What Is PR And Why You Might Need It

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Why you might need PR and what it can help you with (and can't) A thread 🧵

Most people don't understand what PR is and how it works. PR is about leveraging the developments and expertise of a company or a particular person to secure organic publications in media.

You figure out if your announcements might be interesting to a publication's audience and therefore get picked up by its reporters and editors. Or you create something from scratch just to get such a placement. Like draft a report on your area of expertise with exclusive data.

When is PR helpful? 1. Fundraising 2. Recruiting 3. (rare) Acquisition of customers & partners

The common theme here is all of these aspects require validation. Being mentioned in TechCrunch or Forbes gets you that validation in most people's eyes.

I know some VC funds who scrape all TechCrunch stories and tag them so they won't miss an interesting company. But it also helps to generate buzz and attract attention. You might not get eyeballs directly. But you can share the link proactively.

Since it's an external source people will be more receptive. Some of the founders we worked with use stories about their companies written 5 years ago to introduce themselves to new people and it seems to work out well for them.

In a way, announcing a funding round in the media helps you set up the next funding round. If you'd like to do that yourself, read this: molodtsov.me/2022/06/how-to-get-media-to-cover-your-fundraising/ Or let's talk.

A similar story with recruiting. Candidates need to be able to explain to themselves, their partners, and parents why would they work for your startup instead of staying at Google with a fat salary and RSU. They also want to know if you have money to pay them.

PR isn't really useful for direct user acquisition. But often it's important to prove to your customers that your company is trustworthy and they can rely on it. External validation is the key here.

So when somebody googles your company they see a news story that explains in detail who you are and what you're building.

PR is about realizing your existing potential. If your company does nothing of interest, it's unlikely you will get a stream of great stories about yourself. It's a shame to have no coverage when you're building something cool though.

If you have any specific questions or think PR might help your business, we at MA Family would be glad to help. We led PR for anything from seed-stage startups to publicly-traded corporations and VC firms. Write hi@ma.family ma.family/

You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: typefully.com/y_molodtsov/fz4Pn3E