

How I Pitched TechCrunch And How To Get Press When You Launch Your Startup - jasonlbaptiste
http://jasonlbaptiste.com/featured-articles/how-i-pitched-techcrunch-and-13-ways-to-get-press-when-you-launch-your-startup/

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acconrad
The true value in this post is that you gave your unedited email to TC. The
world of information in general needs more of this. I'm tired of blog posts
about how to do things - everybody wants to reveal what they think worked
(e.g. the Secret Sauce) without showing how they acted on that advice (e.g.
the meal and its recipe). I don't want a template of your advice, I want to
see what YOU did.

Thanks for being strong and bold enough to provide a REAL example!

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alain94040
Yes. He shows a very good example of a short pitch, to the point, catchy
without being misleading.

I'd like to see the initial response he got. I know the TC folks, did he get
more than "send me more?"

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jasonlbaptiste
Here's how it played out:

-Mike emailed back, asking Alexia to check it out.

-She called me about 30 minutes after.

-Went through vision, pitch, answered questions.

-She needed screenshots in a demo fashion, so we cooked them up in <45.

-Resulting article: [http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/27/turn-your-blog-into-an-ipad...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/27/turn-your-blog-into-an-ipad-native-with-padpressed/)

I'm sure it doesn't always go like this. This is just one data point / use-
case.

~~~
revorad
Looks great, Jason. Congratulations!

And +1 for the Zero7 track (although I'm not sure how appropriate it is for
the product :-P).

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rradu
The fact that the email came from someone that's pretty well known and
respected (Jason) may have also helped in this case. Regardless, good read.

~~~
photon_off
It probably did a little more than help. By my estimations, having a
reputation is far more important than having a product, especially when
pitching to TC.

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robot
It was a valuable read like the others. Would you mind sharing how you created
the product demo video? It would be another nice read if you covered this as a
process.

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
Doing a new one now actually. Literally spent a lot of today scripting, online
at bestbuy waiting to get better tripod. Will write an article up.

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js2
Fwiw, I find PadPressed an awful iPad experience. It is difficult to navigate
the site, navigation between pages is slow, the body text font is not properly
antialiased and is difficult to read, and from the front of the site, it
wasn't clear I had to swipe to open the site. It's obviously trying to make a
site feel like Flipboard, but no thanks.

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jasonlbaptiste
It's the prototype. Were getting there and have lots of work to do. The direct
link pages ie- what you see from here on an iPad needs work/ isn't like most
others.

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js2
Okay. I went to the front of your site though and still found it a sub-optimal
web-experience. If it's any consolation, I also hate the iPad optimized
version of gmail. The iPad has a full browser, give me the full web.

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dkasper
Typo: I think you meant "Stunts are an unsustainable way to do press" instead
of "Stunts are a sustainable way to do press"

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
thank you. Someone else pointed that out too. Going to stop being lazy and fix
now.

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sahillavingia
I actually have a draft of a similar post (except for TUAW, LikeHacker,
Mashable, and the like in addition to TC). It should be up today, look out for
it. :)

EDIT: posted, check it out at <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1805510>

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vaksel
did you send the email to tips@techcrunch or directly to mike?

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kessler
The real question is, did it pay off? Did going exclusively to TC generate the
traffic and buzz you were looking for? Would love to hear more about the
results.

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jasonlbaptiste
So PadPressed has somewhere close to 200 customers total. Not a ton in the
grand scheme of things, but for an alpha version we're really happy.

I know I sit and preach multiple customer acquisition methods and
distribution, but honest truth is, we haven't done any of that over the past
90 days except for the TC coverage. Our shit has been GHETTO. Literally, I
left spelling mistakes, unoptimized funnels, analytics,etc. just to see at the
worst case scenario how we'd do.

We launched, got the TC coverage, had an influx of customer support
(supporting your startup is so overlooked) from customers, and then a trickle
down effect of press. Some say the TC bump doesn't do much, but in our case it
paid off. We're doing a real release, the new design is breathtaking, and
planning real distribution channels/partnerships.

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sanj
Given all of that optimization, I think that the last line of the email is a
little superfluous:

"You Should Check Out JasonLBaptiste.com"

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jasonlbaptiste
that's part of my signature. if you've ever emailed with me before that's
there.

