Top 10 PR Tips for Startup Founders

Week of April 29, 2024 - 16 Silicon Valley Startups Raised $513.6M. 🔥 Who Could Buy TikTok? 🎨 Sora of China is Born. 👂🏼 The Complete History & Strategy of Microsoft

Apr 29, 2024

I had a remarkable week in Boston, I had the privilege of speaking at the TechCrunch Early Stage event meeting hundreds of founders from the Northeast, then hosting Startup Pitch 101 Workshop at the beautiful Morrison Foerster offices and going to my very first Red Sox game.

The energy and enthusiasm of the Boston, MIT and Harvard startup community is truly inspiring, and I'm still buzzing from the experience!

Here are a few great things to read/watch this week:

🗣️ How to Pitch Your Startup 101 - you can download the deck I presented here.
👂🏼 The Complete History & Strategy of Microsoft - It’s unbelievable to learn that Technology Venture Investors (TVI) was able to invest $1M for 5% of Microsoft on an $20M valuation in 1980 with an annual revenue run rate of $8 million. Also very cool to learn that Oracle went IPO one day before Microsoft did on March 13, 1986. A must listen for all founders.
🔥 Who Could Buy TikTok? Will it be Microsoft, Oracle or Walmart? Or can ByteDance establish TikTok as a separate company and go public in the US independently? Or will Bytedance appeal to the Supreme Court based on grounds of the First Amendment? Meanwhile, President Biden’s re-election campaign continues to use TikTok to get his message out to Americans. Very strange…
🎨 Sora of China is Born - Vidu, developed by Chinese AI firm Shengshu Technology (raised CN¥100M from Baidu Ventures, Ant Group, Qiming Ventures Partners) and Tsinghua University, told China Daily that the model can create a high-definition video 16 seconds long and 1080p resolution, which is "very close to" the level of Sora. Watch here
Top 10 PR Tips for Startup Founders - To my new subscribers coming from the TC Early Stage workshops, here are my Top 10 PR tips for founders we discussed:
- PR Goals - Don’t do PR for PR sake. Align your business goals with your PR goals. Is it for fundraising, hiring and or customer acquisition?
- Target Media List - Develop your target media list based on your target audience (investors, customers and hires). Your investors may read Techcrunch, but your customers may not.
- Make a Long-Term Soap Opera for Your Company - Telling your company story is NOT like making a movie. You are making a soap opera with many chapters starting with your founding story in chapter 1.
- No One Can Make You Interesting Except You - Media is not going to make you more interesting, YOU make YOU interesting. Think about why a journalist (and their readers or listeners) should care about your company or products.
- What Can You PR? - It could be funding announcement, product launch, new hire, etc. Unfortunately, for early stage companies, most media outlets will not cover your product launch or new hire announcement, you should always bundle your funding announcement with a product launch, so don’t waste this opportunity.
- Always Include Numbers - In your story, always include real numbers to quantify your market size, customer pain point and impact.
- Always Include Quotes - Always include 2- 3 investor, customer and CEO quotes as part of your stories.
- When NOT to PR? - If your product is not ready, don’t do any PR.
- When NOT to PR? - Avoid all major holidays or big industry events.
- Building Relationships with Media - Treat journalists with respect. Follow their work on X, Linkedin and blogs. No journalists are obligated to write about you.