

Jason Calacanis On How To Get PR For Your Startup: Fire Your PR Company - daviday
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/8/jason-calacanis-on-how-to-get-pr-for-your-startup-fire-your-pr-company

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martythemaniak
If there's one thing Calacanis knows how to do, its PR. I don't wanna be mean,
but honestly, how else does something like Mahalo get that much funding and
coverage?

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fallentimes
It pains me to admit this, but Mahalo is doing well by any quantitative
measurement.

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nailer
How are you measuring it?

AFAICT, Mahalo is Yahoo circa 1997. Perhaps the market has made this old
business model relevant again, but I don't see how.

Mahalo never comes up in my Google results. Where is their traffic coming
from?

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froo
I've had Mahalo pop up for several recent news topics.

I suppose its a bit hit and miss right now.

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joao
But that's stuff that people like Calacanis and Loic Lemeur HAVE TO DO.

They aren't engineers, or designers, so spreading the word on the product, and
establishing contacts, it's pretty much the best they can do to help their
startup instead of sitting around all day watching others work.

Nonetheless, social skills, or the simple ability to stand out fast, do play
as much as big a factor in the success of an endeavour as engineering.

~~~
lsc
more importantly

He points out an easy way to get people to like you. Buy them food. It has
worked for me (though I haven't tried it on the scale he speaks of.)

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shafqat
I don't normally agree with a lot of things Jason says, but I am 100% behind
him on this one. From day one, I've tried to talk/walk/eat/sleep/breathe the
way he describes a CEO should be. Not because of him, but because it seemed
like the right thing to do if you're passionate about something.

They say the proof is in the pudding? When we started 8 months ago, I didn't
know a single person in this industry or any journalists or anything about how
startups worked. When we launched last week, we were on every bigtech blog,
BBC, Reuters etc. How? Perserverance and creativity. That's really all it
takes, and I'll gladly share all my tips/trials/failures on my blog. Or e-mail
me if you have questions.

Whatever you do, don't hire a PR agency.

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Luc
Congrats! I have read your blog post on <http://blog.newscred.com/> , but if
you have more tips they would certainly be welcome.

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shafqat
Thanks man. Will certainly post more details. Drop me a note if you have any
specific questions.

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auston
I have to say, this seems like really good advice, it's in line with most of
what I have experienced, except for John Markoff responded to my first email.

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trevelyan
It's great advice.

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gojomo
Calacanis gives good advice. However, many technically-focused founders may
find it hard or distracting/distasteful to pursue the hyper-social, big-
swagger style he advocates.

So take solace in PG's ViaWeb experience: "Our startup spent its entire
marketing budget on PR: at a time when we were assembling our own computers to
save money, we were paying a PR firm $16,000 a month. And they were worth it."
[1]

Times have changed with blogs and other incremental, low-cash-outlay ways to
build buzz. But you can always hire talent to help where you're weak.

[1] <http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html>

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mattmaroon
Times haven't changed that much for people whose startup is not aimed at the
tech-savvy crowd. Ours being primarily sports-related, blogs are simply not
where our potential userbase are reading.

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nir
Anyone heard of Nathan Barley?

