How European Founders Can Boost Their PR & Communications
Q&A Session with Earlybird Venture Capital’s VP Comms for the Flyer One Venture’s Startup Community
In supporting a broad range of portfolio companies at Earlybird Venture Capital since 2020, I have seen a variety of ways that founders and teams can tell compelling stories and share those with the public.
So when the Flyer One team asked me to share recent learnings, I hopped to it! It was an excellent chance to talk to this community and the turnout was remarkable — especially for a Friday at 5 pm — with over 70 founders and tech PR professionals from across Europe on the Zoom call. I hope to do this in person with a journalist at some point in the future. (Team Slush, are you listening?!)
Meanwhile, I was struck by the universality of the questions the audience posed. So here’s our collaborative Q&A portion poured into an article to address topics these founders care about. In case you missed the talk which is captured here, find the responses and resources below.
🧂Now for a grain of salt: I am not a journalist though: a) I strive to work with them often, and b) I have indeed worked in the graphics department at the San Jose Mercury Newspaper in Silicon Valley, where I got to see journalists ‘in the wild’, so to speak.
Here we go with the top 16 questions! Stay tuned for more resources.
Q1) Is PR is necessary for startups instead of investor relations?
This feels like a trick question to kick off with, as you need both to some degree and they play into each other. Just ask Vijay at VSC who talked about the high correlation between press coverage and VC investment in this podcast.
Yes, you will need some degree of PR and it is literally your relationship with the public (PR). So that basically exists once you exist, but it is up to you to shape it for the best. As I have written about before, existing is not enough in the startup world, or frankly, anywhere.
Ultimately, investors will be Googling you regardless, so if you already have a good digital footprint (can be minimal but of high quality) this could help them assess you better.
So your PR can definitely impact your investor relations. Think of it like your business development. You would not skip that, right? You need to invest in it.
Here is a good book about personal brand in business, while you are at it.
Q2) What are the best strategies for communicating impact and sustainability in startups while avoiding the accusations of greenwashing? Is classic PR necessary for startups or does a good social media strategy and community building take precedence these days? When is a new product launch worth announcing with PR, vs. other types of announcements in the press?
I cover this a bit in the presentation linked above, but aim for authenticity and avoid greenwashing at all costs. Rely on actual numbers and show progress. You can and still should, talk about the impact you are making in the world, and as friends at Quick Coffee Podcast say, this may actually become part of your long-term vision.
A good content strategy mixes owned, earned, and paid content. I personally would emphasize mostly owned, some earned, and minimally paid. I definitely recommend building up a lean social media strategy that showcases who you are (team, USP, purpose/vision, etc.), at a cadence you can handle (can be minimal 2x /week) and across limited channels. You need a good digital footprint to get the ball rolling and be seen or recognized.
As for product launch vs. funding news etc: the former is likely best for owned channels and community awareness (you can still be very creative or use Product Hunt and some journalists might be keen), but the latter is reliably more appealing to journalists to cover.
Q3) Should startups build their PR around their CEO or its product?
It’s a good idea to establish a face or human connection for your company. This personalizes and humanizes it. Don’t be limited to your CEO, though that could be a natural starting point. It might be more relatable to feature diverse teammates within the company. Having a spokesperson though who is a topic expert is beneficial. While you are at it, get a professional photo taken. Here’s why and how. You don’t want to be scrambling later when the journalist asks for that.
Ideally, you are focused on solving a user problem so although you might be drawn to focus on your product, I would instead focus on what benefit/superpower the product brings to the user. What do you enable? You definitely want to avoid being too sales oriented in your comms. After delivering a PR session to deeptech founders at Techstar’s DeepTech Momentum in Berlin, I shared key takeaways here.
Q4) How many times per month should a startup be mentioned in media to build a strong media presence?
This is tough to quantify as it depends on your goals, energy, press capacity, etc. But ideally, once per month so you are top of mind, though that is hard to achieve at the early stages when you might get a rare funding round.
So aim to find other ways to be newsworthy: can you collect data from users and show trends to journalists? Can you be featured even among a round-up of competitors all solving similar problems but still show how you are different? Here’s a resource you might find helpful.
Q5) What are the main KPIs for PR activities you rely on?
Admittedly, I am no KPI Queen (yet!) BUT setting goals that you can aim to beat or even fail in trying is a good start. Here is a resource. I look at the views and read ratios of Medium articles, I check Twitter analytics for best-performing content and I track our organic LinkedIn growth which has been up 185% since I joined the team.
Q6) How to do PR when you don’t have a PR manager or money for an agency? At the early stage, we don’t have PR specialist or agency and want to make a few small campaigns before hiring someone. Does this approach make sense and what to focus on in this case?
Fear not! You can do a few things: make a simple content plan and try to execute it yourself. Use Canva and create graphics with your brand to build recognition. Hire a freelancer for marketing/comms/design to help. Do a small project with a smaller agency: Lea Schramm of Cohort PR, Nara Communications, or check out Gloria Chou PR Starter Kits. Also see what Black Unicorn PR shares as well as MVPR: they share a lot of insights from journalists so you know what reporters are seeking.
Q7) How is the work in your department built? What is the structure of your team?
We are a small but mighty team! I was a 1-woman VC comms show for 2 years. Now I have +1 to help with community and marketing. I rely on my investment/operational teams for steady content to edit and I guide them in best practices and handle distribution. I also listen to the ecosystem and find ways to make our content more visible and relevant. We also have great people across the wider teams who support events and logistics etc. For startups, ensure that internal and external messaging align and ensure your C-level is in close contact w your comms/marketing. Ensure your product/sales people are speaking to each other! You can read more about this from 70 different contributors here.
Q8) Where & how can an early-stage company find newsworthy information to pitch to a journalist? How to navigate comms strategy when you can’t rely on product updates? Product updates tend to be moved, or there is no really big newsworthy event inside the product.
Be an active listener to journalists who cover your industry. Seek out larger trends that you fit into. You might be able to gain their trust by being tuned in and answering broader Qs. Leave your product launches etc. to your owned channels, not earned. Get testimonials from your users and integrate that into your messaging. Showcase your team (welcome posts etc) and interview your tech ppl to get insights others may not have.
Q9) How can we build good relationships with the journalists? Can you go for a coffee with them? Is it possible to befriend a journalist?
Please see the above answer and my tip 6 from the presentation…. Look who is covering your industry and competition. Create a simple CRM/spreadsheet of relevant journalists to target. Interact politely online and do not make assumptions or start with coffee invites. You need to earn trust and that takes time. Even if you do become ‘friends’ do not assume that relationship equals coverage. They need to maintain high ethics and choose story-worthy material.
Q10) How to write effective email subjects? How should an effective email subject look like when pitching a round announcement to a journalist?
Keep it concise and punchy, with 1 emoji max. Active word choice, lean into past wins/roles via descriptors or adjectives. Make it powerful. Do not follow up more than 2 times. But do pitch them new stories in the future.
Q11) What could be the motivation of a journalist to write about your startup?
If what you are building has real potential to change an industry and you have a diverse team to do that who just got funded, esp when funding is hard to come by, this could be good. They want to know why you are uniquely equipped to win your market and how you are doing that. They will ask tough Qs so be prepared to discuss your business model, path to profitability, etc.
Q12) What is the best time to start doing active PR activities?
Early. Again, this is your public relations so once you are founded and funded, get started. Ideally, you are pitching your story 3 weeks before an embargo. Also aim to have 3–5 stories you can either publish or pitch over a 6-month period, knowing not all of them will fly.
Q13) How to maintain healthy media relations? Should I regularly send company updates to a journalist?
Healthy relationships have boundaries, are respectful, and polite, and care about each other’s interests (and inboxes). So from my POV, please do not send company updates to journalists unless you have a close relationship with them already and they seem inclined. Imagine that they already get 100s pitches per day! Rather be consistent with what you post. Be sure to thank journalists who cover you via a quick email and more importantly, tag them publicly to give the author credit when re-sharing their content.
Q14) What strategies could you use to handle bad press? How to work with PR crises and how to mitigate any blowback?
Bad press can happen. If it’s not factual, politely point out the facts and be open to feedback and critique. Avoid a defensive tone. If it’s factual, discuss it quickly as a team and then own up to it and state how you are addressing the issue. And then actually address the issue. If you already know you are entering tricky waters, create an FAQ up-front staring down the worst-case scenario and preparing for that. Definitely read any of Oliver Aust’s books, including his new one with Jag Singh called Message Machine, and a classic one on Mastering Communications.
Q15) Do startups need to use a different approach to storytelling for US and Europe VC markets? If so what is the difference?
Much can be said about this… In general, the European markets are known to be more fragmented due to cultures/languages/countries. But thanks to the big tech companies, a lot of the channels are the same. What I would recommend is targeting your journalist outreach based on where you want to be read/seen.
Q16) There are plenty of examples when the most overhyped startup founders were a fraud: Elizabeth Holmes, Adam Neumann, SBF, etc. Why do you think that happens?
Excitement can easily get whipped up over these charismatic individuals and it seems the due diligence was nowhere near enough. It reinforces to me how investors must responsibly vet as best as possible who they endorse. As a comms person, I do a fair amount of digging for information and am by nature very skeptical, and not easily ‘wowed’, so prefer to look at someone’s achievements, actions, and reputation, as well as what their colleagues/customers are saying. I think it is up to all of us to have high standards in our actions and words.
Wrapping up
Big thanks to my colleague Stephanie for sparring with me before this event, and to Oleh and Elena of Flyer One Ventures for being welcoming hosts. Fun to see the next guest after me was none other than Harry Stebbings!
A kind reminder that here is the video to watch the entire session:
