How to Get Press for Your Startup

Startup press is a specific problem. You have no track record, no press office, and a story that sounds identical to the five hundred other companies emailing the same journalists this month.

None of that is fatal. It does mean the ordinary approach will not work.

What startup reporters actually cover

Reporters on a technology or business desk cover a fairly narrow set of things, and it is worth being blunt about the list.

• Funding, but only some of it. A round gets written up when the amount, the investor or the sector makes it notable. A small round from unknown names usually does not clear that bar, whatever the release says.
• Launches with a genuine first. Not a new feature — a product doing something that did not previously exist.
• Numbers. Growth, usage, pricing shifts, survey results. Reporters need something they can cite.
• Market change. New regulation, a competitor collapsing, a technology becoming cheap. Here you are the expert voice inside a story that is already running.
• People. An unusual founding team, a notable hire, an origin that is genuinely strange.

If your pitch is none of these, it is a company update. Company updates go unread.

Finding a story before you have news

Most founders spend the pre-launch period assuming they have nothing to say, while sitting on the best material they will ever have.

• Your own product data. Aggregated, anonymised patterns in how people use what you built. Proprietary by definition, and impossible for a reporter to source anywhere else.
• The expensive mistake. A specific error with a lesson attached is more publishable than a success, and far rarer in an inbox.
• The argument you only make privately. Every founder holds a view they will state at dinner and soften in public. The softened version is why the pitch reads as bland.

Test it by writing the one sentence a reader would repeat to a colleague afterwards. If you cannot write that sentence, keep digging.

Building a media list that makes sense

Do not start at the top. Start where you can win.

A workable list has three tiers: trade and niche titles covering your exact sector, mid-tier business and technology publications, and the household names you are aiming at eventually. Work upward. Editors at larger outlets are noticeably more responsive to founders who already have a public record, because someone else has done part of the verification for them.

Build the list by reading rather than by buying a database. Find the handful of journalists who have written about your problem space in the last six months, note the angle each took, and pitch them something they have not already published. Ten well-chosen names beat two hundred addresses.

How to write the pitch

• Subject line. State the story, not your company name. It should read like a headline the outlet might plausibly run.
• First sentence. The news or the claim. No preamble and no flattery about their last article unless it is genuinely relevant.
• Two or three lines of evidence. Numbers, dates, what you can actually prove.
• One line on you. Why you are the person qualified to say it.
• An offer. The underlying data, an interview, exclusivity if you mean it.

Send plain text and attach nothing. Follow up once, about a week later, then stop.

Most pitches go unanswered. That is the normal outcome, not a verdict on your company.

Earned, contributor and paid routes

Three different products get sold as press, and founders lose money by not asking which one is on the table.

Earned editorial is a journalist choosing to write about you. It costs nothing, cannot be bought, and nobody can promise it.

Contributor programmes let you publish bylined articles on a recognised domain, generally for a membership fee and generally with a label on the page. Legitimate, useful to some founders, and not the same as being written about.

Sponsored content is advertising produced to editorial standards and labelled as paid. Also legitimate, and priced accordingly.

Ask any agency which of the three they are selling, and get the answer in writing. Anyone guaranteeing top-tier editorial coverage is selling something they cannot deliver, because the decision sits with an editor they have never met. Digital Networking Agency builds and places these stories for founders, and we are direct about the same limit: we develop, write and pitch, but publication is the outlet's call.

Mistakes that cost founders months

• Waiting for the round. The raise is the least interesting thing about most startups, and waiting for it wastes the year in which you had something to teach.
• Pitching the whole company. One idea per email. A pitch covering everything you do reads as a brochure.
• Breaking an embargo, or offering a fake exclusive. Journalists talk to each other, and this ends relationships permanently.
• Chasing only the biggest names. Coverage compounds, so the first placement matters far more than where it is.
• No usable assets. A founder headshot, a one-paragraph company description and a factual bio should exist before you pitch, not after someone asks.

Frequently asked questions

How early is too early to pitch?

You are too early when you have nothing to say, not when you are small. If you have run the experiment, made the mistake or collected the data, you have material regardless of stage.

Do I need a press release?

Rarely. A short, specific email to the right journalist outperforms a formal release for most startups. Releases mainly earn their keep for formal announcements and wire distribution.

How long does the first placement take?

Weeks rather than days, and unpredictable for earned coverage. Anyone offering a guaranteed publication date is describing a paid route, whatever they call it.