I did write this piece so my comment is bias...The first piece of logic makes sense in early stage startups. If you are looking for a technical cofounder you should stop searching and learn to code. And while just building your founding team and trying to get press in its earliest stages you should not hire a VP of engineering and do it yourself. The same with PR. It does require some blood and sweat, but that is the sweat equity that every founder must endure.
In the article, I don't mention anything about the effectiveness of PR firms, we all know that they are good at what they do, but at a cost. And I keep seeing big name firms repping pre-funded startups, which is a death wish in my opinion.
You bring up a great point of having a journalist telling companies how to run their PR. There should be more of this. Companies and PR firms just throw up garbage press releases a lot of the times and this could be some valuable feedback for them.
Great point, we did publish an article about Why Your Startup Does Need PR though.
"If you are looking for a technical cofounder you should stop searching and learn to code."
Maybe you should, maybe you shouldn't. I just can't get my head around thinking otherwise. Can it work your way? Yup. Can it work other ways? Yup. All over-generalized advice works some of the time, that's why it exists in the first place. It probably even works most of the time. My problem isn't with the advice's hit rate--nothing is perfect--it's with the logic behind it.
"I keep seeing big name firms repping pre-funded startups, which is a death wish in my opinion."
If a big name firm is working for a startup before it's funded I'd bet a lot of money that they're doing it for stock or deferred comp. That's almost never cash. Whether that's a good deal depends on the firm, the startup, the deal, etc, but no agency is getting $20k/month out of a startup that hasn't raised anymore unless it's very well self-funded.
"Companies and PR firms just throw up garbage press releases a lot of the times and this could be some valuable feedback for them."
Lots of agencies suck at this is an example of it. No disagreement here. And I don't think advice on PR from a journalist is necessarily bad, but I believe not enough scrutiny is directed at the source. To be fair, I say the same thing about fundraising advice from VC's. Not a bad thing, just silly to take it on face value.
Absolutely agree with that. Sales is an enormously underrated skill set that all startups employees should focus on.
Also it promotes bad habits like just pushing and forwarding emails to PR companies. I can't stand waiting around for a PR firm when I know the employee has read my message.
