101 How to: PR for startups

When your company is a startup, ie extremely innovative, potentially disruptive and absolutely money deprived, getting noticed on your market is key. And PR appears to be the most obvious and the fastest way to reach this objective. So they say. But when, what, how and with who should you start? Here are some key steps to those meaningful questions.

Getting noticed isn't that easy on crowded markets and the first main issue for startups is double: a) there are many other exciting startups trying to grab the media's attention b) the David vs. Goliath syndrome makes it even more difficult for your voice to be heard when your market's incumbents have entire hordes of communication experts discussing on a daily basis with key editors.

Keep in mind that as a startup your company has inner strengths that you should leverage: more agile and faster to react, to name a few. So let's start with the obvious.

Define your objectives. Sounds obvious, right? Well, not that obvious, actually. Whatever you are aiming at, wether BusinessWeek's front cover (the Iron-Man syndrome) or increasing your website's traffic or recruiting rock-star engineers, implies specific media, a specific timeline, and specific journalists to target.

Positioning you company on its market is only a matter of being smarter: leverage the work that has been done by other actors of the market.

1 – observe and acquire the incumbents' lexicon: as journalists know it – being so regularly in touch with their communication hordes – they'll understand right away where to position you.
2 – observe and react to major statements / announcements: write a tribune, post it on you blog and link it to the announcement, comment on the initial announcement and link to your post. You can even propose your tribune to editors. They want to give their readers the big picture and a comprehensive presentation of it: you can benefit from this. Few tribunes of the kind will de facto position you and your company on your market.
3 – keep your communication flowing: schedule your announcements to make sure you'll be communicating a least once every 6 weeks.
4 – iterate.

Logistics is key in the communication field. Make your announcements easy to access to editors some of whom receive over 200 emails a day... ban email attachments and favor links to the resources attached to your announcement (pictures, videos, screencasts etc.)

It's human, baby! Build a relationship with the editors you discuss with. Don't hesitate to give them some unofficial information using the sacred “this is off, but...”. The “off” brings both parts many advantages, the main one being it gives perspectives to the editor writing on you. Even if some of the information cannot be used in his/her first article, it'll enable him/her to get back to you on other articles and it'll enable you to get back to him/her later when this information becomes official.

Leverage social media. Social media and online communication have brought many new ways to communicate and to get to the exact person you want to talk to. Spend time on forums, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin etc. and find the appropriate and professional way to get your messages across.

Here are the slides of the presentation I give to Startups. What do you think? Any other hints to share?

PR for Startups: when, what, how?

View more presentations from Anne de Forsan.

StoriesOut - Week #7 to 10 - The trick is to keep breathing

Amazingly dense weeks



Well to be quite honest, coming back from 1 uninterrupted sunny week in Spain to find my self under the rain with a loss of 10°C has been pretty challenging for my fighting spirit... But the good news is that rather quickly business and activity took over. So here's what happen during these 4 past weeks.

• Another product launch with Kwaga: Kwaga Context for Google Apps users, brings thread history and social information of email senders, directly in your inbox! Huge step forward in email productivity. If you're on Googel Apps, you MUST try it a) because it is amazingly usefull b) beacuse it's free ;-) - download it here : http://kwaga.com/KwagaContext.html
  
• Bunch of very useful working meetings with great people: Sébastien Renault, President at ClubNet, Renaud Finaz de Villaine, Marketing Director at Micropole univers, Stefane Fermigier, Founder and Chairman at Nuxeo, Véronique Borel, Marketing Manager at Red Hat,
  
• Biz dev was dense and tricky too: not always easy to find the magic balance to fit into budgets...
• I did 2 videos for Nuxeo: Damien Metzler, Software architect at Leroy Merlin and Jean-Marc Orliaguet from Chalmers university in Sweden. That was quite funny and gave me the opportunity to use the Flip camera that Geeknius-the-Great offered me for my birthday ;-)
• And finally I had the chance to attend Microsoft BizSpark European Summit and listen to a Guy Kawasaki presentation. Huge! Discovered as well Restopolitan and Captain Dash, two amazing French startups.
• 20 check-ins on Foursquare ;-)
• 868 views on my youtube channel
  

Montjoie Saint Denis!

StoriesOut - Week #5 & 6

Fabulous weather for two awesome weeks

• Hard work on StoriesOut new Website - It's gonna be awesome! I mean it! Can't wait to launch :-)
• Trying to find interested people to sponsor a Startup Village on a tradeshow in October
• Wasted an enormous amount of time trying to have my bike fixed (I hate garages)
• Relentlessly trying to reach journalists :-s
• Wrote a great case study on one of Nuxeo's customers
• Wonders of mobile workers: attended 2 conf call from awesome places
• 637 views of my 17 videos posted on youtube (youtube.com/user/annedeforsan)
  
• 21 check-ins on Foursquare

StoriesOut - Week #4

More startups!



Week#4 has been incredibly intense:

• My goddamn bike refused to work
  
• I presented the 16 videos I did of startupers from Incubateur Telecom ParisTech at the entire crew of the incubator (they are available here: http://www.youtube.com/user/AnnedeForsan)
• Then one full day of prepping with @dealmeeting to pitch @seedcamp
• The entire Thursday, I was at Seedcamp, presenting and discussing Dealmeeting with other startups and mentors - Kind of exhausting & exciting
  
• The wrap-up party, sponsored by Elaia Partners was a relief : fun talks, drinks and again
• On Friday, Reshma Sohoni, Seedcamp CEO came to the incubator and kindly accepted me to shot a short video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXFjlHGqyuI)
  
• Only 5 checkins- on foursquare and 1 mayorship lost- duh!

See ya next week for more exciting adventures!

Last Day at Nuxeo - Here comes StoriesOut!

Hi all,

Today is my last day at Nuxeo. I'm leaving this great company to create my own: "StoriesOut".

StoriesOut proposes communication services to innovating IT companies, both startups and more established ones:

• PR and press management
• Communication Strategies for Communities (customers, internal communication, online social communities)
• Communication Coaching

I'm delighted to announce StoriesOut's two first customers: Nuxeo and Kwaga !

From Monday 22nd, you'll be able to reach me at:

• mail: annedeforsan@storiesout.com
• cell: +33 6 07 67 30 38
• twitter: @adeforsan
  

I'm looking forward to hearing from you!

Ground Control to Major Tom, Commencing countdown, Engines On

6 days to go for a brand new adventure to start (hence the attached pic).



I'll be leaving the comfort of the employee position on March 19th to start StoriesOut, my own company the following Monday.




StoriesOut will be about Social Media, Marketing, PR and Communication services & coaching, primarily to exciting innovating IT startups and incubators. The baseline is "Let's write your story".

Huge excitement and stress.

The past few years have been tremendous. I've learned a lot, discovered even more and met stunning people.

I can't say there's been only one trigger for this shift, probably more the addition of experiences and thoughts. I've been fascinated by the energy of the entrepreneurs I've met. By technology and its ability to disrupt and change any "established" market. By the speed of high tech market and the actual real time assessments, decision-making and measurement.

I felt it was time for me to tell those stories and to create my own.

I can't wait to say more about StoriesOut!

Stay tuned.

Mantras for entrepreneurs

My post from yesterday raised some great comments and discussions, among which the lonelyness of the entrepreneur generates many exchanges.

Here is my proposed "zen cure": Mantras for entrepreneurs.

A mantra is a sound, syllable, word, or group of words that are considered capable of "creating transformation" (from wikipedia).



Here are some of mine:

• Reed: be reed-like went you create a brand new service or product, based on your own personal conviction and belief. Anchored on your rock-solid-yet-flexible self foundations.
• Exchange: be evangelist-like and faithfully present, explain and convince anyone you come across. And yet listen.
  
• Sieve: listen sieve-like and sort all given advises and keep the best nuggets
• Echo: strengthen your foundations in integrating new valuable ideas to your own personal convictions

Which are yours? Contribute!

Is pairing impairing?

You need shareholders, for sure.
Do you really need co-founders?

Saturday was Third shooting session of The Big Project aka TBP. Out of the four originally planned, only three startups showed up. Not that I'm complaining, three stratups were far enough for my SaturdayStartup delight.

The reason one of the startups didn't show up is because the three co-founders couldn't agree on the message they wanted to present.

It made me think of entrepreneur and leadership. And what stroke me was that quite often, once entrepreneurs have their "Great Idea", they start with selecting a co-founder (sometimes several) and then eventually they build a team around them.

Probably because at the early stages of the company, entrepreneurs a rarely able to propose any salary. So they propose bits of their Great Idea, and end up with co-founders instead of shareholders.

We all agree that startups require the combination of complementing skills. And quite often it goes like "the tech genius & the sales wizard" are proud to present you...

But then, the startup has to pitch in front of VCs, customers, potential partners etc. and the need (and the demand) for THE startup representative rises and could strike hard.

Who's going to be the Startup Spokesperson?
The Tech Genius (most of the time the core idea's genitor) or the Sales Wizard (whose best friends are often the first customers/partners)?
And then eventually - hopefully - who's going to grab the laurels of success?
(I have to admit, I never saw an argument about who's endorsing failures...)

Shareholders are proud of your success and encourage it. It grants them with great ROI.
Co-founders work hard and want their share of spotlight.

I believe and have seen it several time: the success of a company, its growth and expansion, is a single-person story. The story of the founder, the leader able to build a strong team around his/her ideas, with people excelling in areas where he/she doesn't.

On the other hand, I have witnessed extremely frequently the failure of great ideas and companies, due to resentment and fights for power between founders. It's sad. And could be avoided.

Sorry guys, but there aren't that many successful "tandem-like" companies.

That's why I think pairing can actually impair your company.

What do you think?

The Big Project - Let's meet innovators and start with video games

Here's a big project of mine: over a month and a half period, I'll be interviewing and shooting videos of startupers from Paris. I call this project "The Big Project" aka TBP.

While moving forward in my geeky-2.0-life, I met those guys through my personal connections (no comment ;-)) and a couple of discussions were enough for me get fully enthusiastic about their projects and to propose them the "Big project". It somehow pleased them:-)

Now, we're just in the early stage of TBP and written impressions and videos won't be ready before a while, but I want to share my first impressions after the first round of videos.

Shooting are scheduled on Saturdays, (as I do TBP on top of my job :-)) and therefore have been baptized the SaturdayStartups.

Prepping & shooting have been... EXHAUSTINGLY FUN! First impressions so far:

• First obvious common factor is enthusiasm - Well, of course it is. Those guys (very dramatically sorry but no gals met, so far...) just want to change the world. I mean what the fuss of creating a company if you only want to duplicate something existing, duh?
  
  
• Second: innovation - The four first startups we videoed on SaturdayStartup#1 , have come up with never-seen-before ideas, products and services. Either B-to-B niche solutions or B-to-C services that will - I swear - really stun you.
  
  
• Third: diversity - Yesterday I met startups working in very different fields: B-to-B, B-to-Xpert, B-to-C in the field of finance (ThinkStraight), telco (stealth mode...), IT (Hereda Technologies), process automation (Kedeal). Their profiles are also stunningly different: from fresh-graduate to over 30-year experienced guys, each of them dropping (very) comfortable employee positions, to make their project come true. Wow.
  
  
• Richness directly linked to the diversity of those founders' profiles. Some of the entrepreneurs we met yesterday have been head of development in some of the most famous international companies, consulting / legal practices... Makes you feel humble(r) and is extremely energizing :-)
  

I knew the risk existed. But here I am: contaminated.

Keep posted to see how illness develops.

One size doesn't fit all

I've been recently discussing a lot with friends of mine launching their own startups. I love those guys: they are full of an impressive positive energy, each of them working hard to change our way of working, living, inventing new ways...

Sooner or later I'll have to present them in this blog.

For now, I want to talk about one of the (many) common issues they are facing: recruiting talented people. They find it a nightmare... at best.



Key pain points:

- Lack of the startup culture that blossoms in the Valley - particularly in Europe.
- Existing job boards misfitting their needs: overload of out-focused resumes for any open position posted and lack of internal time and resources to sort and deal with them
- The inner time of startups ticks far too fast for most applicants: the job was to be done yesterday, so how could startup afford to wait for an extra period of 1 to 3 months (common length for periods of notice) for the person to come on board
- Looking for highly skilled and experienced people while the standard startup package can't compete with the apparent security of working in a big company.

Keeping the discussion further with my enterpreneur-friends, they all confess that higher the position they want to fulfill, the bigger the nightmare.

And then eventually, they identify the right person. Most of the time she/he holds a similar job in a huge company. They must recruit this person: she/he is the "Messiah" who will solve all current issues and enable the startup to cross any chasm and eventually succeed to change the world.

The seduction game starts.

It takes them weeks, if not months - but they keep on - The Messiah MUST join. And eventually he/she joins.

Here starts the real trouble:
When you've spent many years in big companies, you're accustomed to processes, to precise job description, to structured annual planning, to deal with budget, resources and support teams. Not to mention car allowance etc. Basically everything that a startup cannot / shouldn't have.

From Day #1 the Messiah gets on board, disillusion strikes hard:
- you're now on the fastest track of your industry: little time to assess, evaluate, discuss every single decisions
- you're on your own to produce and deliver
- you must re-invent your job along with the evolution of the product and its market fit
- you get little to no support
- your budget is a joke

When everything turns that sour, there's only one solution: stop the experience and go on each one his side.

Well then the TRUE nightmare begins: it costs huge time, money and energy to get rid of a Messiah-type of co-worker. Exactly what a startup cannot afford to waste.

Listen to Hjalmar Windbladh CEO of Rebtel, while presenting his experience as serial entrepreneur at Seedcamp in 2009. It's hilarious

Seedcamp Week '09. Day 1. Navigating the Start-up Rollercoaster with Hjalmar Windblah from Seedcamp on Vimeo.

Truth is: One size doesn't fit all :-)

What if good enough was actually enough?

I went lately to one of Eric Ries's leanstartup seminar, in Paris.

Very inspiring and thoughtful as expected. Some of it reminded me of Balzac's "The Unknown Masterpiece": an artist, never satisfied with what he considers his life's masterpiece, keeps on amending it during years. When half mad he finally shows it to a friend, the poor fellow has to face the lamest doodle ever.

The Unknown masterpiece is amongst the most famous novel challenging the sense and the meaning of Arts.

Now, transpose it to IT. Especially to innovative IT. You know, those products and services that have and will undoubtedly change the way we work, the way we communicate, our relationship to others etc.

- Craiglist: the most popular online classified ad site in the US ? The poorest UI and functionnalities we've ever seen = 20 million people visit the site each month, viewing and self-publishing more than 17 million ads and forum posts (check this Wired story)

- Twitter: a limited number of caracters to tell everyone non-sense all day long =
and the list goes on like that.

Now I've been recently talking to a bunch of startup-ers and, as so funnily illustrated by Ries, they're all of them more or less stuck with existential issues of the kind:
- my product/service isn't ready - I must add features
- I have to delay the launch
- How can I raise interest (not mentioning money) with semi-finished product?
- I need 10 extra genius-developers to finish it
...

Basically those guys are changing the way we will buy on the Internet, travel, manage our inbox, manage and animate our community, and obvisouly invent a new way for us to do so.

How on earth could the know how we - users- will react to it?

Well they can't.

Ries best advice remain: try, fail, ask your users, correct, try again...


As one of those happy "early adopters" of those new services I'd love to say:
1 - Don't forget that we -the users - have, first of all, to understand your product
2 - Need support to use them
3 - would love to exchange with you on our experience
4- would then, and only then, love to have more features :-)