
Use this instead of press releases - audace
http://mbites.com/2015/07/01/the-press-release-is-dead/
======
tyre
First things first, consider why you are pitching this reporter in the first
place.

For most companies, TechCrunch is a waste of time (see his note on press
releases designed to stroke the writer's ego.)

They are probably not your market. Your market is the people you help. Those
people — small businesses, local governments, regular people, video game
enthusiasts, whatever — probably don't read TechCrunch.

Find what they read and pitch there.

But what about gaining respect in the Valley? No one whose respect you care
about will respect you for seeing your funding round in TechCrunch. Focus on
building your business. Focus on building your product. Telling stories is
important, but only when you're talking about things that matter. Funding is a
means to doing other things, not an end in itself.

Hiring? When I was at ZenPayroll, the toughest time for hiring was right after
our Series A. We had tons of people who applied because we had just raised $20
million and they saw us in TechCrunch. They wanted to join a rocketship
(literally heard that in an interview.) We wanted to help small businesses,
very different motivations.

Pitch your impact. 99% of the time, you are not yet making a big impact.
That's okay. Focus on making one, not making up a story as to why you're
making one.

~~~
anonbanker
Man, why can't anyone on HN say that TechCrunch is useless without being
karma-bombed?

~~~
mindcrime
TechCrunch is useless for many startups. I won't make a blanket statement that
it's useless, because I think it does matter for some startups. If your
"thing" is a new consumer facing web app or mobile app that needs to be
presented to a lot of fairly tech-savvy "early adopter" types, then sure,
TechCrunch is great, because those are the people who read TechCrunch.

But... if you're a B2B startup whose target customers are manufacturing
companies, logistics companies, retail firms, finance companies, health-care
companies, pharama companies, academia, etc., then TechCrunch likely isn't the
_best_ place to reach your potential customers. Sure, their base of readership
is broad enough that _some_ of your targets probably read it, but if I want to
reach executives in the textiles industry, I'm better off getting something
ran in "Textile Manufacturing Today" or a general purpose business publication
like Forbes.

------
mindcrime
There's some good stuff there, but this gets me:

    
    
        WHAT IS THE NEW ROUND OF FUNDING?
        (Required: Specify Seed, Series A, etc)
        WHO ARE THE INVESTORS?
        (Required)
        HOW MUCH FUNDING (in $) DOES IT HAVE IN TOTAL?
        (Required: Specify Seed, Series A, etc)
    

This suggests that really, the only thing they care about, is stories about
people raising money. Like, that's the only thing that matters in the world.

In reality, who you're funded by is trivia. Yeah, I said it. It's fucking
trivia. It's not going to make a difference in whether you succeed or not.
IMO, to the extent that it matters, it's a microscopic factor.

You would _think_ that a news outlet would be interested in the _what_ of a
company, less than "who's funding it?", ya know? I mean, if somebody has
created a ground-breaking new app, (or something they think is ground-
breaking) then the app either is news-worthy, or it isn't. You don't need to
know who they're funded by, or if they're self-funded, to decide that.

I've said this before and I'll keep banging this drum until I drop... the goal
of a startup is to make money, not to raise money. To the extent that you do
the latter, it's in service of the former. But raising money is a tactical
objective, not the end goal.

~~~
ekpyrotic
Mike is thinking about his readers here. TechCrunch is essentially a business-
to-business publication, which provides market intelligence on technology
companies. It might be 'sexier' than The Aluminium Times or Mining Today, but
it's effectively serving the same role -- to inform the industry, and those
working within it, about important sector news in a timely way.

People who aren't strictly working in the industry read it too because they're
interested in tech more generally, or getting involved in it, or want to know
the coolest things to download. For that reason, TechCrunch publishes the
occasional entertaining piece. But it's primarily purpose is to brief tech
entrepreneurs, C-suite executives and VCs who are active in the industry.

So, what are these people interested in?

They are /absolutely/ interested in who is participating in funding rounds, as
well as the level of their contribution.

If I run a fashion start-up, for example, and spot on TechCrunch a story about
another fashion start-up securing $5m in Series A funding, the first thing I'm
going to ask myself is... who participated in this round? Then I can ping them
an email to get on their radar.

Who is investing is crucial market information for tech decision-makers. It's
certainly not just a bit of trivia.

~~~
aaronbrethorst

        TechCrunch is essentially a business-to-business
        publication, which provides market intelligence
        on technology companies
    

I couldn't disagree more. Most charitably, it's Sports Illustrated for
technology.

    
    
        If I run a fashion start-up, for example, and
        spot on TechCrunch a story about another
        fashion start-up securing $5m in Series A
        funding, the first thing I'm going to ask
        myself is... who participated in this round?
        Then I can ping them an email to get on
        their radar.
    

Dear VC, now that you have skin in the game in this sector, please develop a
conflict of interest by investing in my startup that competes with a company
you've already invested in.

Here's an example of how/why this doesn't work:
[http://www.bhorowitz.com/instagram](http://www.bhorowitz.com/instagram)

------
aerovistae
The hilarious thing about this is that he's complaining about pitches not
being concise enough, but his suggested template literally asks for a full-
length essay. If you add up the suggested sentence limits, you get over EIGHTY
SENTENCES and at least a dozen paragraphs. Jesus!

------
fnordsensei
Very good point! But for a text talking about how long-winded, somewhat
rambling and hard to skim press releases are, I found it quite long-winded,
somewhat rambling and hard to skim.

~~~
strictnein
Especially WITH all of THOSE randomly capitalized WORDS!

~~~
audace
Welcome to Mike Butcher

------
vortico
> Many opening Hacker News posts are very simplistic titles which don’t answer
> basic questions, like "Use _this_ instead of press releases". Many even say
> (WHY?!) "Would you like to read my entire rant about how important I am to
> not have time to converse with humans about their heart-felt ideas?".

He could have titled this "An email template for best chances at reaching
entrepreneurs" and removed the crap at the beginning.

~~~
polysaturate
I've witnessed some titles being changed to a very simplistic phrase. Perhaps
moderation to let the best content rise on its own merits?

------
kordless
> I’m UTTERLY SICK and TIRED of dealing with MILLIONS of tech entrepreneurs
> (these days there are a HELL of a lot of you) and (some) PR people who have
> ZERO clue how to pitch me/TechCrunch/the media.

His business is writing about (or dealing with) tech startups. He make money
doing this by being paid for advertising, etc. If he is sick of dealing with
us, that's his problem to solve, not ours. Coaching us to target him better
doesn't mean that we'll be successful with another reporter with the same
approach. Asking us to improve the efficiencies of our pitches only serves to
increase his own success - it doesn't actually raise the chances we'll get the
exposure (given probability and math happens).

And yes, this general approach would work with PR firms, but then again we're
paying them for that service. I had a call with a PR firm a few weeks back and
they were struggling to understand what a container stack was and why it is
important. They eventually got it, but it took some time. Sometimes complexity
happens.

Instead of offloading his work onto us, why doesn't he figure out a way to
scale what his is _suppose_ to be doing (listening) better? I have no idea how
to solve this, but it doesn't start by telling us his is sick and tired of
dealing with us and how we can do a bunch of work to make him not sick of us.
That's just rudely blaming us for something that brings him suffering.

BTW, I totally get where he is coming from, but still. Tone it down a bit.

~~~
MichaelApproved
He addresses the tone you're referring to

>A final word:

> A lot of this may sound incredibly arrogant. Perhaps it is.

> I don’t dig coal for a living and the Taliban doesn’t shoot at me as part of
> my job. I’m lucky.

> But Journalists have to parse a lot of information quickly now. It helps the
> sender out if they are told, in black and white, the best way to get noticed
> and maybe even read. That’s what this exercise was about.

------
phil248
That first paragraph is a chore to read. Parentheses, caps, asterisks,
hyphens, quotes, slashes... it's like bad ASCII art.

------
mildbow
This guy has a megaphone that you are trying to rent.

Why are you trying to rent TC's megaphone? It is TC's megaphone right? Dude's
got quite a few asks for being a rando-pseudo-journalist. So, I suggest you
take that time and pipe it to figuring out what your market/marketing channel
is so you can invest those cycles better. Do some research on exactly how many
useful signups TC drives (spoiler: nearly 0, craigslist is probably better
(LOL!)[0] ).

Is your target market is even reading TC? Probably not. Which market segments,
exactly, read TC? I barely read it. I doubt most people read it, much less for
actual insight or anything resembling journalism.

I would steer clear of accept-all startups du jour megaphones (signal:noise is
crap) and instead concentrate on outlets your customers care about. BONUS:
those will have less prima donna attitudes with silly headshots. GO!

[0] article referencing ironic LOL!. Enough internets for me for today :)

------
amingilani
I thought "this" would be a PR template, or a service or platform to issue
good press releases for startups. What I got was a man screaming for
attention.

-1 for the title

------
mfoy_
A lot of the suggestions in this carry over to almost every human
interaction.. in addition to his "Can I send you a press release?" gripe, I
have a couple to add:

"Can you do me a favour?" Why don't you ask me to do something and I'll decide
whether or not I want to.

"Can I ask you a question?" Really? You're asking me if you can ask me
something? Just ask it.

~~~
audace
Completely true - Adam Grant recently wrote a piece on when people approach
him asking if they can 'pick his brain'... simply ask what you want to know!

~~~
localcrisis
I think most of the time people just want to speak with that person. They
don't know what they're looking for, just that this person is smart and hope
they'll provide direction/insight/promotion.

Forcing someone to ask what they want is great because it forces them to
actually think about what they want.

------
acgourley
"50% of being a startup is about communication" \- this is only true if you
believe being a startup is about being in the tech news cycle, which I guess
he does.

------
calcsam
Why doesn't he make this a Google Form and respond to all cold-emails with the
form link?

~~~
JeffreyKaine
We could turn this into an interesting side project. sign up with this stuff
as a "profile" of sorts, then update your profile with anything news worthy.
Charge for exposure to journalists.

~~~
6stringmerc
Or, conversely, set it up as a form, have an Editor review the text, and only
allow the submitter 3 "undo" edits before sending it through the portal. The
submitter could pick a maximum # (3-5?) of targets from a list that has agreed
to participate in the format (e.g. publication editors) so there's some
element of exclusivity. Then the editors can respond within a timeframe of
"interested" or "pass" and if more than one is interested, the first one who
replied gets the opportunity, and if they don't capitalize within 3-5-7 days,
it goes to the next (in an ideal world).

This way there's value added for the submitter (prompts, editing for errors
and audience, pathway to exposure) and a buffer intake system for editors who
want good, new, exclusive content of this sort.

I could probably sketch this out on a whiteboard in an afternoon, would be
pretty fun.

...but since I'm writing this out publicly, as part of a group musing an idea,
if I find anybody whole-cloth takes this concept and uses it without
collaboration or any semblence of attribution, karma will catch you, and your
future will be cursed and doomed in equal parts. Don't violate the Bill & Ted
rule of "Be excellent to each other"

------
bozho
Tech journalists keep ranting about the bad pitches they receive. They publish
tips and guidelines. But even if you follow those, they still don't read the
pitches. And rarely have any idea about technology
[http://web.bozho.net/?p=336](http://web.bozho.net/?p=336)

------
codingdave
I think the article is looking at it backwards - techcrunch is not a singular
target audience for press releases. A press release is more like throwing
spaghetti up on the wall to see what sticks. It is a grab for free marketing,
blasted to anyone who might care, with the knowledge that many will ignore it.

Now, if people are writing up direct pitches to this guy and calling it a
press release, then they are simply giving it the wrong label, and then his
advice may be applicable. Or maybe he gave his article a bad label. Or he only
gets crappy press releases. Whichever.

But declaring that the entire mechanism of press releases is outdated just
because he doesn't like them... well, he did say that it was all incredibly
arrogant.

------
scrozier
IOW, write my article for me, so that I don't have to do any actual reporting.

------
lazyant
TL;DR: doing the work for me has the most chances of being in my media

------
ianstallings
If I wasn't a salty startup founder, I might be offended. But after my 500th
rejection letter, with much more terse language, I can handle it. These are
all good tips.

------
eistrati
Lots of "smart ass" comments, but effective :)

------
ramon
This was straight forward and funny! :) Great!

~~~
audace
Yeah - delivery was a bit controversial and not too "entrepreneur-first" but
the content was definitely insightful

------
CurtMonash
If you send me something according to this template, you are very unlikely to
get a favorable response.

Moral: Treat people as individuals.

