Jessica Mah discusses how press coverage affects startups, the ego boost it provides, and why it matters that coverage actually leads to business results. The conversation explores the gap between how success looks and what it actually means.
Well, getting a lot of press is a lot of fun. It's really good for the ego. But.
And why did you get all that press, do you think?
Well, we had an interesting story, like we were 20 and a 20 and a 19 year old building a startup to help business owners and we were fresh out of Y Combinator and we raised a million dollars and it sounds really cool, but after we got a lot of this press, we realized that maybe half of it didn't really convert into signups, so.
But the press felt good. Why did you care about sign ups? It was about you.
I thought so. And then I got your phone call. Steve called me after this huge wave of press and said, Jess, like, you have to really think about what you're doing to yourself and really make sure that when you're getting press, it's actually leading to money, to business results. Because it takes a lot of time to go out and do speaking engagements and talk to reporters. And if it's just about boosting your ego, it's just not a great use of time.
It feels good for a while, doesn't it?
It does. And then over time you had a lot of friends saying, jason Dinero, oh, it's probably doing great. I saw you in Inc. Magazine or Vast Company. But it really doesn't feel great because deep down inside you know how hard it is to build your company and you know that you're not successful yet. So you just feel like a con artist in a way.
So did you feel that way for a while?
I still feel that way.
How come?
Because people think you're successful when you're. You're still struggling.
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