Reporter Hermione Way warns startup founders never to assume conversations with journalists are off the record. She also advises against launching during major events like Google I/O or Dreamforce, and stresses that reporters work on tight deadlines and editorial calendars.
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Don't assume conversations are off the record. You've probably read TechCrunch where they publish emails without editing, whole emails from investors to legal, to spats they're having. There was a famous spat with Snapchat where 2 of the founders were arguing over who actually founded it. TechCrunch just publishes everything. So it's kind of like yoga. Be mindful. Be mindful that everything you put out into the world, every text you send to somebody, is easily uploadable. And if a journalist is trying to get your story, they'll stop at nothing to get the story. So just be mindful of that. It might seem very obvious again, but you'd be surprised at the amount of people that write stuff that ends up on TechCrunch or ends up on some blog. So just be mindful of that. Don't launch at a bad time. Again, we have access to an events calendar of Silicon Valley events. If you're trying to launch your product during Google I/O conference or one Salesforce Dreamforce conference, you're not going to make any noise because the whole press and media and everything is focused on that event happening. So make sure you Write yourself a calendar of events and make sure you don't launch when anything else exciting and big is going on. Again, it might seem obvious, but you'd be surprised at the amount of startups I've seen that try to launch during Google I/O and nobody gives a shit. So just make sure you're mindful of that. Don't misunderstand lead times. Many journalists write for publications that That are biweekly or bimonthly. As a journalist at The Next Web, our quota was 6 posts a day. That was our minimum of what we had to publish every day. So I already had my week planned of what— roughly of what I was going to publish every week. So if you're sending me a press release, like, 2 days, like, hey, Hermione, we're launching on Thursday. Can you cover us? No. No, I can't cover you. No. I've got, like, 12 other stories I need to push out. So no, I'm not covering you. You should have thought about this before. So just think about that. You know, journalists— bloggers are very, very busy. They're up to their eyeballs in emails. They're up to their eyeballs in tweets, Facebook messages. I showed you my inbox earlier. You know, we have 6 posts to write a day. And just be mindful of understanding that, you know, bloggers aren't at your beck and call. They often have editorial calendars and scheduled events.
