Pathfounders is based in Europe, and while much of our coverage will be European, we won’t be locked into that ‘box’.

It’s time to make the links with Silicon Valley and tech internationally, as well as look at the wider, under-reported, international tech startup ecosystems, products, and investors.  From the Middle East, to Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Follow us on Whatsapp, LinkedIn, X, BlueSky, Instagram, etc. more links below.)

Tech doesn’t need polite journalism. It needs more fight. More debate. Some corners of the startup world have become safe, LinkedIn back-slapping, and PR-washed. We don’t want to just “cover” the trends. We want to call them. And what better way to do it than with a startup?

Read more here.

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The backstory: Recently, Regent LP, a US private equity firm, acquired TechCrunch and its staff in the US, from Yahoo. During this process, my colleagues in Europe and I were, unexpectedly, rendered redundant. I should emphasise that I am not a spokesperson for Yahoo or Regent in this matter. However, the upshot is that, as of last month, I am no longer writing for TechCrunch.

This ends an 18-year run, starting in 2007.

Until last month, my personal journey with TechCrunch had been an incredibly fulfilling one, and, I hope, useful to the European ecosystem.

But before I indulge in a little nostalgia, I want to emphasise that this does not mean my departure from tech journalism. I will be taking my many thousands of contacts and social media followers — spread across Europe and the Middle East — with me, into my next adventures. And BTW, PR people: just put me ‘on hold’ for now, ok?

So, I am excited to tell you what’s next. But not quite yet…

Meanwhile, if you want to stay in touch, please put your email into the form I’ve linked to below, and feel free to follow me across my social channels.(My email: mike@mikebutcher.me).

https://buttondown.com/mikebutcher

Until I have more concrete things to say, I will still be floating around tech events in Europe over the summer, and engaging in the following (feel free to get in contact if any of this resonates):

– Running panels and fireside chats at conferences and events (most recently, Tech EU, EU Startups Summit, GITEX)

– Consulting with companies on relevant areas (or on events) — but only while I’m on a journalism break

– Continuing to meet founders and investors, professionally and socially. Hit me up!

– Producing more social media content, as and when.

– I also plan to relaunch my non-profit Techfugees as a ‘Crunchbase for humanitarianism’. Get in touch if you want to help!

After writing over 6,500 articles for TechCrunch about startups and investors over the past 18 years (roughly, an article every single day for the entire duration), I’ve seen, and experienced, quite a lot.

I’ve interviewed many, many founders (all the way from their first startup to their third or fourth) and VCs, and even one or two Prime Ministers and Presidents.

Along the way I’ve interviewed Nikolay Storonsky, Pavel Durov, Jimmy Wales, Niklas Zennstrom, and Tony Blair, among others; launched the UK’s first co-working space for startups; three non-profits; The Europas; made a few Top 100 lists; spoken at WEF; been a talking head on a lot of TV channels; picked up an MBE for services to journalism and tech; been a judge on The Apprentice; told Bono I preferred U2’s drummer and got Franz Ferdinand to play a gig for Ukraine.

Although I was the only European journalist for TechCrunch for the first five years, I was privileged to be eventually joined by others. Thank you Ingrid, Romain, Natasha, Paul and Steve (RIP) for being the most excellent colleagues.

So, now, to the future.

We face possibly the most exciting time ever in the tech industry. To say that there is plenty happening in technology is an understatement. How Europe shapes its own tech future is becoming increasingly relevant, especially geopolitically.

But those stories cannot *only* be told by ‘influencers’ or VCs with podcasts, no matter how polished they are. There is still a role for independent journalism that doesn’t have a vested interest in the subjects it’s talking about, or to.

Accountability creates trust and therefore growth. Without accountability, business suffers.

Thus, to quote Churchill,: “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

See you out there.

My channels:
https://x.com/mikebutcher
https://bsky.app/profile/mikebutcher.bsky.social
https://www.threads.com/@mikebutcher
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikebutcher
https://www.instagram.com/mikebutcher
https://www.youtube.com/c/MikeButcher1

The report concluded that human activity is changing the climate at an unprecedented rate, and was described as a “code red for humanity” by its authors.

It also assessed that regardless of mitigation and adaptation strategies, many of the negative changes happening to Earth will continue unabated in all future scenarios.

In short, there is already momentum toward a more unliveable, hotter, and more chaotic world, and right now we need many, many more efforts to stop these trends. The knock-on effects of climate change will impact society, as economies will be hit and issues like diversity and social inclusion are likely to fall by the wayside as people become more desperate to simply ‘get by’.

The commitment by many countries and companies to ‘Net Zero’ will also be found wanting. Mitigating the effects of the climate crisis might happen if every organisation on the planet went Net Zero. But I’m sure we all realize that won’t happen. Many industries and governments either won’t switch or be laggards. It’s clear now that Carbon Negative policies will be the only ones that have any effect, because these will need to make up for the bad actors that don’t switch.

It is also beholden of the tech industry to get into this fight, in a big way. Only the tech industry can move at the blistering pace the planet needs right now. The tech industry has the brains, money and, frankly, the lobbyists, to make a real difference. And it has it’s own CO2 problems to contend with.

It’s a little-known fact that the carbon footprint of the technology sector is greater than the entire aviation industry (Research: Aalto University and LUT University). At the same time, tech companies (like many others) are generally attracted to carbon offsetting schemes that don’t actually remove carbon from the environment and are often riddled with flaws. Only carbon removal (read: negative) offsets contribute toward Net Zero because they actively take carbon out of the sky.

This is why, as of next week, I will no longer be routinely taking PR pitches about just any subject to do with tech, startups, and VC.

I will instead be focusing most of my editorial efforts (you can find me here on TechCrunch) on two main themes, and here they are in order of importance:

Firstly, technology and venture funding which addresses the Climate Crisis, and secondly, technology and venture funding which has a positive Social Impact.

I will still be covering other kinds of tech stories, as and when. As a journalist of 26 years standing, I reserve the right to write about anything I damn well like. But if a PR pitches me about something which is NOT related to Climate Tech and Social Impact, then the pitch will be put to the ‘back of the queue’.

The issue with the technology business is not that the world might not need yet another ‘SaaS platform for accounting’, or ‘ awesome tool for developers’. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. The issue is that the planet is now in dire trouble, and anything that is not directly addressing this, is poised to become largely irrelevant. In ten years’ time, when the consequences of the Climate Crisis aren’t just at our ‘doorstep’ but flooding our houses and forcing us to move countries, will we care that an AI startup was taking care of our insurance needs more efficiently? Newsflash: Your insurance will be irrelevant at that point.

Furthermore, I will do my best to avoid “Greenwashing” and also call it out where I see it happening.

Just to set expectations: Not everything I get pitched will end up being a story for me, even if it has these angles (of course – that’s just the nature of the media business).

I will also be interested in startups addressing the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), see below.

For anyone who is not aware of the various definitions, here’s a run-down.

1. Impact tech investing is an investment strategy that seeks to generate financial returns while ALSO creating a positive social or environmental impact. Impact tech investors target companies or industries that produce social or environmental benefits. For example, some impact investors seek to support renewable energy, electric cars, microfinance, sustainable agriculture, etc.

2. What is impact technology? Impact Tech is the proactive use of responsible technology to create or multiply positive impact. … Impact tech is an intentional use of responsible technology and science to benefit *people and the planet*, ideally addressing a major social or environmental problem.

3. What is Climate Tech? Climate tech includes solutions aimed at decarbonizing the planet. This can include transportation, real estate and agriculture, renewable power generation, electric vehicles, forestry management, among other areas. While “Cleantech” addresses humanity’s impact on the environment, Climate Tech is expressly concerned with the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, a major driver of climate change.

4. SDGs: Hardware, software, and other technologies are an essential tool for sustainable development. They can be instrumental in ensuring that people have, for instance, access to clean water (through water purification, efficiency, delivery, and sanitation technologies); live in a less toxic environment; live healthier, well lives etc etc

Some examples of Climate and Impact Tech:

Agriculture Tech (as per Climate impact)
Atmosphere
Battery Tech
Buildings & Cities (Carbon reduction)
Blockchain / Crypto where it addresses Climate or Social Impact
Carbon / Carbon Negative
Carbon capture
Carbon sequestration / storage
Climate Risk
Consumer Goods Packaging *reduction* (example)
Direct Air Capture (of CO2)
EdTech (especially for emerging markets)
Energy / EVs
FinTech, only where it addresses Climate or Social Impact
Food Tech as per Climate impact
Gender equality
Health & Wellness (for wellbeing & social impact)
Industrial processes (Carbon reduction)
Social Impact tech
Solar Tech
Space Tech as per Climate / Social Impact
Sustainable Fashion Tech
Transportation (EVs / Batteries)
Waste tech (Carbon / Plastics reduction)
Water tech (Purification)
Venture Capital (Impact / Climate)

The 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):
GOAL 1: No Poverty
GOAL 2: Zero Hunger
GOAL 3: Good Health and Well-being
GOAL 4: Quality Education
GOAL 5: Gender Equality
GOAL 6: Clean Water and Sanitation
GOAL 7: Affordable and Clean Energy
GOAL 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
GOAL 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
GOAL 10: Reduced Inequality
GOAL 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities
GOAL 12: Responsible Consumption and Production
GOAL 13: Climate Action
GOAL 14: Life Below Water
GOAL 15: Life on Land
GOAL 16: Peace and Justice Strong Institutions
GOAL 17: Partnerships to achieve the Goal

(Image Credits: Getty Images)

Now, being a journalist, it’s not my job to advise you on your PR strategy. But I did find that my original presentation was useful for early-stage tech startup founders who needed to do their own press reach-out and literally didn’t know where to start.

On the flip side, I often found that startups that pitched me ended up being far easier for me to understand and “get” on their first interaction with me when they’d read and followed my instructions. At least then I could make the call about whether I was going to write about them, or not. It turned out to be a win-win for both sides.

So, to address the issue of what startups could do once they have been in the media a couple of times, and the kinds of things (beyond sheer success, of course) that might help keep them in the media’s eye.

So, I present for you “How to tell stories about your startup post-Series A beyond funding (and during Covid-19)”.

You will notice I have also specifically addressed some ideas about how you might approach the media given the current COVID-19 pandemic.

The presentation is more or less self-explanatory. I hope it’s useful.

Here are some summary thoughts:

KNOW YOUR JOURNALIST — STAY CLOSE TO THE TOPICS THAT INTEREST THEM

Make sure you’re reading what the journalist is writing! This seems obvious, but surprisingly, doesn’t always happen.

Use Tools like Feedly to efficiently scan the news. (Feedly allows you to see headlines and excerpts via RSS, and then deep dive on those that are relevant.) TechMeme is another excellent resource, which you can use to keep yourself briefed: head over there daily and get a big download of everything that’s being talked about.

Other useful services include HelpAReporter.com, JournoRequests.com, and Muckrack.com.

Twitter is like a real-time feed into a journalist’s brain!

Use Twitter! Most major journalists are now on Twitter although this wasn’t always the case.

Reaching out to journalists on Twitter, or at least keeping an eye on what they’re talking about, is a way of understanding how they’re thinking about subjects. Journalists often test out story ideas on Twitter or ask questions about things they are curious about.

Like all of us, journalists care about their work. So comment, like, RT, and share articles they’ve written, if you’ve found them

BE RELEVANT

One of the very simple recommendations I’m going to keep repeating is this — you’ve got to stay relevant.

People sometimes forget what the word ‘news’ means. News is something new, obviously. But, more importantly, it’s something relevant right now. Ask yourselves: are you relevant in the context of your ecosystem, and in the wider world? And how are you relevant? Top journalists are focused on what’s relevant now, and where things are going. It’s critical to acknowledge your place in today’s news stories.

No doubt you have stories about key new hires, new clients, new product releases. But these aren’t always terribly exciting to journalists. (Unless you’ve appointed Beyoncé to your Board.)

GET CREATIVE WITH YOUR POST-FUNDRAISE STORYTELLING

Following your fundraise, your next story requires creativity on your part. Journalists are always on the lookout for a new consumer behavior trend, or a new or emerging way of approaching a problem. Help them find those new, exciting things.

Being creative is like catnip for journalists.

For example, think about how you become engaged in the bigger issue stories of interest to journalists.
This issue could be outside your immediate product or service — for example, in areas of disability, accessibility, politics, disinformation, access to talent, or climate change. Perhaps you are giving back to society in a bigger way than ‘just’ selling a product or service?

However, a cautionary note: make sure your connection to that bigger issue is really substantial and substantive. Otherwise, it risks appearing as marketing ‘fluff.’

On a practical level, I recommend you sit down regularly with the creative story-tellers on your team and ask yourselves: what are the next big ‘moments’ you’re aiming for in your narrative? What’s your relevance in the wider context? How do you fit into what’s going on around you and into trends in consumer behaviour?

You can also consider ‘curating’ your own story ideas. Organize roundtables or events that discuss interesting topics, with some interesting minds gathered together, and invite a journalist along. Show that you’re the expert.
Maintain your newsworthiness — a combination of timeliness, relevance and novelty.

AFFIRM YOUR COMPETITIVE CONTEXT

From my viewpoint, it’s not only ok to compare yourself to competitors, it’s recommended. Comparing yourself to others really helps journalists to understand both what your startup does, and where to place you in their head.
When I sit down with startups, I always ask: what’s your context, and who are your competitors?

I encourage you not to be afraid to challenge ‘the big’ competitors. As long as you can say something of substance, it is worth doing. This is not about ‘attacking’ your competitors. It’s about challenging them.

In fact, this can work out well for smaller startups willing to ‘take on’ a giant competitor — look at the coverage Postmates got for taking on Uber (and they ultimately got acquired by Uber).

INVEST IN YOUR RELATIONSHIPS WITH JOURNALISTS — AND REMEMBER IT’S A TWO WAY STREET

Develop a positive and useful working relationship with journalists — one that is non-transactional. Don’t be the person who only reaches out to journalists when you need something. Your next media coverage moment may be in a week, or may be months from now. Keep your contacts ‘warm’ between those moments and even if a journalist does not pick up your ideas now, they may return to them later.

Journalists will often give more time of day to people that are useful to them. Can you offer introductions or an inside opinion on a wider topic the journalist is researching? If you see a journalist asking questions about something you know about, offer your help. They are working hard to stay on top of many difficult topics, and while journalists may be interested in what your company is doing, they are really interested in what you know.

Keep your media contacts warm

I recommend you check in with the journalists you’re following regularly. You may have developed a ‘top’ list of ten to fifteen journalists you specifically want to engage closely — so think strategically about how to do that in a non-spammy way.

One startup I know cleverly sent a (short!) email every month to six weeks to a select group of journalists. This CEO wrote a concise list of company and ecosystem updates, along with suggestions for story ideas and commentary on new topics that they felt worth following. The email provided the option for the journalist to ‘opt out’ at any point.

While you may not always get something in return immediately, this investment can pay off in the longer term.

On a related topic, you honestly don’t always need a press release. (Though a press release for big news is helpful to ensure the internal teams agree on the message and stats.) If a huge piece of news breaks and you have something unique and insightful to say, you’ll lose valuable time writing a release. If you can see things further ahead in your unique area that journalists may not share your insight and help them connect the dots with a quick email.

Finally, make sure your CEO is available when you do want to announce something, or you want to offer commentary. Don’t allow your PR agencies, or heads of comms or marketing, to be a bottleneck. Almost always, the journalist wants to talk directly to the CEO and decision-makers.

On the topic of emails…

Journalists get hundreds and hundreds of emails (as well as DMs, WhatsApps, etc.) every single day. Staying on top of them all is a mighty task. Respect their time and attention, and don’t spam repeatedly through multiple channels. (I used to tell certain people to use ‘code words’ in a subject line to get my attention, though we are fairly sure that trick was only for a few people!)

FINALLY… PREPARE FOR REJECTION!

Don’t take it personally if you don’t hear back, or a journalist simply isn’t interested in picking up your most recent story idea. Stories are picked up, and dropped, for countless reasons. You can ask for feedback on why a story didn’t run, but you may not get a response there either — if only because journalists are incredibly busy people. Plus, don’t pitch a dull story when you know that there is something more exciting to share in a month. You risk irritating the journalist. Always be polite and listen to what they need. (For example, in the last few months any stories not related to COVID-19 were considered, for better or worse, irrelevant.)

You see, if I took all these offers up I’d never have to pay for food or coffee again. (Here are a few ideas about why asking for lunch/coffee isn’t a great idea). But I’d also never get any work done. Yes, it is always better to try and form a working relationship with a journalist before pitching them an idea you think they might want to look into. It is always better to RESEARCH what the journalist generally writes about and who their title is aimed at. But you are not going to get your ‘foot in the door’ unless your first interactions are concise and to the point.

In the main all the questions listed below are the stock standard questions I would ask of any startup I had never heard of before. And they apply much more to new startups who have no clue how to approach the media. But, incredibly, I still get some PR people who can’t cover off these basic questions in their opening gambit. In either case, their opening lines are often a short email which amounts to “Hi, we exist. Can we have a post on Techcrunch now?” This, of course is utterly stupid.

The most solid pitches come when the startup relates what they do to a CURRENT news story of the day. For instance, say Apple just came out with a new kind of headphone, and your startup has a product relevant to music or headphones. THAT is when you should jump all over the media – while your story is current and you can get into the tail-wind of a hot story. Not 6 months later when we’ve all moved on and forgotten about headphones.

Many opening gambits are very simplistic emails which don’t answer basic questions. Many even say (WHY?!) “Can I send you a press release?”.

Are you kidding me? Are you really kidding me? Please don’t ask this. Just. Send. It.

The alternative is me wasting wasting a minute or so of my life replying to you with something like “Hey, so I have no idea if you should send me your press release or not because you know what’s in it and I don’t. So OK, sure, knock yourself out. Join the party in my inbox.”

(BTW you should read this piece on why your follow-up emails usually don’t work).

You are going to save us all time — and visits to psychiatrists — by simply addressing some basic questions FIRST.

In the industry, this called THE NARRATIVE.

Mostly, ‘press releases’ are written in the way a PR’s client would write a news story. They are usually pretty rambling and designed to please the client (read: stroke their ego) rather than assist the journalist to get shit done, and fast. So, I think the press release format is DEAD.

Instead, I have come up with a checklist of things you need to cover off at the opening pitch, before the process of further questions happens. I have EVEN (wow, I’m so helpful aren’t I?) prescribed the number of sentences you should use. Now, the eagle-eyed among you will realise that this is just a rough guide. If you can tell me why your company rocks in one sentence then great. Sure, 3 is fine. But if you have to do it in 50, then, I’m sorry, but you may have a problem understanding and communicating exactly what it is that you do.

Are you going to have to send me 70+ sentences? No. But you MUST at least try to address as many of these questions as possible. Putting it into an easy to digest format, so that the journalist can make a quick decision about whether to start talking to you or not, can be helpful. If this is not your style, then fine. Try something else. Write War And Peace. But I’m just trying to tell you that this is potentially going to save you and the journalist a lot of time. Time is a big deal in the media business…

Sure, granted, the final resulting article might well go into fine detail about what it is you do. It might even be a pretty long article. That’s for the journalist to decide. But if your FIRST interactions with the media is something akin to a chapter of War And Peace, then you have a problem. As I like to say, “50% of being a startup is about communication”. If you are trying to ‘change the world’, then you are going to have to communicate that.

In the first instance, before pitching what you THINK is news, you MUST make sure it actually IS news (like NEW, ‘never been published before’ new!) and follow this format. Savvy PR people will sign off the traditional press release (this product is the world’s leading yadda yadda) with the client but STILL use the below format AS WELL to ASSIST the journalist.

And PLEASE go read my slides and watch the video I have been using to educate startups for the last few years.

Meanwhile, I intend to write less news anyway, and concentrate more on opinion pieces and video.

Some tips: All TechCrunch writers can be emailed on Tips@TechCrunch.com (very high traffic, but it is read). And all European writers can be email on EuroNews [@] Techcrunch.com

If you just want me, I’m on mike [ @ ] techcrunch.com

A note on Subject lines and opening sentences: Subject lines should read like headlines: “Catty, the Uber-for-Cats, Raises A $20M Seed Round” (LOL!). Opening sentence should NOT Read: “Hi Mike, How are you? It’s hot in London huh?”. It should read: “Mike, With the news that Uber has expanded into on-demand Cat Delivery, I bring you a startup that is going to BLOW those guys out of the water and this is EXCLUSIVE for you.”

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.

Thanks!

P.S.

FURTHER NOTES, POST PUBLICATION:

[1]. Should you pitch via a tweet? e.g. “@mikebutcher Hello Mike, Just read Press Release Is Dead & thought you’d appreciate our startup app. We have users & can monetize. DM?” ANSWER: Exactly how much information can you get into this? Can you answer any of the questions below adequately? What do you think…? Here’s a better idea: Answer the below questions in a targeted email to the journalist, then @ reply to them on Twitter and say something pithy like : “Cat.ty is the uber for cat delivery, emailed you just now”. Get the idea?

[2]. Never, ever, EVER contact a journalist and ask them to “Tweet out our startup”. Or anything similar. Tweets imply endorsement. To endorse it, the journalist would have to read all about the product/company/pitch otherwise they would not feel comfortable with tweeting something positive. And they just don’t have time. If they are not writing about the company, there is no incentive for them to bother other than out of personal interest. I get startups asking me to ‘upvote’ them on Product Hunt, or Re-Tweet their tweets. This is just plain insulting. We’re not here to be your free PR machines, EVEN if the person asking might be a friend. Have some professionalism. Do your own marketing. If a journalist, in a personal capacity, feels like Tweeting about a product they like then fine, they can do that. But they are not there to be asked to pimp products. They have real work to do besides anything else.

[3]. If you have given a journalist an exclusive and somehow some other journalist gets hold of the story and publishes before the story was supposed to come out then do this: IMMEDIATELY tell the first journalist (the one you gave the story to) that the story has broken. Do it NOW. DO NOT WAIT until the time you agreed for publication and DO NOT wait for the first journalist to find out from someone/somewhere else that the story they have been SLAVING OVER has already broken. Why do this? Well, if the journalist you gave a story to now knows the story is out, they can rush to get their story out. You will have done them a great service. They will like you and think you are professional. But you must also explain how you think the story came out, such as the OTHER journalist turned out to be so good they found it on their own. But, getting back to your friendly journalist MAY also mean a much more favourable version (to you) of the story getting out faster. If you do not do this, then the first journalist will NEVER trust you to work with them again. But they won’t tell you. They will just think you are a piece of shit. You won’t even know it. And if you gave the story to more than one journalist and told ALL of them they ‘had the exclusive’ then perhaps think about changing your identity and moving countries.

[4] If you want to be dismembered by a former journalist who is now wanted for murder (yours), pitch them a story which already broke a month ago as if it’s “new”. Don’t tell them the product has already been written up. Then wait, as they simply Google the product’s name only to find Wired/The Times etc had it some time ago, and the ‘new’ angle you are pitching is that you opened an office in Belize, staffed by one guy and a donkey. Granted, the donkey was previously with HP. [Translation: Don’t pitch old stories as if they are new].

[5] A good way to stop a journalist from coming to your launch event (or any event) is to send them an invite in a pretty looking graphic which is basically impossible to extract information from or put into a calendar. This is really, really, dumb. At worst, send the information in plain text, so they can copy and past it it in their diary (impossible with a graphic). If you want to be REALLY smart, send them a *calendar invite* with all the relevant info in the notes section. Then all they have to do is click a Yes button and you are more likely to get them to come.

[6] Its generally not considered acceptable to offer an exclusive to more than one journalist. But what if they don’t respond? How much time would you consider legit to offer it to someone else? This depends. You would obviously have to give them a “reasonable” amount of time to respond. The decision also greatly depends on the journalist and what their normal ‘MO’ is and how important their outlet is to your strategy. I, for instance, am often on planes and between flights. But a lot of people wait for me to land and give them a yay or nay because TechCrunch is a big outlet…

[7] I can also recommend a less ranty post on this subject here.

[8] Just to re-iterate: When pitching a story, a PR or a startup must ALWAYS answer these questions: Who are the competitors? Why and how is your company better? And never, ever, say “We don’t have any competitors.” If you don’t have competitors then there is no market for your product. There is also no way for the journalist to frame your story or to better understand the problem you think you are solving. There is no such thing as a company with no competitors. Even if the product feels like a brand new category that has landed in a spaceship, the problem it is solving will still have been approached by someone else before, just in a different manner. Remember your Latin: nihil sub sole novum.

[9] “The Double Pitch”
Sometimes you will contact a journalist and either they will take forever to respond or they do respond, but then they take forever to come back to you. The temptation at that point is to give up on them and to contact another journalist at the same title. I can sympathise with the eager startup founder who is desperate to get their story out and into the media. But here is the problem. Journalists are jealous of their stories and if a contact approaches another colleague, first of all that is mildly insulting. They may just have been a bit busy. It doens;t mean they won’t reply. If you find yourself waiting several days, what you should do is ping them back, say something like “hey Mike, as it’s been a week since I initially contacted you and I haven’t heard back, I hope you don’t mind me contacting one of your colleagues about the story. I will chat to XXXX about it. Or let me know if you do in fact get time to come back to me about it.” You will then either hear back from the journalist or you will not, as they are going to assume you’ve moved on. That’s fine. So in other words, journalists don’t mind you contacting other colleagues so long as you’ve given then the option to respond (although the convention is to wait as long as possible for the first journalist to respond). But they do mind (a lot!) when a company contacts two journalists from their title, but does not explicitly say this to both journalists It’s called “double pitching”. What happens in a double pitch is that two journalists are unaware they have been contacted separately by the same company and both start working on a story. The worst case scenario is when they then both post an article (a “double post”). The company concerned might well like this, but the title and the journalists will hate you for causing this chaos because you have been underhand in your communication and tried to “game” several journalists from the same title into writing about you. It’s unlikely you’ll ever get covered again both by those journalists or that title ever again. Lastly, if you do eventually hear back from a journalist but they this is not a story they want to cover, do NOT go to one of their colleagues with EXACTLY the same pitch. Either send the first journalist a new pitch with a different angle, and try that, or have a think and maybe try another journalist with a DIFFERENT pitch. That may work for you. But if in the office the journalists (who do talk to eachother!) compare notes and find you are pitching the same thing over and over again to different colleagues, despite having being rejected, your company will quickly gain a reputation for being annoying, and that will affect your chances of getting covered.

[10] You’ve sent your pitch to a specific journalist. You wait, but the the journalist doesn’t get back to you. They are probably busy, rather than ignoring you. After a reasonable amount of time time (it very much depends on the person you are trying to reach and how senior they are and your relationship with them), then send it to the general editorial team. If you send it to another journalist on the same team, asking them to bug the first journalist (their colleague) about a pitch that the first journalist knows nothing about yet, this is bad form and wastes everyone’s time. There are few things more annoying as a journalist than having one of your colleagues bug you about some PR or startup “trying to reach you”. If you haven’t reached the journalist in the first place then tough damn luck. Keep trying or just send to the wider editorial team on that title. The best way to send this is saying something like “Hey guys, I sent it to [name of journo] but I think he/she is busy, so just hoping someone might want to pick this up. I’m here for any questions you might have” etc. Good luck!

[11] You’re frustrated. You pitched story to a journalist and through sporadic emails and messages they sound interested in your story and either committed to doing something and are just late getting to it, or they go quiet. Here’s the best strategy: You tell them they your realise they are busy and may not even have time to reply, then you give them a deadline. Like, “if I don’t hear back by tomorrow I’ll assume you are busy and we’ll reach out to other media.” Here’s the absolute worse response: hitting up that journalist’s editor. This will land you in trouble, unless you have a really genuine compliant (the journalist was incredibly rude etc). If you really want to piss-off a journalist and a title, tweet about them and copy in their editor. This will pretty much guarantee the title will never cover you again.

[12] WASTING POLITICAL CAPITAL WITH JOURNALISTS – COMMON MISTAKES

Common mistake 1:
Do not pitch a journalist with “X wrote about Y”. Example conversation: ”We were covered by The New York Times! Do you want to write about us?” “Ok, but what’s new?” “Nothing, but we think YOUR readers really need to hear about us!” You are implying they shouldn’t have been included in the first round of pitches. This is a guaranteed way to destroy the relationship immediately because it means they are not a priority to pitch to.

Common mistake 2:
“Circling back” / repeating the email “blind” (as in, after getting no response) more than twice. If the journalist didn’t reply to your email on the first or second time, it’s either because a) they are busy or b) you fell into the spam filter (in which case your company needs to take a look at itself) c) they are working on the story but don’t want to set up expectations on timing, because, well, shit changes. Lesson? Build a normal relationship first!

Common mistake 3:
Ask to meet with Reporter B when you have already worked several times with Reporter A on the team. This just says, Reporter A is “not that important, I’m moving on”.

Common mistake 4:
Another mistake: Ask to meet with Reporter C because they covered a story. This is a waste of time as, if someone else covered it, clearly the reporter you asked does NOT cover it. Just go direct. Don’t waste your political capital with the first reporter.

Common mistake 5:
Blind pitch simply because a journalist is on an attendee list for a conference. The title may not even BE GOING. Or they have already set up coverage. So, just ask politely first if they are going. Don’t waste your political capital here.

———————————————————————–

Key questions a journalist will ask you about your startup

Answer with a SHORT paragraph.

Answer with a SHORT paragraph.

NAME OF COMPANY

IN SIMPLE TERMS, WHAT DOES THIS STARTUP / PRODUCT DO?

WHAT IS THE PROBLEM THIS COMPANY IS SOLVING?

HOW HAS THIS PRODUCT SOLVED THE STATED PROBLEM?

DESCRIBE HOW THIS PRODUCT WAS CREATED? WAS IT A PERSONAL PROBLEM YOU HAD?

WALK ME THROUGH THE USER EXPERIENCE:

WHAT SORT OF “TRACTION” CAN YOU DEMONSTRATE?

(e.g. Monthly or daily active users, downloads. sales etc )

WHO ARE YOUR COMPETITORS? Literally, NAME the companies.

(This is crucial to understand the context opf the market)

WHAT ARE THE KEY DIFFERENTIATORS BETWEEN YOU AND OTHER PLAYERS?

WHY IS THIS PRODUCT BETTER THAN ITS COMPETITORS?

HOW DO YOU MAKE (OR PLAN TO MAKE) MONEY?

HOW BIG IS THE MARKET IT IS ADDRESSING?

WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THE NEWS *RIGHT NOW* THAT MAKES THIS COMPANY PARTICULARLY RELEVANT? (e.g. the rise of AI etc)

(If relevant to the news) WHAT IS THE NEW ROUND OF FUNDING AND HOW MUCH IS IT?

(Required: Specify Seed, Series A, etc)

WHEN IS THIS STORY RELEASED?

IS THERE AN EMBARGO? WHEN IS IT? IS THIS AN EXCLUSIVE etc?

WHO ARE THE INVESTORS?

WHAT WILL THE MONEY BE USED FOR?

IF YOU ARE “BOOTSTRAPPED”:

– ARE YOU FUNDING IT YOURSELF?

– ARE YOU RUNNING ON REVENUES?

– ARE YOU LOOKING FOR FUNDING? WHEN?

WHO IS IN THE TEAM AND WHY ARE THEY AWESOME?

DO THE FOUNDERS HAVE A COMPELLING PERSONAL STORY IN SOME WAY?

WHAT DID THEY DO BEFORE? DO THEY DEMONSTRATE PRIOR EXPERTISE?

WHERE IS THE TEAM BASED? IS IT THE SAME AS THE COMPANY HQ?

ALL EXTRA INFORMATION MUST BE SENT IN EMAIL IN PLAIN TEXT (Please do not attach PDFs, Word docs etc)

*LINKS* TO PRESS KIT / PRODUCT VIDEOS / PHOTOS etc:

NAMES FOR FOUNDERS:

EMAIL CONTACT:

PHONE:

CRUNCHBASE URL:

IMPORTANT – LINKS TO PREVIOUS RELEVANT STORIES ABOUT YOUR COMPANY:

ANY RELEVANT OTHER INFORMATION?

*LINKS* TO SCREEN SHOTS OF MOBILE APP IF RELEVANT

Note: Do not send screen shots of apps which are surrounded by explanatory information around the app. Just plain screen shots of the app. Nothing else.

This is an unashamedly personal post which I thought sat better on my (slightly neglected) personal blog than on TechCrunch.

Up until The Olympics in London it’s fair to say “The United Kindom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland” (to use our full name) had become a pretty cynical place. The economy is in the doldrums, people and businesses are really hurting day-to-day – and we’d had myriad scandals amongst politicians, the banks and big companies. At the same time we’d started to forget our rich past as innovators – Britain was a pioneer of computers, the jet age, and many other engineering and scientific endeavours. But you often wouldn’t know it looking at our press and media. Regularly, the newspapers enjoy running stories of people being ‘stalked’ on social networks, or bemoan the use of video games. Aside from stumbling across heroes like Sir Jony Ive, they too rarely mention the pioneering efforts of technologists in producing these new platforms, or the creativity of the designers and engineers that go into powering the future. Technology is usually something to be feared, not celebrated.

Coupled with the general fascination of the media with people who usually don’t have a lot to offer other than looking perma-tanned on reality TV or chasing the private lives of footballers, and British society didn’t appear to be that interested in an old fashioned concept: merit and sheer raw talent.

Then something weird happened. The Jubilee celebrations kind’ve got us into the mood. We discovered we had neighbours at street parties. We realised the Queen had in fact done a pretty good job maintaining a kind of ‘Britannica’ stability for 60 years. And then the opening ceremony of the Olympics re-introduced us to ourselves, as quirky, funny, but above all industrious, creative and even – with the addition of Tim Berners Lee – capable of creating such wondrous things as the Web.

The opening ceremony reminded us we can do real things, not just obsess about reality TV and superficial appearances. There were plenty of stars, but no egos on display and all the stars had done something REAL. It’s clearly started a debate about, perhaps, a shift towards basing our national identity on merit rather than superficiality. What better representation of the marriage of the Games with engineering and science was there than the picture of the moon rising beneath Tower Bridge, built by the industrious Victorians?

It won’t be immediate. There remains a problem of access to facilities, that some get and others don’t. There remains the problem that paying for our new future may still be tough.

But, inspired by our amazing athletes, the incredible organisation of the Games (which I think most never expected to be so good), and the way London seems to be running like clockwork all of a sudden, the nation may be starting to come out of it’s collective fug.

Dare we whisper that this could be the the best £9.3bn we ever spent?

Dare we hope that we can be a slightly less cynical nation? Oh, we’ll never lose our cut and thrust, our rapier witty response to some news item or other. That will never leave the national psyche, and nor would we want it to.

But maybe, just maybe, when a young entrepreneur turns around and says “I’m going to do this”; or when a girl in a high school puts down her teenage mag full of reality TV stars and tells her friends she’s going to study engineering or science; or when a kid from the local comprehensive comes up with something mind-blowing; then maybe we won’t be so cynical at that point.

Maybe we will, after all, come to think of failure not as the end of something but the ‘feedback’ we needed to go on and get it right.

If #TeamGB inspires something beyond the laudable goal of getting our kids to run and jump and fence and swim and row, if it inspires us to think beyond sport and into other area of our lives and our society, then the Olympics will indeed have been the moment we were wanting for. The moment to fight back and become Great Britons once again.

We’ve had the inspiration of #TeamGB. Maybe it’s time for #TechGB as well.

Mike Butcher – Startup Turkey 2015 from Burak Buyukdemir on Vimeo.

(From 2009)