8 ms·

Think like a reporter: Startup stories they want to write

33 points by joelandren 13y ago

lowglow 13y ago
Supplemental: http://www.techendo.co/posts/how-to-hack-the-press http://www.techendo.co/posts/how-to-hack-the-press
jkarneges 13y ago
Good info. As a tech founder, this marketing/PR stuff is what I need the most schooling in.
- rfnslyr 13y ago
  If you have a great product it should speak for itself.
  - andreasklinger 13y ago
    Sorry but this sounds to me like "if you build it they will come"
  - joelandren 13y ago
    That's great in theory. Unfortunately, many great products aren't by nature viral and need to find other ways to gain awareness. Getting press is just one component of getting awareness, along with content marketing, SEO and other tools. None of this takes away from building a great product.
  - jonathanjaeger 13y ago
    Airbnb and Pinterest are major successes both of which weren't like this. It was a long, hard slog to get traction and that wasn't them sitting back. Sure, the product needs to be great, but don't underestimate what you will need to do to get users to adopt.
    - rfnslyr 13y ago
      Any reads relating to this?
      - jonathanjaeger 13y ago
        Startup School links: Pinterest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JLc2PYyCa0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JLc2PYyCa0 Airbnb: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOytubycHOg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOytubycHOg
  - endlessvoid94 13y ago
    I wish this were so.
  - ejain 13y ago
    The product may speak for itself, but what if there is no one to listen? :-)
  - krmmalik 13y ago
    I don't understsnd why this person is being downvoted. Even Jeff Bezos said words to the same effect when on Charlie Rose. To paraphrase he said 70% of your marketing effort should go into building a better product. It's not some sort of naive idealism. It's reality. And to quote Edwin Land: Marketing is what you do when you have an inferior product.
    - melling 13y ago
      Sounds like horrible advice. I guess you didn't see the Amazon drone on 60 Minutes? Marketing, showmanship, etc are very important for companies and products. Here, I think you should take a business course: " Marketing is possibly the most important activity a business can partake in. It is the one activity that most directly affects the amount of recognition and sales that a company gets and this determines the level of profitability" https://www.udemy.com/blog/importance-of-marketing/ https://www.udemy.com/blog/importance-of-marketing/
    - mindcrime 13y ago
      And to quote Edwin Land: Marketing is what you do when you have an inferior product. LOL. It doesn't matter if you have the most awesome product ever invented, if nobody knows you have it, and your homepage is buried on page 17 of the Google results, beneath 42 competitors with similar products. Marketing is business. And that's tough for me to say, being an engineer by trade. But since launching a startup, I've come to realize the simple, plain, truth... marketing matters. A lot.
- exo_duz 13y ago
  I'm in the same boat as you. Need to learn these kind of things to complement my skills as a tech founder. Thanks for the article.
andreasklinger 13y ago
Two more tips i would love to add: 1) If your company is not currently newsworthy enough alone try pitching broader topics. eg the raise of wearable tech. Startup hype in City X. etc Help the journalist with intro to other (not 100% competitive) founders. 2) Ask the journalist what kind of article he wants to write and what role our startup will play in this article (or where he sees you). If you understand roughly what kind of article a journalist is going for you can deliver by far better usable quotes.
- joelandren 13y ago
  +1 Andreas. There's lots of great things that you can do to be of help to a journalist even when you're not pitching them. For example, follow reporters you want to cover you on Twitter. They frequently have "hair on fire" requests that maybe you can help them with. I saw a reporter ask the other day, "Have any of my followers managed a Hadoop cluster?"
vonnik 13y ago
Joel, Thanks for starting this conversation. Your list of story types is close to the mark, but I think anyone who wants press needs to go a lot deeper. I was a journalist for 10 years. Different kinds of reporters want different things, but they all have one thing in common. They hate being instrumentalized by press-hungry companies, and they do not exist to publicize startups. They exist to inform and entertain their readers. If you try to use them, they will ignore you. You need to figure out how you can help them report better, not just on your company, but on tech in general. Basically, journalists want scoops and fresh points of view. If they can't surprise their readers with what they write, then they shouldn't be writing at all. Think about the stories you like: they all caught you a little off guard, either by the facts they contained or the quality of their analysis. You need to reflect on where you fit into the supply chain of information. The next time something makes you say "Really?" or "Holy sh*t!", your next thought should be: Has this been reported yet, and if not, which journalist would want to write this story? Then you should email them. That's how news should work. It should be something that makes people talk. Frankly, partnerships, metrics and product updates make for boring journalism that leaves readers dissatisfied, but strokes the egos of the companies involved. You know what makes for exciting news? Finding a homeless dude and teaching him how to code. I don't know if Patrick McConlogue wanted exposure when he did that, but he got it, and if that was deliberate, the man is a genius. Everyone on HN has the capacity to make news like this. Forget about the latest app for an app that you're making, and do something big-hearted and cool. The press will eat it up. http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/york-city-programmer-homeless-man-software-coding-classes/story?id=20042021 http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/york-city-programmer-homele...
- joelandren 13y ago
  Great comment. I think that technology news is generally too transactional in nature and that both sides (entrepreneurs and reporters) suffer as a result. I'm going to focus more in depth later on how to create these more "qualitative" stories like trend pieces and founder profiles. The way things are right now, though. A lot of people rely upon tech publications for new product information, which startups have money (and might be hiring) and what's coming down the pike. These are the most efficient means of getting that information out these publications.

33 points by joelandren 13y ago

lowglow 13y ago

Supplemental: http://www.techendo.co/posts/how-to-hack-the-press http://www.techendo.co/posts/how-to-hack-the-press

jkarneges 13y ago

Good info. As a tech founder, this marketing/PR stuff is what I need the most schooling in.

rfnslyr 13y ago
If you have a great product it should speak for itself.
- andreasklinger 13y ago
  Sorry but this sounds to me like "if you build it they will come"
- joelandren 13y ago
  That's great in theory. Unfortunately, many great products aren't by nature viral and need to find other ways to gain awareness. Getting press is just one component of getting awareness, along with content marketing, SEO and other tools. None of this takes away from building a great product.
- jonathanjaeger 13y ago
  Airbnb and Pinterest are major successes both of which weren't like this. It was a long, hard slog to get traction and that wasn't them sitting back. Sure, the product needs to be great, but don't underestimate what you will need to do to get users to adopt.
  - rfnslyr 13y ago
    Any reads relating to this?
    - jonathanjaeger 13y ago
      Startup School links: Pinterest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JLc2PYyCa0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JLc2PYyCa0 Airbnb: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOytubycHOg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOytubycHOg
- endlessvoid94 13y ago
  I wish this were so.
- ejain 13y ago
  The product may speak for itself, but what if there is no one to listen? :-)
- krmmalik 13y ago
  I don't understsnd why this person is being downvoted. Even Jeff Bezos said words to the same effect when on Charlie Rose. To paraphrase he said 70% of your marketing effort should go into building a better product. It's not some sort of naive idealism. It's reality. And to quote Edwin Land: Marketing is what you do when you have an inferior product.
  - melling 13y ago
    Sounds like horrible advice. I guess you didn't see the Amazon drone on 60 Minutes? Marketing, showmanship, etc are very important for companies and products. Here, I think you should take a business course: " Marketing is possibly the most important activity a business can partake in. It is the one activity that most directly affects the amount of recognition and sales that a company gets and this determines the level of profitability" https://www.udemy.com/blog/importance-of-marketing/ https://www.udemy.com/blog/importance-of-marketing/
  - mindcrime 13y ago
    And to quote Edwin Land: Marketing is what you do when you have an inferior product. LOL. It doesn't matter if you have the most awesome product ever invented, if nobody knows you have it, and your homepage is buried on page 17 of the Google results, beneath 42 competitors with similar products. Marketing is business. And that's tough for me to say, being an engineer by trade. But since launching a startup, I've come to realize the simple, plain, truth... marketing matters. A lot.
exo_duz 13y ago
I'm in the same boat as you. Need to learn these kind of things to complement my skills as a tech founder. Thanks for the article.

andreasklinger 13y ago

Two more tips i would love to add: 1) If your company is not currently newsworthy enough alone try pitching broader topics. eg the raise of wearable tech. Startup hype in City X. etc Help the journalist with intro to other (not 100% competitive) founders. 2) Ask the journalist what kind of article he wants to write and what role our startup will play in this article (or where he sees you). If you understand roughly what kind of article a journalist is going for you can deliver by far better usable quotes.

joelandren 13y ago
+1 Andreas. There's lots of great things that you can do to be of help to a journalist even when you're not pitching them. For example, follow reporters you want to cover you on Twitter. They frequently have "hair on fire" requests that maybe you can help them with. I saw a reporter ask the other day, "Have any of my followers managed a Hadoop cluster?"

vonnik 13y ago

Joel, Thanks for starting this conversation. Your list of story types is close to the mark, but I think anyone who wants press needs to go a lot deeper. I was a journalist for 10 years. Different kinds of reporters want different things, but they all have one thing in common. They hate being instrumentalized by press-hungry companies, and they do not exist to publicize startups. They exist to inform and entertain their readers. If you try to use them, they will ignore you. You need to figure out how you can help them report better, not just on your company, but on tech in general. Basically, journalists want scoops and fresh points of view. If they can't surprise their readers with what they write, then they shouldn't be writing at all. Think about the stories you like: they all caught you a little off guard, either by the facts they contained or the quality of their analysis. You need to reflect on where you fit into the supply chain of information. The next time something makes you say "Really?" or "Holy sh*t!", your next thought should be: Has this been reported yet, and if not, which journalist would want to write this story? Then you should email them. That's how news should work. It should be something that makes people talk. Frankly, partnerships, metrics and product updates make for boring journalism that leaves readers dissatisfied, but strokes the egos of the companies involved. You know what makes for exciting news? Finding a homeless dude and teaching him how to code. I don't know if Patrick McConlogue wanted exposure when he did that, but he got it, and if that was deliberate, the man is a genius. Everyone on HN has the capacity to make news like this. Forget about the latest app for an app that you're making, and do something big-hearted and cool. The press will eat it up. http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/york-city-programmer-homeless-man-software-coding-classes/story?id=20042021 http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/york-city-programmer-homele...

joelandren 13y ago
Great comment. I think that technology news is generally too transactional in nature and that both sides (entrepreneurs and reporters) suffer as a result. I'm going to focus more in depth later on how to create these more "qualitative" stories like trend pieces and founder profiles. The way things are right now, though. A lot of people rely upon tech publications for new product information, which startups have money (and might be hiring) and what's coming down the pike. These are the most efficient means of getting that information out these publications.