A few thoughts on PR Strategies for Startups

In the past week, I've had FOUR different people approach me asking for advice on how to create a PR strategy for their startup.  I've never created a PR strategy, but over 5 years as a journalist I've had one or two spectacular relationships with startups (that I've covered multiple times, and passed on to others) and one or two terrible experiences with companies/individuals I would never write about again.

Here are some things that I've noticed (and some that I've messed up)

1)  Relationships with the press are actual relationships.  Journalists are people, not just PR-spewing machines.  What does this mean? Find and cultivate relationships with journalists whom you enjoy working with and whose behavior you find professional.  Keep them updated with occasional newsy - and ideally personalized - notes about what's happening at your company.  If you throw a company party, invite them.  If you're a real champ, remember occasional common interests/facts about them and use those to tailor your notes. Why? Because you will develop people who are familiar with your company, familiar with you, who actually like you, and who will call you for comments not just about your specific company, but also about your industry and sector.  Encourage give-and-take in these relationships.  Understand that sometimes they will write about you and sometimes they won't.  (But the caveat here is: don't be fake about this. Don't pretend you like someone if you don't. Don't issue invitations and then blow people off.  Don't pretend you remember the name of their sister, their dog and their favorite movie - when you don't.  Don't be an asshole about your relationships, and don't give people an opportunity to question your sincerity.)

I know a guy in California who is great about this.  Every 3-6 months, I get a friendly two-paragraph email that begins "Dear Anika - hope things are going well at CNN IBN" and then goes on in a casual and chatty way to mention what they've been up to lately.  It's more like a Christmas card than a press release, and it keeps his company on my mind without being annoying.

2)  Cultivate the bloggers.  Everyone dreams of that six-page spread in the New York Times Magazine. But the vast majority of the media landscape comprises bloggers, trade publications and other small newsletters.  These people can make or break a new company's name long before the NYT gets on the scene.  These are the people who track developments in a specific industry, and they are people worth knowing and cultivating since they will write about your company again and again.  Know your blogs.  Know your beat writers.  Most newspapers and websites assign reporters to cover specific subject areas, or "beats."   If, for eg, you are a health startup, know who covers the health beat at the papers of note in your town. You will find beat correspondents at trade shows and industry events.  These are the people to reach out to with exclusive insights/scoops and early demos of new products.  They are the ones who will get excited about stuff like that.

Blogs are a great, great source of publicity for early-stage companies as well bc they're always on the lookout for content.  They might even ask you to write yourself.

3)  Tell your own story.  I have gotten a ton of very pleasant, informative, interesting emails from new CEOs themselves.  This is one of those things that startups can do.  If your English is even halfway decent, write yourself.  You know your company's story and what you're trying to do better than anyone else, and believe me, it shows.  The resulting letter, even if it goes to several media houses, just feels different from a press release written by a random outsider.  (I know some people don't have the time. But it really does make a difference, and it highlights one of the big differences between startups and big corporations - the personal attention that founders/leaders give to every detail of the company's presentation.)  This also means: don't rely on friends to "pass your info along."  If someone volunteers to do that, politely ask for the reporters' email so you can write to him/her yourself and follow up.

4)  Do not be an annoying pest.   Once you've made contact with a journalist, resist the urge to stalk them on FB, send them twice-daily emails asking about the status of a story, threaten them with violence if they don't write about you, etc.  If someone declines to write about you, take it politely and - if they cover your beat and you would still be interested - say that you'll stay in touch.  And then stay in touch!

5)  You cannot control the narrative.   Look, you just cannot do this.  It sucks, but those are facts.  It's a journalist's job to reach out to you for comment on a story that concerns your company.  It's also their job to reach out to your competitors, your former employees, activists who think you're the Devil and possibly a whole lot of other people who may say bad things about you.  If you happen to be in the situation - as a young nonprofit I know recently was - where you were the subject of a  500 word profile in a major national paper and 3 of those words were adjectives about your product that you did not like - that story was probably still a success for you.  There is a difference between balanced reporting and bad reporting.  Bad reporting is one-sided and incorrect.  If neither of these is the case, then the reporter is doing his/her work, even if you don't love the end result.

6)  Prep for a journalist the way you prep for an investor.  You know how, before pitching/meeting an investor, you'll research his prior deal history, his interests and his firm? Do the same thing with the journalists you meet.  Read a few of their articles, know the news outlet they work for.  It will help you give them content that is relevant and that they can use.  At the end of the day, it should be easy for them to write about you.

7)  You can't expunge the record, but you can clarify.  So you said something on the record, and now you wish you hadn't.  This happens all the time.  Resist the urge to call back and say, "Don't put that on the record!" The journalist may or may not comply with the request, but they will certainly hate you.  That said, if you have to do a "takeback", call up, apologize, explain the problematic bit and your issue, and (if you can) clarify what you meant.  And then let it go.  Don't demand that it be struck from the record.  Don't claim afterwards that things were "off the record" if they clearly weren't.  That's deeply annoying and unprofessional.

On Not Having a Job, and Why Everyone Should Try It

One of the recurring themes of this blog, if you haven't noticed, is me telling other people how to live their lives.  This post is going to go on along those themes.

On her (in?)famous blog, Penelope Trunk mentions that she tends to cycle through employment. She'll go through periods of intense work and then periods when she doesn't work quite so hard.

I don't know about that, but I can say that the past five months (of deliberate unemployment) have been one of the best periods of my life.

Here's what happened: around June of last year, I had a great job doing work that I loved.  In many ways it was exactly what a job should be: I'd worked my ass off, been reprimanded, been taught, learned my weaknesses and my strengths, created a joint vision with a great team and managed to end up with a decent number of tangible accomplishments.  But I felt like I was at the limit of what I was going to learn, both personally and professionally, and I was ready to try and strike out on my own.  I knew that what I wanted next, even though I wasn't sure exactly how I would get it.

I told my bosses that I was planning to go, and we worked to create a transition plan.  And then, at the end of October, I left.  I was incredibly nervous about it.  Like everyone else (but especially those of us in this hyperactive generation) I define myself by the work I do.  For the past three years, I'd had two jobs doing great work that I genuinely enjoyed.  My "work", for me, meant what was printed on my business card.  I worked a lot, and I spent even more time thinking about work.

It was hard to explain this decision to others. Not having a job is not considered an option, it's a position of last resort.  My parents, far away in Washington DC, now had to contend with awkward questions at dinner parties as to what I was doing.  "Why doesn't she come home?" "Why doesn't she get married?" "What is wrong with her?"  I'm not the best at keeping in touch, which I'm sure made these explanations a lot harder to provide.  Nor was I looking forward to meeting new people and answering their questions about what I did for a living with a blank stare.  Not at all.

But then I began to think a lot about who I was, and what my "work" is.  And what it means to me, and why I do it.  I began to think about those crazy dreams that I'd tucked away in the back of my mind - being a freelancer, for example - that I hadn't gotten around to because I was so busy working my jobs.  I felt that really old childish hunger that I hadn't felt since I was a teenager.  That gnaw in the gut - I'm going to do it all, I'm going to show them.

These past five months turned out to be the busiest of my life.  I knew that I wanted to work in digital media, and push the boundaries of the conversation around news x tech, and I began experimenting with new ways to reach that goal.  I applied for and got a scholarship to do a professional development course in the US.  I started a non-profit and organized events.  I freelanced for some great magazines (with a few more coming up!)  I won a reporting fellowship, and got to spend a few months researching a subject I really like. I started volunteering at another non-profit, just because I believe in the mission.  I even found time for an old love - acting in a theatre festival.  Things that had seemed like big obstacles before - pitching editors, for example - became daily events (as did rejection!)

This entire time, I resisted the urge to take another job.  Several came my way, and the pay was good, and I'm sure they would have been satisfying.  But I was enjoying doing things I'd dreamed about.

Then, out of the blue and not at a particularly good time, I finally got an offer I couldn't turn down.  After thinking about it for a long time, stressing over the potential downside, analyzing the upside - I realized I really wanted to do it.  It will be a huge challenge, and I'm excited, nervous and happy to get back to "work." But I've also realized that regardless of what gets printed on business card, work doesn't stop, and neither does challenge.  And challenging, meaningful work - not a job - is what creates satisfaction.

Regardless of why people aren't working, I would encourage everyone to try and own that time, rather than think of it as an interlude or an interregnum.  To use it to push harder for their goals than before.

There's one parenthetical note I should add here: I know that being unemployed by choice is an incredible luxury, and I am fortunate to have had it.  Yes, I saved the money to do it, but that doesn't change the fact that it was good luck.  I realize that to a lot of people who are struggling to find a decent job that'll pay bills, this post will come across as privileged and tone-deaf.  And I am sorry for that.  What I'm trying to document, as you'll see, is how I came to broaden my definition of what "work" means for me.  I hope that's something to which people can relate.

What the Hell Happens at Startup Weekend?

According to various statistics I've found on the Internet, something like 70 to 78% of Gen Y would one day like to start their own business.  I think this is great, and hopefully indicates that despite the general economic pessimism gripping much of the world, we are part of a generation that wants to take control of its future and sees opportunities for doing so.

One of the franchises that caters to this is Startup Weekend.  The premise is that you get together with a group of enthusiasts, form teams around business ideas you pitch yourself, create a company (tech product demo, business plan, presentation) in 54 hours, and then pitch the idea to a panel of venture capitalists.  It's a little like summer camp (and by the way, I think "Startup Summer Camp" is probably just a click away.)

Here's why I thought Startup Weekend was great:  It really simplified the process of creating a business.  I realized that a lot of the initially intimidating stuff - legalities, accounting, etc - really aren't as important as ensuring you have something that people will pay money for.  At Startup Weekend, everyone is encouraged to pitch a business concept in 60 seconds to a roomful of people.

This challenge taught me something valuable: 60 seconds is nothing.  It is three sentences.  After the pitches were over we went down for dinner, and other attendees kept coming up to me and asking me more about my idea.  By the tenth try, I'd finally reached a version of my explanation that people seemed to relate to.  And that taught me something else: use keywords.  A lot of people like to think that they're inventing the wheel, but if your business idea is similar to Dropbox in some way (and btw, most of them are), don't say "consumer-facing cloud computing solution."  Say "it's like Dropbox but."  Everyone knows what Dropbox is, whereas nobody knows what the hell your business is.

Here are some other things worth pointing out:

Figure out why you're attending Startup Weekend.  If your answer is "to start my business" then Startup Weekend will likely disappoint you.  Here's what I mean: despite the statistics they share, the vast majority of attendees do not start their business at Startup Weekend.  Although there are teams that start businesses  based on what they did at Startup Weekend, here are some ground realities: 1) the teams change and 2) the idea changes.  This is a little like business in the real world, but it's worth pointing out before you go in.

I went because I wanted to a) meet developers (hi, developers!) and b) understand the process of "creating" a business - how does one go from good idea to sustainable enterprise?  Here's what I learned: the process is way simpler than it sounds, and involves a lot of figuring shit out as you go along.

Startup Weekend is more like a class than an incubator.  And that's awesome! 

Decide how much you want to prepare.  Startup Weekend is, theoretically, a competition.  At the end of the weekend, the judges give out prizes to the participants.  The initial 60-second pitches at my event ran the gamut from "scripted and memorized" to "made up on the spot."  Decide how much you want to prepare in advance.  Some people had been thinking about their ideas for months, some people for just a few days.  I was definitely in the latter camp.

There are also people who have turned "attending Startup Weekend" into its own profession.  Startup Weekend may be like the real world, but so is the real world.  If you're doing something like this for the fifth time, there should probably be a very clear reason.

Keep working.  The people who worked on their ideas more had better pitches, but they also refined their concept more over the course of the weekend.  Yes, you can bullshit, but seriously: if you have free time, think up random shit to do.  Go talk to strangers on the street about your business idea.  Make Google logos for it.  Look up all your competition on the Internet.  Whatever.  But don't stop working.  If you can't think up something to do, go interview other teams.  I promise, one of them is doing something you're not doing.  For example: one of the teams at my Startup Weekend made a video of themselves going out and interviewing vendors about their product.  This was really cool; and I kinda wish we had done it.

Anyway, I highly recommend Startup Weekend for people who are thinking about starting their own business but haven't done it, and who want more info about how it works.  For someone like me, who prefers to learn from doing things (and messing up) - it's ideal.  And it's way better - in its structure, in the mode of thinking it inspires - than any traditional classroom course I've taken.

The Slumdog Billionaire Myth

If you read one essay this year, consider "The Case Against Credentialism," written by James Fallows for the Atlantic in 1985.

A lot of what Fallows says is still relevant today, which what makes the essay worthwhile.  Twenty seven years ago, the world was not that different from today, at least going by the descriptions in this essay.  Then, as now, "the nation's bookshelves [groaned] with analyses of America's productivity problems [and] competitive woes."  It's easy to look at the world and think that unchecked corporate greed and bewildering globalization are unique to our time, but they're not.

It's also easy to read Fallows' essay like a criticism of the general professionalization of America.  But there's also a much deeper point that Fallows makes about American society.  Towards the end, he writes,

"Perhaps the cultural changes that have professionalized America are irreversible.  The economist Mancur Olson has gloomily hypothesized that most societies tend to separate into inflexible castes, except when warfare or other cataclysms disrupt the social order [and] unleash new talent."

It's depressing but not entirely unbelievable that for a while now, the so-called "meritocratic" institutions have been part of slowly but surely turning America into what might appear, especially to students of American history, a little too feudal for comfort.  There's a widespread perception - maybe not entirely accurate, but still present - that America is turning into an almost casteist country, one in which the conditions (mainly monetary) of a person's birth determine whether or not he will qualify to join an educated elite who increasingly dominate all economic activities and reserve resources for themselves.  This is what the Occupy movement is all about, at heart.

Fallows says - and it's worth remembering - that even while the self-made tycoon was the American ideal, he was also largely a myth.  In any generation worldwide, most successful children are the products of somewhat successful parents.  Fallows refers to this as the "wisely chosen birth" and he's spot on.

But the near-sacred belief that a dedicated person could bootstrap his way from the bottom, Fallows argues, is what encouraged generations of Americans to take risks, strike out on their own, and contribute to the dramatic economic churn that for many years powered American's increasing productivity.

In 1985, he says, that sense of self began to wane, and at the same time, a new ideal arose: the professional.  According to Fallows, the problem with idealizing "professionals" is that they add narrow value to society.

Fallows (a Harvard grad and Rhodes scholar) writes, "For much of my adult life I have lived among those who have “had it good” on the meritocracy’s terms. Because of their intellectual promise, they were better educated than most others, and given longer to explore options and make choices. What I find striking about this class is how few of its members are involved in...creative economic efforts...From college and graduate school I know...consultants, and analysts aplenty, but few people who have started their own businesses or created jobs for anyone besides themselves...What kind of merit system is this, if it discounts the activity on which the collective wealth depends?"

And he has harsher words still for all the corporate honchos and lawyers out there: "Why is so much raw talent creamed off for pursuits of such dubious economic value? Why are so many of our smartest people induced to spend their adult lives waging merger wars against one another and doing battle over the tax code?...To such efforts are the best and brightest now drawn."

I might take issue with the use of "best and brightest" in that context, but I get that he was trying to make a point.

Here's what is interesting to me about this essay.  The decline of the American "self-made" ideal seems to have coincided with the rise of the Indian "self-made ideal."  If Fallows is right and shifts in ideology correlate with - or cause - shifts in economic activity, then what does this mean for India and America?

Is India still a feudal society, almost oligarchic?  Yes.  Do privileged elites dominate almost all economic activity?  Yes.  But if we take Fallows at his word, that doesn't matter - what matters is perception. 

It's difficult to overstate - to an American - the oppressive extent to which the Indian business families of yesteryear were perceived to dominate all entrepreneurship.

In just a few decades, this perception has changed.  Modern India's business heroes include men like Dhirubhai Ambani, Nandan Nilekani, Kishore Biyani and Azim Premji.  Are they any of these guys "slumdog billionaires"?  Ha, no.

But their existence - and the self-made myth that has come up in India - is what matters.  Friends of mine like to complain about how everyone in Delhi seems to be "starting something" - and it's a valid question how many of these enterprises are as solidly conceived as they could be - but belief in the (almost!) impossible is what empowers people (particularly those whose alternative is otherwise a comfortable upper middle-class life) to take dramatic risks.

When I was a science & technology correspondent, I met tons of young Indian kids who had started businesses.  Their one common complaint?  That their traditional Indian parents didn't understand or identify with the value of risk-taking.  Those Indian parents came from a professionalized generation, one for which a good, well-paid job was a rarity, and something to be clung to for life.  Once a company secretary, always a company secretary, the thinking went.

We have swapped ideologies and that, if Fallows is correct, is an important step on the road to swapping economies.

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Of course, the central question - and this is why I distinguish between correlation and causation, to an extent that Fallows doesn't - is whether a rise in entrepreneurial mythology A) leads to economic growth, B) results from it, or C) A & B.