5 Ways Early Stage Founders Can Fuel Their PR Strategy

You’ve started your business, you’re starting to pitch your idea to investors and potential future team members, and you’re thinking about how to tell your story to the world. You don’t need to wait until you’ve raised your seed round to begin laying the groundwork for your future PR strategy. While it’s true that a lot of tech startups experience their first interaction with PR when they are announcing their seed round of funding, there are a lot of things you can be doing ahead of that to make your future PR strategy that much more effective.

BUILD YOUR PERSONAL BRAND

Developing your personal brand as an extension of your startup is a great way to start sharing your opinions on your specific category before you’re ready to share more about your startup. Building an edtech startup? Start sharing articles and opinions on issues in the education space – bonus points if you start shedding light on issues your startup will solve in the future. Building a proptech startup? Engage and comment on trending articles about the housing market. Challenge yourself to post about your thoughts and opinions on a cadence that feels manageable. Remember that the algorithm on LinkedIn favours consistent content and you want your community to be primed and ready for you when you do start sharing about what you’re building. 

FOLLOW JOURNALISTS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Keeping tabs on what journalists are writing, what callouts they're doing for specific commentary, and what they’re talking about on social media will give you an inside look to how you might fit into the story. You should be engaging, liking, and sharing key articles from journalists that actively cover your beat (that’s lingo for your vertical – finance, education, retail, real estate, etc). This foundational work will serve you well when you’re ready to start engaging with journalists on a more formal level when you go to launch your startup, announce your raise, and/or activate a meaningful PR campaign.

TAKE NOTES ON THE NEWS AROUND YOUR INDUSTRY

How can you expect journalists and media to cover your startup and your thoughts on your industry if you don’t read what they’re writing – religiously. You should know what journalists cover your category and you should be engaging with the news that is moving the needle in your vertical every day. Not only will it keep you up to speed on potential economic impacts to your business, but it will better inform you to who is taking up share of voice in the space and who you’re competing against from a PR perspective. More often than not, you’re not competing against a similar tech startup for commenting opportunities within the media, but you’re competing against traditional voices who have been in the industry for a significant amount of time. Understand the varying opinions and how your perspective can add a new angle to the consistent conversation. 

ENGAGE WITH LOCAL TECH COMMUNITY GROUPS

Local tech meetups and community groups are one of the best ways to practice your public speaking, engage with other founders and get plugged into what’s going on. TechTO (check out their multiple spin offs that are vertical specific) and Fuckup Nights are two that are a great place to start. Go out to the events, see the types of speakers that are sharing and meet like minded folks in the tech community. Speaking at these events in the early stage of building your startup is a great way to attract your early adopters, meet your first hires, and begin building a community around your startup from the ground up. 

REMEMBER THE DIFFERENCE IN PITCHING INVESTORS VS. USERS

So often startup founders go from pitching investors 24/7 to raise their initial funding to moving straight into marketing and scaling their business – these are two very different pitches and it’s important to practice and finesse both individually. Put yourself in the shoes of your user and always tie your talking points back to the problem you’re solving for them and how it’s going to make their life easier.

Featured image by Roman Kraft on Unsplash.