In Service of Tech Communications
VP Communications’ Reflections on 3 Years at Earlybird VC 🐣
Reflections 🪞
As I hit a new milestone of three years supporting Earlybird Venture Capital’s communications, I am reflecting. Reflection is a crucial part of any professional development process. This year, I acted even more in service of entrepreneurs, investors, teammates, and journalists. How?
- Actively supported PR for over 17 Earlybird portfolio companies, for 10 companies in Vision Lab Cohort 3, and now 12 companies in Cohort 4.
- Generated earned media in a wide variety of publications based on pitching quality stories and relationship building: TechCrunch Insights, TechCrunch, Insider, Bloomberg, Sifted, TechEU, EU-Startups, Tech Funding News, and German papers Handelsblatt, FAZ, and more — plus layered written news with podcast appearances for team & portcos.
- Created and curated content and provided cross-team support via strategy development, press releases, blog posts, social media, articles, quotes, playbooks, event support, and more.
- Delivered comms ecosystem mentorship to The Migrant Accelerator, TechStars Berlin, and the community at FlyerOne Ventures, and spoke about my career story with Nora Stolz and Priyanka Ojha.
Why list these things? Because the role of communications is the backbone of an organization’s ability to convey its value. Yet often these behind-the-scenes efforts require visibility. Not only that: It’s important to convey to a team what you can deliver, and what you need from them to do so.
So if you work adjacent to VC investors, you are no stranger to deep dives. In this piece, I offer some questions, mistakes, learnings, and thanks.
I hope this article is helpful to you in your career development, too. Join me reflecting now on how to be of service to VC and Startup tech communications.
Questions 🤔
What does it mean to lead communications? What does success look like for your team and for yourself? Are those identical? How can you show the importance of communications to the overall functioning of a business, organization, or VC firm?
These are key questions to ask yourself. While I don’t have all the answers, I do enjoy the healthy process of discovery. Leading communications happens on both an internal and external level. It requires an equal dose of curiosity, proactivity, humility, persistence, and drive.
Success for me means a few things: definitely earned media (which, as Andrew Park recently reminded the fantastic VC Platform global community), is MUCH more valuable than paid media. Success is also an overall reputational lift over time, an increased network, and trustful relationships that help accomplish great things for many people.
Being in VC comms means mega top-of-funnel impact: driving the reputation and putting the spotlight on the portfolio companies and investment team, in that order. Because in VC, the reputation of the portfolio IS also your reputation.
Because in VC, the reputation of the portfolio IS also your reputation.
These things are tricky to measure, though yes, there are ways. Sometimes ROI on comms investment can be seen right away: in a great performing post, scoring articles in major outlets, an increased share of voice, gaining 215% new followership organically on the firm's LinkedIn account :). But other times, those effects might take longer to appear: increased deal flow into new startups or fresh LP investment into funds. Be patient.
So the importance of communication both internally and externally cannot be overstated. Bringing people together on authentic messaging is way harder than it looks. And so is securing media coverage for even fantastic stories. In all of this, empathy leads the way. Being able to put yourself in another’s shoes, and identify with their challenges is key. Whether that person is a busy partner, a quiet teammate, or a swamped-by-email journalist.
Mistakes 🫣
Oh, I have made a few. But they are learning opportunities, as long as you don’t cause irreparable damage! Making mistakes occasionally: like say, the infamous ‘replying all’, not being transparent enough on busy workflow, or not asking for help — these are things that happen in our work lives and deserve the chance for course correction.
To learn from any missteps means you are growing in the right direction. Equally important is to have a team or leaders who understand this and grant you redemption. As comms expert, Danny Grover once tweeted, ‘Give yourself grace’. Comms is not for the faint of heart.
This still means: 1) maintaining high standards on your quest to be of service, and 2) ensuring that your wins and contributions WAY outweigh any slip-ups. You need to know your contribution and be able to verbalize this value.
Learnings 🧠
There are more learnings from these years than I have time to write, or than you have time to read! TLDR: Keep finding ways to share what you are working on — during and after projects; ensure your work aligns with the overall business directions; keep expectations realistic including timeline & outcomes; and anticipate other people’s needs (shout out to comms queen, Beck Bamberger for that).
When it comes to considering other people’s needs, especially journalists: Andrew again has insights which I will paraphrase: ‘If you just want to push your story only, good luck.’ Because you have to read the media room. You have to bend and shape what you want to say to fit the moment and make it relevant to readers, trends, and the world at large. Remember that journalists still have to ‘sell’ their intended work to the publication’s editor.
Something I will also honestly share: I am a deeply curious person. This is a fairly common trait in good journalism…It means I ask questions and gather information. It’s part of my detailed process and personality. It is also part of effective communication – where communicators need a certain amount of factual input to generate extraordinary output. According to my experience in the working world now for over 15 years, both leadership and collaboration take on MANY forms.
In my opinion, it is important to honor that variety and always ask Q’s of each other so that different inputs come in. These should then, of course, be quickly funneled into an actionable decision. So decision-makers and decision-making are key, but so is respect for different processes. My biggest takeaway: to facilitate effective communication, communicators must demonstrate it and embody it themselves. This takes time to refine.
And as famously said, ‘leaders eat last’. This means your teammates come first. This true camaraderie builds trust and travels far – uniting the troops.
Thanks 🥰
So to wrap up this bit of reflection, a major shout out to my fellow Earlybirds across Europe for constantly inspiring, consulting, pushing, and investing. Also, thanks to the hard-working journalists who tell great stories and send me funny distractions, and to the founders who are building all the cool and complex things behind those stories!
Finally, a huge thank you to my fellow comms people at other VCs, startups and organizations who recognize what it is to juggle deadlines, reactivity vs. proactivity, multiple language stories, layered messaging, social media, communities, team dynamics, and more. I can’t wait to keep learning from you and contributing back to this global tech ecosystem. 💪
In case you happen to know or be a working student in Germany who wants to learn a ton about the inner workings of venture capital and startup communication, we welcome your application here.
