The Colab Brief - 118: Get Your Head Out Of Your Shorts 🩳 (& Other Tips For Securing Top-Tier Coverage)

In PR, nothing comes at face value. 

In other words, your company, in and of itself, is not newsworthy. You can’t just send a reporter your boilerplate and expect them to turn it into a story. 

So, how do you take a seemingly news-less company and get it into top-tier press?

Today’s newsletter will talk through a real-life example of how we secured top-tier press for a company with absolutely no news and no obvious hook. 

Let’s dive in. 

Read Time: 3 minutes. 

A few months ago we were approached by a VC firm who was looking for top-tier press. 

While its ethos was interesting, the company didn’t exactly have a newsworthy hook. It was doing things differently—it was a stage-agnostic firm that offered more flexibility to investors and more support to founders. But still, the hook wasn’t terribly apparent. 

We had worked with the founder of this fund back in 2012, launching one of his former companies that would eventually be acquired. Needless to say, we had a soft spot for this particular founder and jumped on the opportunity to work with him again. 

We had our work cut out for us. No “low-hanging fruit” with an emphasis on top-tier media. Game on. 

Our first couple of pitches, which focused on the markets and the future of tech investment, were duds. So, we knew we had to pivot. 

This VC firm focused on what they anticipated to be the hottest industries over the next 25 years. This included Deep Tech, B2B Software, Fintech, and Climate Tech (ding ding ding!). 🔔

One of the most important elements of an effective pitch is knowing what’s going on in the world in various spaces. To cut through the noise, you need to be totally entrenched in general and industry news in every space you play in.

We moved our first two pitches to the back burner and started over with some research, and soon after, we found our angle. 

Climate investing was facing a crisis. Global climate-tech fundraising, investing, and the number of climate-tech deals in total were down. We knew we had a story. 

We spun something up that discussed the most glaring issues facing climate-tech investing. Then we offered up the cofounder and partner as a spokesperson to discuss what investors look for in early- and late-stage climate tech companies, what was causing the underperformance, and what it would take for investments to bounce back in 2024. 

Nailed it. 

Within the week, we secured Axios, Bloomberg, Semafor, and TechCrunch. 

While doubling down on that pitch, we also sent out two other angles, focusing on AI-washing and engineer salaries, nabbing us The Information and The Street.

Mission accomplished. 

It’s important to mention that the founders of this firm were seasoned - both had deep roots with Techstars and had experienced successful exits in one capacity or another. 

They knew that their company's ethos and mission, while honorable, were not newsworthy. If they were going to be quoted in the most highly regarded publications, they needed to “get their head out of their shorts,” as one of the founders liked to say, and provide perspective on the most pressing issues facing their industry. 

Pitch topics don’t always come easily—sometimes, you have to do a lot of legwork to find the perfect angle. But reading the news, both generally and industry-specific, is one of the most effective ways to secure coverage. 

It also makes you more interesting to talk to and generally better looking. 

Until next week!

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