
How I started BetaList - keesj
https://medium.com/@marckohlbrugge/248083eb0c34
======
dkrich
As someone who went through almost the same exact process, these are my tips
for getting coverage:

-Keep your email brief (three sentences, tops).

-Tell a story. Many of the stories on publications like TechCrunch are as much about the founders as they are about the startups. Look for an interesting angle related to yours and pitch it accordingly.

-Bloggers have to create several stories a week. Do as much of their job for them as you can by framing the outline of the story they will write in your pitch for coverage (related to previous point). If you started it as a side-project while in college, great, mention that. If your startup is in the same space as [hot trendy startup], great, mention that. Just make sure the whole thing is less than four sentences.

All that said- don't waste your time trying to get covered if you don't have a
regular user base. Yes it is true, if you are covered it will result in an
enormous spike in traffic. That spike will quickly diminish and you will be
back to trying to find more users. I'm very happy for the author that BetaList
turned into a profitable business, but getting covered and hatching a
profitable, sustainable business because of it is the exception, not the norm.

Not to say PR isn't useful (and surprisingly easy to game), but that should
come after you've grown a reliable customer base.

~~~
consta
I totally agree with keeping the message short. Also I have read from several
other sources that telling a story is key. But how are you supposed to tell a
story in 4 sentences?

~~~
keesj
You don't have to tell the whole story in the first email. In fact, it's often
better to only tell half the story so they get curious to hear the rest.

The title of my article is a decent example: "How I tricked TechCrunch into
writing my startup"

Happy to give some feedback based on your individual situation if you like.
Email: marc[at]betalist.com

------
thinkt4nk
The title should actually be "How I trick all of you into reading this story".
I'm probably not alone in hoping that this story contained some slick hack.

~~~
keesj
Nice! That will be my next article:

How I tricked Hacker News into reading about my writing about how I tricked
TechCrunch into writing about my startup.

~~~
alphadevx
+1 Sending a journo an email is hardly an innovative trick. All online
journalists have a minimum number of articles they have to publish per day
mandated to them, so are quite happy to receive unsolicited suggestions to
meet their quotas.

~~~
keesj
The 'trick' wasn't so much in emailing TechCrunch, as it was creating a
separate website altogether (BetaList) and emailing them about that instead.
And then leveraging the publicity that platform is getting through TechCrunch
to get publicity for the startup (Openmargin) I was trying to promote in the
first place.

~~~
thinkt4nk
Ah! I think this gets lost somewhere in the telling of the story.

------
vinothgopi
I was honestly out to thrash you guys in the comments when i read the title.
But the article indeed turned out interesting. I guess this is what people
have now termed "growth hacking"!

~~~
dkrich
And don't forget, while it is unethical to intentionally deceive a reporter, a
large part of a journalist's job is to vet sources and do some research to
make sure claims are true.

In reality, blogs make their money on advertising so if they publish downright
fabrications or knowingly stretch the truth, they do not care as long as they
are getting clicks.

In other words, don't feel bad for the blogs.

~~~
keesj
Not sure if you're saying this was unethical, but what I emailed them was 100%
true. It's just that I disclosed only one reason for starting BetaList
(wanting a platform like that) and not the other one (wanting to leverage
TechCrunch's article to also promote my own startup). Whether that's deceit
depends on whether you consider the other reason being relevant to TechCrunch.
As far as they were concerned they wrote about a cool platform that was
interesting to their audience.

It would be different of course if I swapped out the sites at the last minute,
lied to them about how long I've been working on it, etc, etc, but that wasn't
the case.

Again, not sure if you were saying you thought it was unethical, just trying
to clarify.

~~~
dkrich
Certainly not. I don't think there's anything unethical about what you
described.

What I wrote was in response to the notion that he would be angered had you
actually "tricked" TechCrunch into writing about you. They, after all, are the
one's publishing the story so if they print information that is untrue that
they didn't bother vetting, that's their fault, not anybody else's.

If I send a bogus tip to the Washington Post and they immediately run a story
on it without question, that's incredibly irresponsible on their part and the
fault lies with them. That may seem like an unlikely scenario, but the same
thing happens on a daily basis on blogs and slightly lesser-known news outlets
with readership in the millions.

~~~
keesj
100% agree. Thanks for clarifying.

(In this case there was not much to vet for TechCrunch of course as they could
see what I described exist)

------
simonsc
This was actually an enjoyable read. The best part for me was making good on
the promise they made with BetaList, having successfully featured Pinterest,
Mailbox, IFTTT, and so on.

~~~
sujal
Love the hacks that turn into something useful. I know it may have been a
'trick' or whatever, but this is an example that proves that "scratch your own
itch" to build a great product. He could've used BetaList for his own startup,
so he built it.

That it was built quickly, using Tumblr, and then evolved is just being fast
on your feet and doing good work.

------
jonalmeida
There's a great IFTTT trigger that takes betali.st startups and adds them into
an email[1]. I have it directed to a folder in my mail which I go through once
in a while to find good products I like.

[1]:
[https://ifttt.com/myrecipes/personal/678098](https://ifttt.com/myrecipes/personal/678098)

~~~
keesj
Cool! Thanks for sharing.

Keep in mind we publish about 4-5 startups a day, so if it's too much we also
offer an 'official' newsletter which you'll receive either daily or weekly
depending on your preferences.
[http://betalist.com/newsletter](http://betalist.com/newsletter)

~~~
jonalmeida
I prefer the individual emails for each startup so I can read the startup name
and first line of each description quickly. This is what my email folder looks
like right now[1].

It quickly builds up to 100+ emails if you don't check it every second day.

[1]: [http://i.imgur.com/oUNaFSO.png](http://i.imgur.com/oUNaFSO.png)

~~~
keesj
Oh wow, thanks for sharing. That's great feedback. I didn't consider that
approach.

Would it be helpful if we provided a daily or weekly email that showed the
startups like that? Name + pitch.

~~~
jonalmeida
Glad I could help! That kind of option would be nice. Someone in this thread
mentions that short pitches are easier to consume.

Since there are many startup posts everyday, it's hard to go through all of
them in detail, so I have to pick out the best one from all to discover at the
end of the day.

Maybe there's a way to build up on this concept? Looking forward to seeing
what comes out, good luck!

------
skizm
So in order to "trick" techcruch into writing about your website, you made a
more interesting website that techcrunch would write about which would in
turn, help you gain enough leverage for them to write about your other
website.

This is like writing a guide on how to obtain 1 million dollars and the first
step being to obtain 5 million dollars.

~~~
steveklabnik
"How do you make a small fortune in the airline industry?"

"Start with a large fortune..."

------
jlockfre
He didn't trick them. He stilled emailed them.

That headline makes no sense.

~~~
keesj
My goal was to get publicity for Openmargin. I created a quick site called
BetaList, emailed them about it, and as an end result got publicity for
Openmargin. That was the trick.

------
jbarrec
Thank you for taking the time to write this inspiring post!

~~~
keesj
You're welcome!

Of course part of why I wrote it was to create additional publicity for
BetaList and myself, but IMO one of the best marketing strategies is to
inspire others with your own stories.

------
rootuid
linkBait spammy spam spam. Bah.

