Build an Insights Team to Generate Earned Media Coverage

Stop trying to get reporters to cover your startup and do this instead:

1. Build an Insights team that produces original research from proprietary data your company creates or manages.

2. Monitor the best reporters in your space and offer to help them write better stories with useful data — don't pitch puff pieces on your company.

3. Rinse & repeat (and if you do it right, you'll become thought partners with those same reporters)

In the week of Jan 12, Carta data was mentioned in 16 stories and another 7 newsletters. We're talking Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Bloomberg, Fortune, etc.

Beyond the national publications, showing up in industry newsletters and other company blogs can be just as (or even more) useful.

Doesn't happen by accident! Definitely helps to have a great PR agency keeping tabs on various reporting beats and and a kickass comms team with good journalist relationships.

But the true advantage here is that you aren't pitching about yourself. You're helping these reporters and writers get real evidence to back up their coverage. Soon you can be the first call even as they consider writing something.

Being a source of truth for media can translate into being source of truth for your industry. And the loops just keep reinforcing one another.

Build data once, use it everywhere 🙏