Public Relations

News is timely and interesting to the general public. Startup news tends to fall into the following categories:

1. Product launches and new features

2. Integrations and plugins with well-known products

3. Fundraising

4. Significant new hires

5. Company milestones: Deals with big-name customers, user growth, MRR/ARR growth

Early-stage PR activities

PR activities for early-stage startups will typically focus on:

1. Press releases: Writing and distributing press releases to the company website and the newswire.

2. Media relations: Pitching news, stories, and company experts to journalists.

3. Content placement: Publishing content authored by someone within the company on third-party sites.

Rapid Response

Responding to industry events is an opportunity to assert your company as a thought leader and as a relevant voice in your industry. These are drop-everything, all-hands-on-deck moments. Founders drive the urgency and excitement around these moments.

A well-executed rapid response is like a sonic boost to your company’s visibility and credibility. Not all rapid responses will be successful, but learning from each opportunity will improve future odds.

When a rapid response is needed, the founding team must react quickly to assess the situation and create and publish a response. The response should reflect the team’s authentic viewpoint on the situation. This is an opportunity to do a thought exercise around your company’s niche in the market and where you can add value to the situation.

Events to watch for

1. Competitor moves (e.g., acquisitions, mergers, product announcements, licensing changes)

2. Industry changes (trends, standards, policy, law)

3. Security breaches

Common response types

1. Comment on how the event impacts the industry and why your company’s mission/vision is relevant.

2. Provide a solution, preferably using your product.

3. Report on the situation in cases where you have insider knowledge.

Founders should set keyword alerts for ongoing new monitoring.

Rapid Response process

Speed is paramount to a successful rapid response. When a rapid response opportunity arises, alert the company and OCV’s head of content and COO for support. Rapid response communication with OCV will happen in the company’s OCV Slack channel.

1. As soon as a rapid response is alerted, the CEO/CTO creates a Zoom call, and all necessary stakeholders join. This could mean the entire company.

2. Create a shared document for collaboration and begin populating it with links and comments on the situation. Determine how best to proceed with an external message and create a plan. Assign activities and due dates to appropriate stakeholders.

3. Once a plan has been established, end the Zoom call and set a check-in call for 2 hours later.

4. Resume the Zoom call after 2 hours to follow up on deliverables and assess any additional information.

5. Coordinate the publishing of public materials with social media, community responders, and anyone else involved.

6. Assess results and progress as you release materials. For example, did you tweet about the situation and get a lot of attention from that tweet? Should the topic of the tweet become a blog post?

7. Continue this rotation for 3-5 days, or until the news cycle has ended.

Rapid Response tactics

Each response opportunity will require a custom plan. This is a generic list of actions needed to execute a rapid response:

1. Internal documentation of the situation, including official company stance and response.

2. External-facing blog post and/or YouTube video

3. Product demo(s) & documentation

4. Social media posts

5. Comments on Hacker News and/or Reddit

6. Swag giveaways, coupon codes

7. Press briefings/contact press

8. Graphs and data science

9. In-depth technical articles

10. User profiles that show the human side of the story

11. Interviews with journalists and providing on-the-record commentary

12. In-person events and meet-ups

When to hire a PR consultant

Hiring a PR consultant is a good option for companies expecting one-off announcements and/or for companies that are pre-fundraising and are doing well with owned content (content published to the company blog is getting traffic; traffic is growing).

A PR consultant is retained for a single event and will manage the press release, press outreach, and other planned communication strategies. The benefit of using a consultant is that they typically don’t require an ongoing contract and fee.

When to hire a PR firm

A public relations (PR) firm is a professional services company that specializes in managing a company or individual's public image and reputation. The goal of a PR firm is to build and maintain a positive public image for its clients and to help them communicate effectively with their target audience.

Most companies will hire a PR firm after a successful first round of fundraising, but there is no set timeline for the “right” time. It’s dependent on the company’s ability to demonstrate either of the following:

1. A well-built, relevant story to tell

2. A viable product with early traction (investment, customers, new hires, etc.)

3. A steady drumbeat of potential product and company news (~1/quarter).

A PR firm can help develop messaging and positioning, but the company should first have a solid idea of its story, product vision, and ideal audience profile. The PR firm can help fine-tune and adjust to make it relevant to current trends and conversations happening within the industry.

Hiring a PR firm is typically a long-term commitment. Companies will get the most out of this vendor relationship if they have a steady stream of news and announcements to promote.