i'm a man i'm a man i'm a video man
we have two really amazing uh
journalists um and kind of technologists
in their own right as well um here to
speak with us about best practices for
startups when contacting the media um um
kind of opening that black box of uh of
Journalism and PR as well I'll introduce
each of the mentors and then I'll bring
them up individually to speak for about
3 to five minutes and then we'll open up
for uh questions from um the society
memb
first up we have Walter Thompson he's
award-winning independent journalist
based in San Francisco he was previously
editorial manager at TechCrunch a
leading digital publication covering
technology and Entrepreneurship in the
US and really around the world at Tech
crunch he managed the site's guest
contributor program which includes
opinion pieces from startup Founders and
investors that appear on TechCrunch plus
and TechCrunch his work has appeared in
the guardian San Francisco magazine ala
journal and hoodline just to name a few
we're really happy to have Walter with
us uh and before I bring Walter on um
I'd also like to introduce David smook
who is the founder and CEO of hacker
noon uh one of the leading news
Publications for technologists and Tech
enthusiasts that counts over 4 million
monthly readers over the past seven
years David has led the company's growth
growth trajectory raising millions of
dollars in Venture funding uh securing
thousands of clients from startups to
Leading technology corporations and
Publishing stories from tens of
thousands of contributing writers before
founding his company David worked as the
director of content marketing for smart
recruiters um we'll go ahead and bring
up Walter first and then and then David
Walter if you'd like to share your
screen I'm really happy to do so if not
sir no worries either there um thanks
Jim thanks for having me here today
actually I did not do an official deck I
just kind of wrote notes today so no
screen to share sorry about that okay
and apologies I had a big week today um
I launched my podcast on Monday and then
Sunday it contracted covid so I'm a
little slow so here today sorry about
that and congrats at the same time
thanks just glad to be here um yeah so I
have a I have an interesting that I mean
I think it's interesting I guess um I
spent most of my career working in
startups before actually transitioned
and became a journalist so I've kind of
sat in both sides of the table when it
comes to media and P are and trying to
find your way into that whole ecosystem
um and one thing I will say is this like
the whole idea of encouraging
entrepreneurs to become storytellers is
a bit of a cliche but it's actually true
you will need to create a cohesive
narrative around you and your product or
service before you enter the marketplace
just the same way you need to do the
same thing to get an investor to back
you um so today I want to talk about
some of the basic principles for
generating positive coverage and also
some thoughts on how to interact with
reporters once you've actually gotten
the access um and the first thing first
is that if you've raised money from an
investor that might be enough to make
your company newsworthy in some circles
most reporters are looking for the same
sort of social proofs that investors
seek so what problem is your company
looking to solve is your solution
feasible and then lastly why is your
team the right one to solve this problem
or take on this problem and that last
part is really key uh you need to find
concrete tangible ways to make yourself
the hero of this three-part story as far
as problem solution and then team uh and
but overarching that I think the bigger
thing I would say is the most important
thing when it comes to actually getting
your foot in the door and actually
getting positive coverage to your
company uh it's not it's not
transactional it's not a I give you a
pitch or I give you a tip and then you
write about my company it the whole
media PR thing in my experience is very
much relationship based and I'm not
saying that I'm not saying that to
characterize it as good or bad I'm just
saying it's kind of just how it is um
and and I'm saying that because you know
things I think people think that when
they have a story in mind or they have
when they're ready to go to market when
they're ready to get some press for
themselves uh a lot of people that they
start with kind of cold calling just
kind of like sending out emails to
reporters who might they think right
about them and that cold that that kind
of spray spray and prey approach it
really rarely results in coverage uh in
fact actually it's one of those things
journalists like the journalists I used
to work with we would talk on we would
trade on slack every day like the
cheesiest most uh like just you know
least creative pitches we got and we'd
laugh about them because we you know
people want to pass the time and not to
be cruel but it's just like some people
just really would submit just really
terrible pitches that they thought be
provocative or interesting um you
wouldn't I wouldn't you wouldn't believe
how many times in a day I got a pitch
that was basically had another
reporter's name and another publication
on it because they were just sending
them out so quickly and using a template
it's it's so take your time um if you
can establish yourself as a domain
expert or somebody who actually has or
reliable source uh over time you're much
more likely to get the engagement you're
seeking um so yeah cold pitches are just
really ineffective they're not a good
use of your time they're not generate
the coverage you're looking for um it's
really about building relationships and
so I would say some of those ways not
actually heavy lifts as far as how to
build a
relationship there's a service called
Help reporter out uh it's called H and
it's exactly what it sounds like you can
register yourself uh and then if you see
and everybody you'll see a newsletter
basically of reporters who are looking
for answers to questions that are
totally outside their expertise even if
they have a beat on something like
biotech or some aspect of Technology
they still might have like a a gap in
their background as far as like how to
explain the technology or how something
works or some Advanced kind of question
so they go to services like like H and
look for people people who have
expertise who can actually answer
questions and be a good source that's
one really good way of um meeting you
know engaging yourself with the
journalistic community and presenting
yourself as a domain expert another way
um uh mentioned before I used to work
for last four years I was working at
TechCrunch and I was managing the guest
contributor program which is basically
op-eds um so op-eds that were opinion
articles about Topics in the public
interest that were technology related
but then the other side were basically
business related articles that were
basically people sharing how-tos and
kind of explaining how they solved
common business problems that a lot of
early stage startups had to contend with
for fundraising or how to price their
software products or marketing issues
and and what I found was basically um a
lot of people who didn't think of
themselves as storytellers but they
actually had these stories because like
if you're an entrepreneur you have to go
through these things as far as sitting
across from an investor and trying to
gain their trust and get them to give
you a check or trying to hire somebody
or trying to fire somebody and so I was
able to kind of find like by asking
people like you know about their
experience um like what do you have that
is useful to somebody else that you
could share like and I would actually
people and it's kind of funny people
you'll probably hear a lot of people
talk about thought leadership and I have
a very contrarian aspect about
contrarian opinion about that I don't
think thought leadership is valuable to
readers I think thought leadership is
valuable to the person who is putting
the thoughts forward because it
burnishes their credentials and makes
them look authoritative and good and and
like a good investment really thought
leaders are not it's good to be try to
be helpful don't try to be a thought
leader um try to share something that
will actually create value and help help
someone solve a problem not just make
yourself look good that's what reporters
are looking for um might be cheesy
launch a podcast speak publicly uh send
reporters commentary on something they
wrote e doesn't even have to be about
your company this is actually a good
example I know of a Founder who spotted
an error in an article about one of
their competitors
uh they contacted the reporter and
explained you know here's why you were a
little off in this whole thing and that
actually established them as an expert
in that reporter's eyes and so when they
were going back and writing about other
things in that sector that reporter knew
to talk oh this person's a resource
they're helpful and good and they
weren't coming at me to promote
themselves they're coming at me to
actually be helpful that's that's
valuable and that's the kind of thing
that actually will get you the
interactions you're looking for with
reporters um
first couple minutes very positive and
aspirational so I want to end with a
list of don'ts like I said before don't
email every journalist uh before you
pitch do build a spreadsheet with names
of reporters who've written about your
company uh do email them individually
each one um don't use generative AI to
craft your pitch uh try to do this in a
thoughtful slow sensible basis so that
you basically can give every reporter
time to respond before you move on to
the next don't just dump it out there
and email 50 reporters in the same email
thread um it's not really going to be
they're not going to see it as valuable
for them um don't exaggerate or lie we
will always find out and it's not going
to be good for you if you offer a
reporter an exclusive uh stick to that
commitment and remember that anything
you say to a reporter a journalist can
be published anything so if you want to
be off the Record you must say so and
get them to agree before you disclose
the thing you want to be off the Record
on the record is just exactly what it
sounds like there's other you there's
also not for attribution meaning you can
say something but they can only identify
you in general terms like a
entrepreneurial minded student at a IV
league university that would be like
Notch attribution on background it's
when they can quote an anonymous source
they quote The Source anonymously and
it's only paraphrased and then lastly
off the Record which is exactly what it
sounds like the information you give the
reporter is not for publication but it
could be used to as a point off
investigation for another story or to
verify a fact um just so you know just
the last thing I want to say it's really
unlikely that you're ever going to read
the entire story you're in before it's
published uh asking for a preview makes
you look defensive to a reporter um and
I'll just say this if you practice good
interview hygiene you won't have
anything to worry about as far as the
final product um so just again try to be
intentional try to find ways again it's
it's not easy uh it's work and it's it's
but it's and it's a long process of you
know building something relationships
but if you put the work in I promise
it'll pay off because building
relationships is really the only way
you're going to get positive coverage
and actually get to know reporters who
will want to get to know you as well um
and uh yeah thanks again for your time
and if you have any questions i' be
happy to take them thank you so much
Walter no great presentation thanks for
your talk um before before we take those
questions from Walter as well I did want
to bring on David smook who is the CEO
of hacker noon to speak for a few
minutes as well David welcome hey thanks
for having me it's been good to hear
everyone's talks here um you know uh
Walter congratulations on the new
podcast and leaving Tech crunch it's
nice to see you in the same room here um
you know I was thinking going hearing
the story of like when to start your
company I mean and when to make the leap
know I I did two years part-time before
I went full-time on hacker noon and you
know so I've been at this really nine
years you know a lot pretty long time um
and we found a nice niche in terms of
between social media and traditional
media um and you know as social media
kind of rose up everyone became a source
and that is a lot more a great
opportunity for an entrepreneur but it
also throws you into all the noise and
just your voice is kind of equal with
everybody else so at hacker noon we
provide a professional editor and we
reject half of the stories but at the
end of the day it's between
self-publishing and um pitching a
reporter and having them write about you
so it's just uh looking through some of
this I mean and thinking wow here I am
at Yale you know a school I couldn't get
into talking to entrepreneurs and you
guys are you know some of the elite of
the elite here and you're choosing to
say I'm going to get into
entrepreneurship and my message to you
is once you get into it you're
completely equal and your degree is
absolutely meaningless it's it maybe it
matters to some investors but in terms
of actually getting customers and
growing your business it's going to come
down to the work you actually do and how
it compares to the other offerings in
the marketplace so um some of me thinks
you're brave and some of me thinks
you're stupid you know of saying hey
this expensive degree I just got I'm
going to go in a profession where I can
make it worth nothing you know and that
that's um I I find a little bit of a
beauty in that um so you know hats off
to you guys keep going keep building uh
definitely um when it comes to Media to
me it's more about um building up your
rate of publishing and your quality of
publishing uh because your business
comes first and your media comes second
and hopefully your media follows your
business and you get media because of
the good work you're doing but it's it's
usually not going to feel like enough
you're going to feel like you're doing
more work than the that you get and you
have to be okay with that feeling and
you have to be okay with taking smaller
incremental steps to get more coverage
about your business and tell your story
and it's not going to come all at once
like just because you got funding
doesn't mean anyone cares I mean there
there's definitely some elements that a
reporter
um
any uh sorry Sor sorry David that wasn't
for you my apologies okay for the other
David just sorry sorry about that
um yeah
so thinking more about um you know what
to do next with with your business and
how to get more media I would look at
what is interesting about your own story
and I I actually kind of gravitate a
little more towards making your
customers or your contributors to Hero
as opposed to yourself um but that's
also just because I haven't been as good
at doing that and making myself the hero
um I think you know the individual
stories for me are are the hero and
hacker noon has a lot of stories and
most of the links that talk about hacker
noon they're actually talking about
content on hacker noon and not hacker
noon the company which kind of puts me
in a different spot but it's also every
business is like that if your business
has usage and adoption it's the people
using the product that are the aggregate
story of what your company is and you
can try to place stories and build
relationships and that'll frame in a
little bit but it's just within the
whole usage of your product and the
internet talking about it so I I really
at like trying to build up like how many
updates are you doing a day how many
long form posts you're doing to me
writing is a way of clear thinking and
if you do not have good writing you do
not have clear thinking like they
they're things that exist they can't
exist independent of each other in my
opinion um so it the other great thing
about writing more as an entrepreneur is
you're refining your own thinking so
setting goals of just writing more per
day I think will end up leading to more
media coverage about you because you'll
understand your story better and where
you exist in the market but tangibly as
an entrepreneur you the only goal you
really made was write more each day and
so it becomes a little more attainable
than some of these pitches and building
relationships that they're very
long-term games and you may know someone
for five years before they write one
story about you you know or you may not
even know the person who writes the next
story about you and that that would be
great but that's that's a little bit of
luck and it's the aggregation of of all
your work and you can't expect it to
just happen so as you you you come with
these spots of like how do you spend
time getting media it's always going to
feel like a second job it's your
business is always going to feel like
your first one you know making payroll
making Revenue get getting your team
motivated that stuff's always going to
come first so you have to find a good
balance of like how to weave into your
day about how to be more active on media
and get get involved with reporters and
make you know long-term relationships
so yeah my my advice is to keep going
and grind it out like I'm a stubborn
person and I I think that stubbornness
is um an entrepreneur's best friend in a
lot of
ways awesome David um great presentation
I couldn't agree more I think it's a
great exercise for anybody um to to
write whether it's something that you
put out there or just kind of keep
personally because it does kind of set
your head straight um as an entrepreneur
as well so fantastic
um um feedback we'll go ahead and open
up for questions uh for either David or
Walter or both um uh Phil uh uh Pui as
well um David anybody want to start off
with a question for either of our
mentors uh yeah go ahead David I think
you're on mute too yeah uh thank you so
much for the presentations those were
awesome really really love to hear that
um so you know moving forward of course
there's all types of new technology
coming out and it's you know always
difficult to predict the future but how
do you think AI might change the social
media PR and and really just media in
general Landscapes um first of all Spam
is through the roof it's easier than
ever to spam people and that is very
annoying um you know so at hacker noon
you know we're using AI tools to measure
AI writing and we're using AI to say say
give the editor and the writer it reads
your content it gives you five
recommendations of headlines that could
be better you know based on our past
library and the content that you wrote
but usually the human can still write a
better headline and I think you know
human authenticity will go up in value
over time as there's more Bots and AIS
kind of floating around um I I think
right now in media it's still more
improving your workflow is a more
valuable use of AI than creating content
but the leaps that it's made from input
to Output to create content in the last
year are absolutely remarkable and like
creating images is like 10 years ago you
know when I was managing smart
recruiters blog with 400 contributors
and we had no budget to buy images for
all these blog posts it was really
annoying to not be able to make an
original image and have to always do
something extra and add it to my job to
do it so like the idea that you can
write one good prompt and have one good
original images or maybe you have to
write three good prompts to get one good
original image is a huge difference in
the blogging space um so and it gives
your site more of overall feel you know
if you use a good prompt like uh diction
language and consistency you know you're
all the images on your site are going to
feel more like one brand so um I'm I'm
waiting and seeing I'm curious uh what
Walter thinks of what AI is doing to us
now oh geez well I mean I think I I do
agree with you I think I think the human
output is generally
better quality right now um and probably
will be for some time what I I've yeah
I've been using I mean so when I was
working at Tech crunch we had a we
onboarded an Analytics tool that was uh
AI powered in the back end and it was I
only really found it useful in that it
did so it did something call the content
helpfulness analysis where it would
basically would you know it would you
know parse your text and spit out a
result as far as like it was as helpful
to the reader as far as like and it
would it was it was pretty good as far
as the quality of the summary but it
didn't necessarily tell me anything I
didn't know like if you were an editor
who had put the story together you would
have seen all the same things that the
AI saw going in on the on the front end
so it was like the only really useful
thing was after an article was written
it would spit out here are some
suggested headlines you can use in
social media and that was actually a
timesaver because it was based on my
excellent headline and honestly creating
headlines to repackage your content on
social media it's kind of boring work
that like doesn't take a lot of creative
creative thought here's the thing I
would say about generative AI is that
it's not good it's not bad I think it's
just basically it's the average of
everything right so it's never going to
be it's never going to blow your socks
off because it's just the average of
everything which which can make it you
know it's it's a tuna it's a tuna fish
sandwich it's fine but it's not like I'm
not gonna like you got to go try this
tuna fish sandwich it's amazing because
it's like the best tuna fish sandwich in
the world is going to be fine I think so
it's kind of like that for me that's the
analogy I would
use
um David if you wanted to follow up as
as well I was going to Pig you back go
ahead yeah I just wanted to say that
sounds super interesting so it seems
like both of you think it's a it's a
solid tool but not yet and probably
never uh going to replace the human
authenticity
component well here's what I would say
this this is this is dumb so before I
worked in Tech journalism I work as a a
local journalist here in San Francisco
and my zone included uh Ocean Beach all
the way out like you know people surf
and so so forth and uh there's an
article one day where there's a beach
clean up at Ocean Beach where the uh the
band Metallica like all those guys who
live locally they're doing they're doing
a beach cleanup and so the headline I
came up with was enter sand
men now I think that's pretty good and I
got a lot of great feedback on that
right but I don't see how generative AI
could ever have come up with that
headline um I'm not saying that's good
or bad I just don't think it's it's not
we're not there yet and so so it's got
real limitations if you want to just
basically like you know fill fill some
column inches of stuff that sounds okay
but doesn't really excite anyone it's
fine but it's I don't think it's gender
AI it's not going to be like you know
the letter from your grandmother telling
you how proud she is of you you're never
going to be that moved I don't think by
anything not for a while it's gonna be a
long time yeah I would add we like we
our business is publishing texts that's
like our primary focus but the use cases
we found for the AI growths haven't
really been as much text
like we had a project where we
introduced 22 categories at top our
35,000 tags and how do you put the
35,000 tags into the 22 categories now
that's a great one for a large language
model it can very accurately say this is
the tag and I can make the case why it
belongs in one category or another and
we have to make 35,000 choices which I
don't want to do so th that was a use
case where like AI was awesome and it
recat it added a layer of categorization
at top of our content and it was a great
use case but it has nothing to do with
generative you know so it's it's um the
use cases we're still finding um like
logo creation is getting pretty good I'm
a little more bullish on the image
creation than the text creation um and
it's definitely changing our lives but I
I'm with Walter that the humans are
still better writers and even if they're
not better writers there's a
psychological effect of you want to hear
from another human and that will remain
true as humans of all we don't want to
hear from a machine as much as we want
to hear from a human and that that
psychological effect even if the quality
gets completely equal if we believe it's
from a machine and not a person we're
gonna lose trust in
it gotcha um I'm curious as well Walter
you you you said actually both of you
guys have a little bit of background um
working at companies as well before is
there anything in thinking back to your
days um uh working on kind of the
marketing side
is there anything that you think right
now that AI is useful
for um for marketers or for Founders who
are trying to reach out to the media
without kind of Crossing that line and
creating a full you know pitch out of uh
using chat GPT and and and nothing
original is there anything that you do
think is useful for right now that they
can
leverage if I may I would I would trust
and I use the word trust lightly I I
would trust like chat GPT to give me a
list of like give me a list of
journalists who have written about uh
generative AI from a critical
perspective in the last three months
like I would and I would and then it
would it would give me a list and then I
could look at that list and like do a
couple of checks on the list to see like
and then I would know what like and I so
there's there's some ways I think
directionally that I could use AI in my
work to kind of save some time or or or
to aggregate information that's already
out there um but at the same time I also
like I know that like whatever I get I
have to rigorously check for Quality and
accuracy because the AI can can
hallucinate uh and that's and and you
know I don't I don't want to be putting
stuff out there that's fake so like I
got to make sure I'm vetting the the
work it produces right yeah I think
building lists is really useful building
relevant lists it it just it can it can
do that um we've been using seamless on
the marketing and sales side they have a
massive dat base of emails so then once
you build the list you target it more
and more and you can build a email list
for cold Outreach um also I mean
spitting up landing pages in decks
faster and more efficiently marketers
and Le it's it's worth it uh you know
because on the there's a few tools um
like in terms of landing pages I've been
using bal's AI tool and I can prompt I
can describe what type of landing page I
want and then it actually builds the
code and I can then move the code over
to a developer and it designer so now
I'm moving from prompts to HTML which is
really nice in terms of getting a page
out quickly and getting my the outline
of my idea there and instead of passing
off a design file I'm actually passing
off code and and it's the same amount of
time so that that I think is something
that like I would definitely look
towards in building decks it's just a
good deck is still done by a human but
the idea of like speeding you write the
script of the deck and it makes it flow
a little better and gives you a little
better image
you can it's just much faster than it
was you know with a even with a canva
tool or a Google Sheets tool so more
quickly you have a new offering that you
want to have and you have a meeting
coming up with your lead you can just
have a deck custom to them in the
offering a little quicker so I think on
that image creation and code creation
side of it you can save a good bit of
time in your
workflow awesome yeah and that
translates to Founders as well I mean uh
for for a pitch deck um you know you
know save a bunch of time there as well
so um well I know we've uh we started a
little bit late we held you guys uh past
the time it's getting uh later there in
in Colorado and in uh in California um
so I wanted to thank both of our mentors
Walter Thompson uh for uh for staying
with us and he has covid too so another
a big a big round of applause for uh for
him and congrats again Walter on the
launch of the new podcast um and as and
as well uh David smook um CEO of of
hacker noon thank than you both
gentlemen for for speaking with us
today thanks for having us pleasure
thanks all right take care everybody