdeer 14y ago
  I'd say a little more than 'take a guess', but that pretty much hits the nail on the head. He turned out to be a really nice chap :)
  - polshaw 14y ago
    >a little more than 'take a guess', go on..?
    - jamesdeer 14y ago
      Well, as the article says. I looked for journos who had covered start-ups/companies in similar niches rather than picking someone at random.
      - polshaw 14y ago
        I took it that the parent was asking how you made contact with the guy (eg how did you get his email), but on a second reading it's not so clear. I assume his email was probably freely available on the TC site then.
  - noinput 14y ago
    Figured so and meant no disrespect for your tenacity to find him. If you can't disclose it's understood but I still really want to know the details.
kjemperud 14y ago
"we're the hardest hustler's you'll ever meet, oh, and we scored $2M seed" <-- Vungle?
diego 14y ago
Getting covered by TC is easy. They posted 34 stories on the front page yesterday alone. There simply isn't that much tech news. If you give a decent story to a reporter that he/she can publish it with little work, you're there. Why you'd want to be covered by TC is a different story.
- vidarh 14y ago
  > Why you'd want to be covered by TC is a different story. The SEO benefit of being linked from a high PR site like TC alone can be worth quite a bit for a startup trying to get a new site ranking well.
  - jamesdeer 14y ago
    > Why you'd want to be covered by TC is a different story. For fun.
  - diego 14y ago
    That is a myth. If you know how PR works, you understand that the contribution from a random TC article (not the home page) is not very significant. Also, PR is one in a myriad signals Google uses to gauge the goodness of a page. It's less important than it ever was. Caveat for startups: most people who mention SEO really have no idea what they are talking about.
    - bryanh 14y ago
      Curious why you would claim links for search engine ranking algorithms are a myth. Links from high profile sites (like TechCrunch) are demonstrably good, though I would guess it is definitely a smaller percent now than it was in the early days (ALA PageRank http://ilpubs.stanford.edu:8090/422/1/1999-66.pdf http://ilpubs.stanford.edu:8090/422/1/1999-66.pdf).
      - diego 14y ago
        If you know PageRank, what matters is not the site that links to you, but the page within the site. Techcrunch.com has a PR of 8. On the other hand, http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/04/gathercontent-launch/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/04/gathercontent-launch/ has a PR of 4. That page also has tons of outbound links, so the contribution to the PR of gathercontent.com coming from it page is minimal.
tluyben2 14y ago
Currently I rather be #1 on HN than featured on TC. Ah. Penny dropped.
codyguy 14y ago
What was the Subject line of your email?
- jamesdeer 14y ago
  "Long shot"
donebizkit 14y ago
Thanks for sharing! More useful than many generic articles that show up on HN frontpage.
nthitz 14y ago
Can we please stop using the word 'sexy' to describe certain startups? I doubt people have a sexual attraction to most startups.
- nitrogen 14y ago
  Lots of modern marketing and design seems to use elements of human sex appeal to sell other products - e.g. sleek curves on cars, thin shapes, etc. Physical attraction is one of the strongest human instincts, so manipulating it to drive someone to your product can be profitable, and a product which succeeds in doing so could be described as "sexy." This is the likely context in which people are describing a company or job as "sexy" or "unsexy." Additionally, whether a particular job is considered desirable in a mate (typical example: doctor) can also influence whether the company doing that job is "sexy."
kellyhclay 14y ago
For what it's worth, I've yet to actually hear one VC actually say that getting covered by TechCrunch was a make-or-break for investment. I'm more curious to see what kind of ROI you got from all of this effort. This particular TC article didn't drive a ton of social engagement, and as someone else said, they pump out a TON of content everyday. In terms of helping acquire users and build awareness, did the article help at all?
sixQuarks 14y ago
geeze, what's with all the people giving him a hard time about being written up on techcrunch? I think what he did was great, and thanks for sharing the actual email messages. Quick question: I like the simplicity of your blog, what are you using to create that?
- jamesdeer 14y ago
  It's a SquareSpace site.
ryen 14y ago
> CMS' put webmasters and developers in control... I'm pretty sure the opposite is true.
nhangen 14y ago
Any journalists here want to comment on how you feel about entrepreneurs quoting your emails on their blog?
legierski 14y ago
Still on the front page, looks like there's plenty of interest from HN folks!
giftivo 14y ago
My site giftivo.com was featured on TC on launch day this past week. Like the OP I found a writer that liked to cover similar products and I emailed her. I just asked her to check out the site and provide feedback since she is familiar with similar products and she ended up writing an article. She noted in the article that she gets contacted by tons of sites in the space so I guess it was simply a matter of her liking my site.

118 points by jamesdeer 14y ago

Thanks for sharing the actual emails you sent.

I have not read the article, nor am I conversant in modern technology company acronyms, but congratulations on your Bed 2 Breakfast start-up!

jamesdeer 14y ago
Haha.

thejosh 14y ago

That's actually a really good startup idea. Would be nice if pricing wasn't stuck down in the footer....

jamesdeer 14y ago
Thanks Josh.

mvkel 14y ago

Based on the organizations you say are signing up for your product, you're spending an awful lot of time trying to get coverage on a site that doesn't focus on your core markets whatsoever. All the time you spent literally begging TC to respond to your emails could have been spent getting published in trade blogs/magazines/sites that talk directly to your customer. Get out of the startup bubble and focus on your customer. Companies that stay under the radar and are killing it are way cooler than a rewritten press release on TC.

jamesdeer 14y ago
I didn't really spend a huge amount of time doing it to be honest. A little research, a few emails and Skype call, half a day tops. We've actually been talked about in a number of trade blogs/magazines/sites and conferences. We saw some really good results from those as well, and yes, obviously a higher percentage of converting customers came through those sources. I'm not in any bubble. I'm working really hard. We've got some really healthy revenue and within a month or so based on our current growth, we'll break even. Not bad for only launching a couple of months ago. I appreciate your comments none-the-less :)
- avree 14y ago
  >We've got some really healthy revenue and within a month or so based on our current growth, we'll break even. Not bad for only launching a couple of months ago. A blog post describing this would be more interesting to me than how you e-mailed a TechCrunch author and he wrote an article about you. I don't mean for this to come across as snarky or belittle your post—it's just that you basically e-mailed a short pitch to a TechCrunch article and got an article out of it. That's not really revolutionary; lots of 'unsexy' (see: Enterprise) startups get covered on TC. EDIT: Or, comparing the effects of your TC coverage against more targeted 'focused coverage'—since I think a lot of startups fall into the "we need to be techcrunch'd" trap and don't realize how effective other less buzz-worthy but more targeted media can be.
  - jamesdeer 14y ago
    Sure, I'd be happy to write something about that, and I love the idea of comparing the TC "results" with the other, more targeted places that wrote about us. You are right, all I did was pitch them in a certain way. I wouldn't call us an Enterprise focused start-up yet and I wasn't trying to come across as revolutionary— just sharing an experience of how I managed to achieve something :)
    - mvkel 14y ago
      I'd appreciate that as well. It can be a challenge to establish relationships with these trade pubs and develop beneficial content. Interested to hear your take on it.

irisshoor 14y ago

Great article. Sharing the actual emails (full version) really makes the difference. I struggled with this problem as well in two different startups (getting B2B product into main stream tech blogs). Two things helped me - 1). trying to wrap it as horizontal product with fun videos and interesting customer stories 2). Admitting we're not sexy, the "we're not sexy but doing something really important" works. I like this part from his email : "It's not a particularly sexy problem, however it's a complete pain in the arse for those who manage the process of content collaboration & organisation"

jonmc12 14y ago

I've been looking for a similar product. Wondering if anyone is aware of a product that has following features: 1. Upload web app interaction design specs (wireframes) from psd 2. Link related graphic specs (pixel perfect) from psd / png 3. Allows commenting by collaborators on each page 4. Has API for Integrating updates from 3rd party sites. For instance, noting in comments that a ticket for this part of the spec was made in Pivotal Tracker, and then updating status when the ticket is completed. The author mentions Cageapp.com - this is the general idea, but I don't see that they have any image linking or basic APIs for integration with 3rd party tools.

noinput 14y ago

One overlying question here is in your contact with Anthony in particular over every other journalist out there, and how that came about. Did you know him already, have his email from a personal reference or similar, find it online, take a guess and hit send? I suppose anyone can blindly email anyone else with hope there is interest for followup, but having that genuine starting connection makes a huge difference.

jamesdeer 14y ago
I'd say a little more than 'take a guess', but that pretty much hits the nail on the head. He turned out to be a really nice chap :)
- polshaw 14y ago
  >a little more than 'take a guess', go on..?
  - jamesdeer 14y ago
    Well, as the article says. I looked for journos who had covered start-ups/companies in similar niches rather than picking someone at random.
    - polshaw 14y ago
      I took it that the parent was asking how you made contact with the guy (eg how did you get his email), but on a second reading it's not so clear. I assume his email was probably freely available on the TC site then.
- noinput 14y ago
  Figured so and meant no disrespect for your tenacity to find him. If you can't disclose it's understood but I still really want to know the details.

kjemperud 14y ago

"we're the hardest hustler's you'll ever meet, oh, and we scored $2M seed" <-- Vungle?

diego 14y ago

Getting covered by TC is easy. They posted 34 stories on the front page yesterday alone. There simply isn't that much tech news. If you give a decent story to a reporter that he/she can publish it with little work, you're there. Why you'd want to be covered by TC is a different story.

vidarh 14y ago
> Why you'd want to be covered by TC is a different story. The SEO benefit of being linked from a high PR site like TC alone can be worth quite a bit for a startup trying to get a new site ranking well.
- jamesdeer 14y ago
  > Why you'd want to be covered by TC is a different story. For fun.
- diego 14y ago
  That is a myth. If you know how PR works, you understand that the contribution from a random TC article (not the home page) is not very significant. Also, PR is one in a myriad signals Google uses to gauge the goodness of a page. It's less important than it ever was. Caveat for startups: most people who mention SEO really have no idea what they are talking about.
  - bryanh 14y ago
    Curious why you would claim links for search engine ranking algorithms are a myth. Links from high profile sites (like TechCrunch) are demonstrably good, though I would guess it is definitely a smaller percent now than it was in the early days (ALA PageRank http://ilpubs.stanford.edu:8090/422/1/1999-66.pdf http://ilpubs.stanford.edu:8090/422/1/1999-66.pdf).
    - diego 14y ago
      If you know PageRank, what matters is not the site that links to you, but the page within the site. Techcrunch.com has a PR of 8. On the other hand, http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/04/gathercontent-launch/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/04/gathercontent-launch/ has a PR of 4. That page also has tons of outbound links, so the contribution to the PR of gathercontent.com coming from it page is minimal.

tluyben2 14y ago

Currently I rather be #1 on HN than featured on TC. Ah. Penny dropped.

codyguy 14y ago

What was the Subject line of your email?

jamesdeer 14y ago
"Long shot"

donebizkit 14y ago

Thanks for sharing! More useful than many generic articles that show up on HN frontpage.

nthitz 14y ago

Can we please stop using the word 'sexy' to describe certain startups? I doubt people have a sexual attraction to most startups.

nitrogen 14y ago
Lots of modern marketing and design seems to use elements of human sex appeal to sell other products - e.g. sleek curves on cars, thin shapes, etc. Physical attraction is one of the strongest human instincts, so manipulating it to drive someone to your product can be profitable, and a product which succeeds in doing so could be described as "sexy." This is the likely context in which people are describing a company or job as "sexy" or "unsexy." Additionally, whether a particular job is considered desirable in a mate (typical example: doctor) can also influence whether the company doing that job is "sexy."

kellyhclay 14y ago

For what it's worth, I've yet to actually hear one VC actually say that getting covered by TechCrunch was a make-or-break for investment. I'm more curious to see what kind of ROI you got from all of this effort. This particular TC article didn't drive a ton of social engagement, and as someone else said, they pump out a TON of content everyday. In terms of helping acquire users and build awareness, did the article help at all?

sixQuarks 14y ago

geeze, what's with all the people giving him a hard time about being written up on techcrunch? I think what he did was great, and thanks for sharing the actual email messages. Quick question: I like the simplicity of your blog, what are you using to create that?

jamesdeer 14y ago
It's a SquareSpace site.

ryen 14y ago

> CMS' put webmasters and developers in control... I'm pretty sure the opposite is true.

nhangen 14y ago

Any journalists here want to comment on how you feel about entrepreneurs quoting your emails on their blog?

legierski 14y ago

Still on the front page, looks like there's plenty of interest from HN folks!

giftivo 14y ago

My site giftivo.com was featured on TC on launch day this past week. Like the OP I found a writer that liked to cover similar products and I emailed her. I just asked her to check out the site and provide feedback since she is familiar with similar products and she ended up writing an article. She noted in the article that she gets contacted by tons of sites in the space so I guess it was simply a matter of her liking my site.