The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern)

Emilie Gerber (00:00:00):
No one ever gets this tactical in PR. There's just so much theoretical conversation and examining the big blunders, but at the end of the day, if you're a startup that wants to get coverage for your company, you need to know actually the steps to take to do it.

Lenny (00:00:13):
You mentioned a bunch of amazing companies you've worked with, Ram Perplexity. Most products won't have this interesting of a story to tell. How do you help find something that is a nugget?

Emilie Gerber (00:00:21):
You can get so in the weeds with your own messaging that you want to set up this massive problem statement, you want to make it a huge trend story, but if you're very straightforward and you're pattern matching, it's generally actually going to work.

Lenny (00:00:32):
So I asked you to bring some examples of pitches that are great and also examples of pitches that could be better.

Emilie Gerber (00:00:39):
I want to read one to you and then I want to see if you can tell me what this company does.

Lenny (00:00:44):
Deal. Today, my guest is Emilie Gerber. Emilie is the founder and CEO of Six Eastern, a PR agency that has worked with over 100 tech companies, from stealth startups to publicly traded companies, helping them get press, build awareness, and level up their PR and comms strategy. Before starting her own firm, she worked at Uber where she led PR for the business development team and B2B programs. Prior to that, she worked at Box on product communications with a focus on product launches and partnership announcements. In our conversation, Emilie shares so many golden nuggets of advice on how to get press that I lost count.

(00:01:23):
We talk about which publications to target depending on your market and story, how to craft your pitch and your outreach to reporters, how to actually reach reporters, and also how to craft your product story for people to pay attention to what you're doing, why warm introductions to reporters aren't actually that important, how to find podcasts and newsletters to pitch that might be even more effective than traditional media, how much it would cost you to work with a PR agency instead of doing it yourself, and how much lead time you need if you do that.

(00:01:50):
Also, we go through a few real-life examples of press and outreach, both good examples and bad examples, and what we can learn from those. Also, we look at a pitch that Emilie sent to me about a podcast guest that is a client of hers that worked, and this guest is coming out in the future, so we look at what was effective about that pitch, and so much more. If you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to subscribe and follow on your favorite podcasting app or YouTube, it's the best way to avoid missing feature episodes and it helps the podcast tremendously. With that, I bring you Emilie Gerber after a short word from our sponsors.

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Eppo also makes it easy for you to share experiment insights with your team, sparking new ideas for the AB testing flywheel, EPO powers experimentation across every use case, including product, growth, machine learning, monetization, and email marketing. Check out Eppo at getepo.com/lenny and 10 X your experiment velocity. That's get E-P-P-O.com/lenny. Emilie, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the podcast.

Emilie Gerber (00:04:59):
Yeah, thank you for having me.

Lenny (00:05:01):
So we're going to be talking about press. A lot of people say that trying to get press isn't really worth your time. It doesn't drive signups, it doesn't drive growth. You could spend your time on other things and have a lot more impact there, and I know that you have a really interesting perspective on second order effects of press and other benefits. So I'm curious to hear, what's your perspective on this idea, that press isn't really worth people's time and how can press be helpful?

Emilie Gerber (00:05:27):
Yeah, when we were emailing about it, talking about some of the articles that you were in, some of the coverage that you got, I was thinking about how, in your case, you have multiple audiences. You have your customers, which in a way, are your listeners and the people that are engaging with your content. So in a way, you're a B2C business, but in another way, you're a B2B business. Obviously, you have sponsors and you're trying to attract really great guests to come on the show, and so there's a second order piece of the press is validating that you're something that a software company wants to sponsor. So internally, they're making those decisions. Not everyone might know Lenny's podcast, but they could send around a CNBC article and see that this is something very legit and something that people care about. It just signals that third-party validation that I think is really important, and that ties back to, when you look at a SaaS company or something and they're making decisions, having that validation, I think, and that credibility goes a really long way.

(00:06:24):
Especially for a company that might be early stage, they've raised a little bit of money, I think sometimes the buyers are skeptical of engaging with new tools, because they're worried they might not raise more funding, or it might go away tomorrow, and so the more that you can validate the business through things that's not just you doing personally that other people are doing, I think the better. So I think, yeah, that's the value from the B2B perspective and it's not necessarily going to directly drive signups, but when that AE is sending their sales emails and they can link to a story, I think that really helps. Also, candidates too, when you're reaching... If it's a recruiter reaching out on LinkedIn and they only have 100 characters to make their pitch, linking to that story can be really powerful.

(00:07:03):
So those are some of the second-order effects for B2B. And then, on the consumer side, it's a much more complex issue. There's affiliate marketing, which is this whole world of paid, where you're getting product reviews and that sort of thing, and that's not really an area that I'm an expert on, but we do work with some consumer companies where press is a major driver of growth. So for instance, Perplexity, they have invested essentially zero in any paid marketing, they don't have a marketing person even, but they do do PR. And so essentially, after their most recent announcement, they saw a massive spike in growth, a massive spike in signups, pro users, all of that. And I think, in that case, the reason PR works so well is...

(00:07:47):
First of all, it's something that's very easy to grasp. Google alternative. I know how to use Google, I've used Google a million times, you can go to perplexity.com. The barrier to trying the product is very low, you can quickly type in a query, get the answer, and then see the power of the tool. It takes one time to see the power of the tool. So in that case, I think just organic press is enough to generate that. There's not a long process to get the customers interested, so... Yeah. I mentioned very case to case, but in those instances, it works well,

Lenny (00:08:18):
Man, there's so many threads I want to follow here. That was such an interesting answer. And by the way, I love Perplexity. I once tweeted a result I had when I was using Perplexity, and that was one of their default questions you could ask about strawberries. Apparently, strawberries are not one fruit, strawberries are a bundle of fruits and every little piece of a strawberry, those little red things, are individual fruits all bundled together, which blew my mind. I was like, "I need to share this," and so I wonder how much of their growth just comes from crazy things like that.

Emilie Gerber (00:08:45):
Yeah, it's like the kind of tool where your mom could try it and instantly know how to use it. Yeah. It's good for weird questions, like what you just shared. That's where it comes in really handy.

Lenny (00:08:55):
You did a great job just defaulting, "Here's weird questions you could ask," and then, wow, what an answer. Okay, so on the B2B side, I think this is really interesting. When people are thinking about doing the calculus of, "Is it worth investing and trying to get press for a B2B business?" Related to what we were talking about offline. So when I got these stories in Fast company, I got a story in CNBC, I got a story in Entrepreneur Magazine, and I was telling you I've seen zero growth impact from all these stories. And you'd think like, "Wow." I had a story in the magazine, Entrepreneur Magazine, print edition, and nothing comes from it as far as I can tell.

Emilie Gerber (00:09:30):
Yeah.

Lenny (00:09:30):
And your point, which really stuck with me, is the real benefit isn't that first order growth impact, it's... And I've been doing this, it's when I'm emailing potential guests telling them, "Hey, check out my work or my profile in these magazines." And just having those little logos is really powerful, and that's why you see those logos on people's websites. So is your advice here, basically, for B2B businesses than most? If the pie chart of impact of press, most of that percentage is just having a logo of an awesome publication on your website and your outbound emails, and things like that?

Emilie Gerber (00:10:06):
Yeah, the logo is a piece of it and then also the storytelling part. Maybe they're not going to read eight paragraphs that you wrote about your business, but if it's in the format of an article, I think they're more likely to take the time to do it. One other, I guess, aspect of it is content. So for instance, the articles that people want to write about you are not about necessarily how great your podcast is, which it is, but more about how you created this business. And so it's more through the lens of you're an entrepreneur, you have built this media empire, and so that's not necessarily the kind of story that's going to drive your core audience to sign up, and so contents is part of it, too. And so we work with companies where we get them great stories about their company culture and cool initiatives that they're doing, because reporters are interested in that topic. That's not going to help their sales, but it might help with something like recruiting. And so yeah, I think thinking... That's the other piece of it, is thinking through the content.

Lenny (00:11:03):
That's such a good point, because the story they're going to write about you isn't, "This is the best product you've ever seen," this is, "Look at this interesting journey this startup has gone on," and that's not going to convince your customers, it's going to convince other people just to read this publication, but the fact that they wrote about you is really beneficial. And then you're saying B2C, most of the benefit is actually driving growth and you've seen lots of examples of press driving significant growth.

Emilie Gerber (00:11:27):
Yeah, I think it can be and I think this is one where, yeah, it's a little more case-to-case, because we have some clients where they need to invest heavily in affiliate, because product reviews are what they need or they want to be on lists of the best vacuum cleaner, or whatever category, and it's less about getting them big features. And so there's different ways of doing it for B2C. But yeah, I do think it's like... Yeah, there's two camps, affiliate or not affiliate.

Lenny (00:12:00):
Can you actually explain this affiliate bucket? Because I'm not actually that familiar with it.

Emilie Gerber (00:12:00):
I can. However, we actually don't do affiliate marketing, so there's probably going to be a lot of people that have a much more insightful perspective on it, but affiliate is essentially when you work with a publication to give them a percentage of any sales that come from the piece of the article. And so if you look at Business Insider's list of best personal finance tools, it'll say at the top that they're getting commission. So they track the links, they figure out a certain percentage, and then they basically get a percentage of all the sales that come in, and it's very common. I would say most consumer companies are doing this, but yes, there's entire agencies that are dedicated to that field.

Lenny (00:12:38):
Wow, I didn't actually know that was such a big thing. I've heard of affiliate marketing where you get paid for promoting something, I didn't know Business Insider did this as a revenue.

Emilie Gerber (00:12:48):
Yeah, and I don't want to call out just... I mean, I would say every publication that's doing product reviews for the most part, I believe, it's a very common practice.

Lenny (00:12:58):
Wow. All right, already learning a lot. Okay, so I definitely want to start talking about how to actually get press for your product, but one quick question about fundraising announcements. So I'm an investor in a lot of companies, very often, they email me and ask for advice how to get press and, most of the time, it's a fundraising milestone. When is it worth investing trying to get press and fundraising? Like always worth trying, rarely worth your effort? Does it have to be some really impressive fundraising moment? What do you suggest?

Emilie Gerber (00:13:32):
I also think not all PR people are going to agree with this, but I do think funding rounds, you can always get a reporter to cover if you go about it the right way. I mean, we scope out projects that are just for funding announcements, we've never had to not finish that project or we've never... I wouldn't do that if it wasn't possible, so I think there's a couple of reasons that it sometimes doesn't work out. But I guess just to take a step back on funding stories, a lot of founders automatically think that, "I raise money, so TechCrunch will cover this." The reality is... Someone tweeted, actually someone from another agency, I should... Propeller PR, they tweeted that they counted how many funding stories TechCrunch did in a week, and it was nine, so they had written nine funding stories in one week. And then they counted how many funding rounds actually happened that week by looking at Axis Parata and Fortune Term Sheet, and it was like 50.

(00:14:26):
So it seems... When you go to TechCrunch, it looks like, "It's all funding stories, so mine should be one of these." That's not the case at all. But I do think, if you go about it the right way, you can be one of those nine. And I'm talking about TechCrunch specifically here only because the reality is they are the publication that's going to be most likely to write your funding story, that's just kind of the way it works. And it's not a bad thing, they're actually... They don't have a paywall, they tend to do a very good job, they understand it. It's a well-oiled machine, and so we know if you've done a story with them, it's going to pretty much go how you want to plan it. So when you go to pitch a funding story, I think the first thing that founders, or whoever is reaching out on behalf of the company, does wrong is they convolute the message.

(00:15:10):
When we pitch a funding story, we make it very clear, "Hey, we're reaching out with a startup launch or funding. We're offering this to you as an exclusive, meaning we're not going to pitch anyone else if you take the story. Here's the amount that's raised, here's the space that... Here's the space they're in and here are the investors." I think you can get so in the weeds with your own messaging, that you want to set up this massive problem statement, you want to make it a huge trend story. You don't really say what you're trying to accomplish from it, but if you're very straightforward and you're pattern matching, "Hey, this TechCrunch reporter is the one that covers FinTech. I have a FinTech funding round, here's the reason my FinTech funding round matters." It's generally actually going to work and now it does 100% takes follow up.

(00:15:50):
You're not shooting off one email, you are respectfully following up. When I follow up, I like to come in with some new information, whether it's something they had tweeted in the past couple of days, a new article that they wrote, very respectful. I try to wait three or four days. If it's not going anywhere, then try someone else. Do that three or four times with the most relevant reporters. Generally, I think it works. Yeah, I think if you can just be really concise and direct and say what you're looking for out of the relationship, it tends to be a pretty easy process. And yeah, TechCrunch is one publication, but this actually goes for a bunch.

Lenny (00:16:24):
Amazing. I love that we're already getting into tactical advice for how to actually get press. So that was essentially for fundraising and the notes I took is keep it really simple, "Here's how much we raise, here's our investors. Here's one line about why this matters." I want to talk later about how pitching press is different for customers, because with customers, I think this is probably the mistake a lot of people make, and we don't have to get into this just yet, but you want to paint the picture of the market and trends and, "Here's where the market's going and why this is huge and why this is a solution to your problem," versus, "Bam, this is interesting for this reason," and that's it.

Emilie Gerber (00:16:56):
Exactly.

Lenny (00:16:57):
Okay. I want to talk about publications to target and what each one is best suited for. So you're talking about how TechCrunch is essentially really good for fundraising. When I think about other publications, there's like Axios and Verge, I don't know if they do press stories like this. Wall Street Journal, New York Times, things like that. So I guess, what are the different publications people should have on their list of target? And then, what are each of them most aligned to, story-wise?

Emilie Gerber (00:17:28):
I really love this question. I feel like no one ever gets this tactical in PR. There's just so much theoretical conversation and examining the big blunders and... It's all so high level, but at the end of the day, if you are a startup that wants to get coverage for your company, you need to know actually the steps to take to do it. So yeah, I appreciate that question. I'm going to answer it, but also answer it with the caveat that media changes so much and so fast. For instance, just a couple weeks ago, TechCrunch decided they no longer accept op-eds, which is... It's actually huge news for us, because we love doing op-eds in TechCrunch, and so things change all the time, but I will talk about it in its current state. So yes, TechCrunch, a go-to for a lot of funding announcements. A go-to for some product news, too, even sometimes.

(00:18:15):
I would say the areas where they don't have dedicated beat reporters, where we tend to end up not working with them, are health tech-related companies and even MarTech, too. We've struggled to find the right folks to cover those kinds of stories. So not everything, but generally, if you do your digging, you're able to find a relevant beat reporter or a couple of relevant beat reporters, and it's not just about getting coverage there. They have TechCrunch Disrupt, you can apply for speaking at that conference, and that sometimes actually directly turns into coverage. They have The Found Podcast, which interviews founders, and so if you have a really compelling founder story or topical founder story, that can be an excellent avenue to go as well. They have The Equity Pod, which is investment advice, so it's not just thinking about getting that one funding story with them, there are other ways to work with TechCrunch.

(00:19:02):
And I actually have heard really great feedback from clients on TechCrunch driving website traffic, the day of the announcement, especially... I haven't really been able to pinpoint when that does or doesn't happen. I'm trying to figure out if there's trends among that, but I have... Clients have sent me screenshots from the day of the announcement and they've seen a nice pickup from TechCrunch, so I think a lot of that comes down to the fact that they don't have a paywall, but their stuff tends to do really well. So it's a great spot, especially for that first piece on your company. Axios is really strong on the FinTech side, on the healthcare side, they have some really great beat reporters. The one thing I'll say about them is they're very deals-focused, so 100% would need to either have funding. If you're announcing a partnership that has a monetary component, that they would cover that. An acquisition they would consider covering, but they're not going to be... You should never pitch them on a product announcement.

(00:19:58):
And I think they might just get annoyed. There's a couple exceptions, a couple of the reporters might have little columns where they feature product-related things, but that's just not their bread and butter. And actually, Axios recently launched, or I guess has been launching over the past year or so, local editions. So they're really branching into local news, and so that can actually be a really nice way to get an Axios hit if you have a region-specific story. So I highly recommend checking that out. Another publication that we work with a bunch is Business Insider. If you struggle to pitch your funding story but really want it out in the world, they are big on the pitch deck stories. Those are a little controversial. Some founders, they're like, "This is not what I want my story to be about, I do not want to share my pitch deck."

(00:20:44):
But if you are in the camp of... You're open to that and you can redact, it does not need to have all the financials, it does not need to have the growth metrics, that can be a really great way to get a piece of coverage on your business. And the way that I explain it to clients is you're just getting all your core messages out there in a very direct way. You're sharing exactly what you shared with investors, that's not necessarily a bad thing. And sometimes clients will put in some customer slides, too, and so you can really make it a little bit more like what you're looking for. So yes, if you're looking for a funding story, TechCrunch passed, others passed, that's a good option. They also are huge on the entrepreneurial journey pieces, similar to the CNBC article that you got, but they really want metrics, they really push for metrics, so how much you're making, how much you're spending.

(00:21:35):
They love those kinds of stories, so it's not necessarily about how much you raise, but for people that have really built a business. And then the last thing for Business Insider, they do a bunch of these lists of top startups, of top professionals in the field. We love doing those, they're generally a really light list, and they put out a call for submissions. Takes five minutes and it's a way to get into Business Insider. There's so many of them, it's become a joke within my newsletter, because every week, there's five more and it's the most obscure different categories. Like top sports marketing professionals helping TikTok stars. I don't know, it's always a very niche ask, but those could be really great. Then a couple more.

(00:22:16):
VentureBeat is huge for AI news. We pitch them all the time for any client that we work with that is building AI capabilities, has a new offering related to AI, perfect publication for that. Fast Company is perfect for anything related to future of work, how people work. Really great for design, media, I would say perfect for any company that fits in those categories. They're also really open to op-eds, especially with leadership advice in them. And last but not least, on the list of ones that we work with most often, I would say is Forbes. Especially on the award side, they have the FinTech 50, AI 50, Forbes Under 30, all of that. And you're not going to get a feature with one of their main reporters until you're a bit further along, but they do have that really strong contributor network, which is much... A lower bar in what they'll accept, in a way. They're more open to covering earlier stage companies, so that's worth checking out, too. So those are my top ones, I'll stop there.

Lenny (00:23:15):
That's amazing. And those are the most commonly requested and the ones you mostly go after?

Emilie Gerber (00:23:20):
Yeah, they're the most realistic for most startups. There are ones like The Verge, and they're a little more gadget-focused and just areas that we don't necessarily touch, but could be good for some companies as well.

Lenny (00:23:33):
Got it, and then... I was going to say this for later, but there's obviously New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Thoughts on going after those?

Emilie Gerber (00:23:42):
Yeah, we do get those questions all the time. I would say it comes up on calls with founders, "I want one out of every five." And really, when you look at... I make a joke sometimes like, "If you want those, just have a crisis and they'll write about it." Fire your CEO or do really intense layoffs and have some regulatory issue.

Emilie Gerber (00:24:00):
Playoffs and have some regulatory issue and you'll get a story there.

Lenny (00:24:04):
Uber got a lot of stories there.

Emilie Gerber (00:24:06):
Yeah, I can show some examples there. When you look at earlier stage companies that are getting coverage in those publications, that's what's happening.

(00:24:13):
Now, let's say you're a tiny bit further along and you're series B, series C, maybe even series C, and you're looking for coverage in those publications, there's a couple criteria that they're always going to want if it's to write a feature on your company. One is your valuation, so that needs to be something that you're sharing on the record. Two is your hard business metrics, usually revenue, sometimes something else. And so oftentimes they'll tell founders that and immediately they're like, "Oh, well we're not sharing that." So I'm like, "Okay, well that's kind of the end of the conversation." Sometimes it can be shared on background, but as a general rule, you're expected to share that sort of thing. So that's kind of a nonstarter a lot of times.

(00:24:51):
I totally think it makes sense to build relationships with the relevant beat reporters and ideally shoot for... When I say build relationships, I just mean shoot for an intro meeting on behalf of the clients, or they can reach out directly with those kinds of reporters, but they're just not going to write a feature on your company. If anything, you are going to be one or two sentences in a larger story of something that they're writing about. And yeah, that's just the nature of their coverage.

(00:25:16):
And then when you look at something like CNBC, they're targeting people that want to learn about public markets. And so if you're not a public company, they have their CNBC Disruptor 50 list, which is focused on companies that will soon be at that stage, but it's not going to be a place for early stage companies.

Lenny (00:25:32):
When I have these pieces in past company and CNBC, it was such a weird experience where I chat with them for half an hour and then it just comes out, and I have no idea what they're going to write about. Could be a complete tear down of everything I'm doing and you have no idea. How do you help try to avoid that sort of story? I know you have no control. Obviously reporters can write what they want to write about. Do you have any advice for how to avoid them writing something really negative about you?

Emilie Gerber (00:25:58):
Generally, if it's something that you're being briefed in advance, unless it is around something negative that's going on, it's just not their intention, it's just not going to happen. But what is a bigger issue is it not being the angle or the messaging that the company wants. And so part of that, there's absolutely nothing that we can do. Reporters are not our employees. We're not paying them to write these pieces. They have to maintain their editorial integrity.

(00:26:25):
And so I consider it my job to educate the founders and spokespeople that we work with that we cannot change anything the story says. What we can do is correct any factual inaccuracies, and we do that all the time. If something is factually wrong, we can get it replaced. But if they don't like that they were called, put in a category of software that they don't identify with, that's not something that we can fix.

(00:26:50):
Another thing that you can do though to prevent that from happening is just really ensuring that the spokesperson before talking to the reporter is going to nail the messages that they want. The more that you can reiterate over and over again how you want the article to be, I think the more likely that it'll land in the reporter's head and make sure that the reporter really understands what you're building and what your goals are. And all you can do is really use the briefing and the materials that you provide to kind of sway and influence, but there's not much beyond that.

Lenny (00:27:20):
So we've talked about all these publications. These are ones to consider going after. You also mentioned podcasts and awards as something people go after. Is there a tip you could share of how to find aligned podcasts or awards, like how you find a list of here we should go after these?

Emilie Gerber (00:27:35):
We use Google. We just use search engines basically for finding everything. And the way that we go about it is first figuring out who their customers are and what vertical they're in, and then just doing searches for podcasts that are within that vertical.

(00:27:48):
But it's not as easy as just reaching out to the ones that pop up first. The next step is a qualitative analysis. First of all, do they have vendor CEOs or vendor executives on their show? Let's say your product is sold to product managers. Maybe they only have product managers on the show. So instead you don't put the CEO forward and you put the right spokesperson-

Lenny (00:28:11):
Who could that be? What podcast might that be referring to?

Emilie Gerber (00:28:12):
Yeah, right? But this could be for CFOs. So let's say you sell into CFOs. Don't pitch your CEO for that podcast. Get a CFO and then pitch your CFO for that podcast. I'm very for companies hiring folks, or hiring so the roles that they sell into, it helps us a lot. So if your audience is a CFO, it really helps if you have a CFO. If your audience is a CMO, it really helps if you have a CMO, and that actually when your earlier stage isn't always the case, and so it's a lot harder to pitch. So I think that's the second part of the qualitative analysis.

(00:28:48):
The third is, podcasts really come and go, make sure... It sounds obvious, but make sure it's one that's actively producing. When you Google ones, half of them are not going to be active podcasts. And then the third is actually listening to at least part of one episode, making sure the quality is high, making sure it's the kind of thing you even want to associate yourself with. And then just looking at who the past guests are, is that the kind of peers that you want to associate yourself with?

(00:29:14):
And then one other thing that you can do is just in conversations with customers, find out what they're listening to, find out what they're watching, find out their media diet. And it doesn't have to be a big crazy survey that you send to your entire customer base. It can be casual. If you're farther along, it's great if you can make that a more formal sort of process, but it doesn't necessarily need to be.

(00:29:33):
And then in terms of reaching out, I highly recommend figuring out who the host is, just doing the research, figuring out who the host is, and then just sending them a casual note. I'm a big fan of just reaching out on LinkedIn and saying, "Hey, love the show. Are you open to guest ideas?" I don't even mention the client or anything, just opening the door. I just feel like that's so much more approachable and friendly than starting with a big pitch. And I think so many people start with this very long email introducing themselves or going really deep and you don't have to do that. And especially because maybe only one out of every 10 replies, it'll also save you a lot of time if you just start with something really lightweight.

Lenny (00:30:15):
I think that actually works really well. That's what I find is if it's a simple little message, I'm like, yeah, let me know what you got in mind. Even though 99% of the time it doesn't work out, sometimes it works out great. And so I find, sure, let's just see what you got. And then usually I'm just like, "Nope, sorry, not a fit."

Emilie Gerber (00:30:28):
And you get the reply that way. If you send the initial pitch and the reporter or podcast host isn't interested, chances are they won't reply. But if you just start with something friendly and they reply, they'll feel like, I guess a little more of a connection there, and so at least you'll get an answer. Whereas otherwise, you might not get an answer at all.

Lenny (00:30:48):
On the survey piece I think that's a great idea, and I've seen a few of my sponsors do this where they ask their customers, what podcast do you listen to? What newsletters do you read? Which is such a simple idea, but I think people don't do that. And just from that you could figure out, okay, here's the podcast we got to get on. Here's the newsletters we want to run after.

(00:31:06):
I want to talk about how to actually pitch well. But before that, we've been talking a bit about who to reach out to and how to do that. So there's a few questions here. It's just like how important is it to have a warm connection to a reporter? If you don't have that, what's the best way to reach out to them? Is it LinkedIn, is it Twitter DMs, something else? What advice do you have about, just before we get into the structure of the pitch, figuring out who to pitch and then how to get to that advice?

Emilie Gerber (00:31:34):
Who are your relationships question comes up on a lot of our calls with founders as well. I'd like to pose the question to you. Did we have a relationship before this?

Lenny (00:31:43):
Nope.

Emilie Gerber (00:31:44):
Exactly. I'm of the belief that it does not matter as much as many people think it does. And I explained this on calls where they ask, "Oh, tell me about your Rolodex, or who is your relationships with?" First of all, media's changing so fast. So sure, maybe there is a reporter that we worked with recently. They might have a completely different beat in six months. They might be at a very different publication. So it's not sustainable to build an entire career on having relationships with certain publications.

(00:32:17):
And media is changing too. Now, podcasts and Substack and newsletters, it is just changing too fast. And so I think cold outreach done well is just as effective. The only thing that a relationship will get you is an open and an answer. And so any good reporter is not going to be making their editorial decisions based on who their friends are. That's just not the nature. It shouldn't be the nature of the industry, and it's not. Maybe it'll get you an intro coffee, but that's about it. It's not going to get you coverage. They're not going to cover your news because there's a relationship there. I think the much harder and more important part is being good at writing really thoughtful notes to the right people.

(00:32:57):
And in a way, now we do have a relationship, and so it can come from a cold email, but now it's easier for me to pitch you because you know my name and we've spoken and we've worked together. And so for me, I'm a big fan of being helpful to reporters, and I tend to just keep it professional and pitch them on stories. I don't necessarily feel like going to drinks or having coffee all the time is crucial to building those relationships. A lot of the reporters that I work with regularly, I've never met in person, and that's okay, but it can be great for getting answers I would say. That's where the relationships can be helpful.

(00:33:35):
And then once you have worked with a reporter on a story, it's true that maybe they'll be more likely to come back when they're working on something related, use you as a source, quote you in articles that are relevant. So once there's something there, that's great and you should totally nurture it, but it's not all about calling in favors.

Lenny (00:33:52):
Awesome. Okay. And then in terms of how to reach reporters, what do you find most effective?

Emilie Gerber (00:33:59):
Yeah, I'm pro all platform approach. So sometimes reporters will tweet that they're working on a story about something, and rather than me sending them an email with my pitch, I'll say, "Hey, 10 words on why this person is the person you should talk to," and then send a link to an article on them and that's my entire pitch. And honestly, it's sometimes more effective than when I spend 30 minutes writing a really thoughtful email. So I'm a fan of that. I'm a fan of DMs, short, concise, direct DMs. Sometimes LinkedIn, although for whatever reason I feel like that works better with on the podcast side with hosts.

(00:34:38):
And then of course email, we totally email. When I email a reporter, I love to make the subject line just as clear as possible as what the goal is and why I'm emailing them. And so let's say it's for a recurring column that they have, I'll put the name of that column and the person that I think should be included in the subject line. And even that for a reporter, it's like, oh, they actually know. They actually know I write this column and they're suggesting a guest for this column. It's so direct, it's so clear.

(00:35:06):
I think just saying what your intentions are right away. Are you trying to get a Q&A? Are you trying to get a story? Are you trying to get a funding story, like I mentioned before, is very crucial, and keeping it short. I would say my most successful pitches are three sentences and anytime... Sometimes it needs to be longer than that, and generally I feel like my pitch is weaker for that reason. Attention spans are short, and so the more concise you can make it, the better. And then just sometimes I'll start with one platform. I'll start with an email and that doesn't work, so I'll go somewhere else. But I try to make it very human and respectful. So using language like, "Hey, I know your inbox is probably slammed. Sorry to annoy. Trying you one more time here."

(00:35:49):
Another thing that actually can work really well is pointing out gaps in their coverage too, and talking about things that they should be talking about. Like, Hey, my client's noticing this trend. I know you've covered it from this point of view, but no one's talking about it from this point of view. That can be really helpful because it shows that you are actually paying attention to what they are writing, but in a way that you're demonstrating that you have some critical thinking going on, not just, I liked your article on X, which is a common practice that PR people use is I like this, and then jump to your pitch. So yeah, giving it a little more thoughtful, pointing out gaps in coverage.

(00:36:25):
And then the last piece is, especially if you don't have hard news that you're pitching, having something pretty controversial to say.

(00:36:33):
So we work with a lot of AI companies. If nine of them have one stance on something happening in the field and one has the other stance, chances are that one is going to be the one that a reporter wants to talk to because they are getting so many pitches on this topic, but they want to write a balanced article, they need that opposing view. And so we really push our clients to have something unique and different and bold to say. And it obviously has to be a strategic decision for the business. You don't want to go commenting on regulatory things if it sounds like you don't want to necessarily be a part of that conversation, but there are I think instances where it can make a lot of sense to say something that's a little bit bold and controversial.

Lenny (00:37:15):
That last piece is really interesting. Is there an example that comes to mind where you had a controversial contrarian pitch?

Emilie Gerber (00:37:23):
Yeah, so we work with a company called Clockwise, which essentially manages your calendar and allows time for focus time within your workday. They move things around for you. And a couple of months ago, Shopify got tons of positive press for essentially canceling all their recurring meetings, and everyone was very intrigued by this strategy. Press was generally quite positive towards it, and so we knew that if we just wrote another piece saying, "Oh, this is great," no one would want to publish that. It had been said in a million different ways. So we looked at the topic a little more critically and we're like, okay, is this actually enough to change meeting culture within a business? And we kind of identified all these other things that we think need to happen in order to really change the culture in a way that's going to be sustainable and long-term versus just blanket deleting of calendar meetings.

(00:38:14):
And so we ended up turning this into an op-ed, so something that together we wrote and then pitched a publication. And yeah, the title was "Shopify's Meeting Cost Calculator Does Not Address the Issue of Wasted Time". And so it wasn't necessarily saying it was a horrible idea, but it was putting a little bit more of a critical eye towards it. And Fast Company was interested in the idea and they posted the piece by the CEO, Matt Martin, and it was a great thing for us to comment on. And so yeah, I think it doesn't necessarily need to be something where you're coming out against it, but just proposing something that's a little more thoughtful on the topic.

Lenny (00:38:53):
Just hearing that it sounds like such an obvious thing to do. Basically a reporter is looking for an interesting story to write about. If you tell them something interesting that they could put out, that's a win-win for everybody. So makes a ton of sense. Let me try to summarize the advice you've shared so far when you're, say DMing a reporter, your advice so far is basically be very direct. Just tell them, "Hey, I'm looking for..." What's an example of being direct? Is it like I'm looking for a story on this fundraising announcement?

Emilie Gerber (00:39:19):
I wouldn't say I'm looking for. I don't know, just I would say if it was a DM, I would say, "Reaching out from X company. Would love to offer you the launch story alongside their funding if you're open to it." And usually I'd either say the amount and the investors or the company name. If you give them both, you're kind of just giving them the story and they could run with it right away. That's actually an important distinction. And so you could either say, "Reaching out with this Martech company that's raised 8 million from X Investors. Really interesting approach, they're taking on X incumbent. Do you want the exclusive?" That's kind of how I would phrase it.

Lenny (00:39:59):
Okay, awesome. Then, try to keep it to three sentences. And you're saying sometimes when you go longer, you actually end up backfiring each time. Sometimes include a link to a story they've written or some other story about the company that might give them some context. Is that right?

Emilie Gerber (00:40:15):
Yeah. And a caveat on that is, if a competing publication just wrote a bigger similar feature on that, they're not going to want to see that. And so I would use that strategically. If it's a piece from a while ago on a different topic that does share a lot of info, I'll include it, but I'm not necessarily going to include something that might seem like why would I cover this when this was just written about.

Lenny (00:40:37):
Good point. You also talked about how try to acknowledge their inbox is probably slammed, and this is taking some time maybe in follow-ups, especially like, Hey, I realize your inbox is slammed, just thought I'd come back to this. Then you talk about this idea of identifying gaps in the writing, like, Hey, it seems like you cover Gen AI. There's this trend that we've been noticing that maybe it would be interesting to cover. And then something controversial or something a little contrarian that would get them. Oh yeah, this could be a really interesting story.

(00:41:08):
Awesome.

Emilie Gerber (00:41:08):
Yeah.

Lenny (00:41:09):
Is there anything else broadly in terms of pitch advice to get the attention of a reporter that comes to mind? And I know this is a lifetime of experience and it's hard to summarize all of it, but anything else?

Emilie Gerber (00:41:24):
Well, one topic, maybe this would be covered elsewhere, but one topic I think is talking about incumbents that this company is taking on. So a lot of companies want to position themselves as category creators, and I actually hate that. It doesn't work. It doesn't land with press, and most of the time it's not totally true.

(00:41:46):
And so instead, it's actually really great when you can talk about how you are doing what X household name does, but better for X reasons, and that works so well. I'll put that in subject lines. I'll put company taking on whatever Salesforce with X approach. It's so successful because instantly it gives the reporter a frame of reference. And so it gives the reporter, oh, I know what Salesforce does, so I can understand how this solution would be better. And a lot of companies really want to position themselves as the first to do anything in a certain space. They love the idea of category creating, creating these little marketing phrases that they use for the new category. And that's fine if perhaps that works on the sales side, but on the PR side, I would never have put that in a pitch.

Lenny (00:42:35):
There's just going to be a meta comment, but the two topics that are most controversial in this podcast that I have both sides of opinions on is the power of category creation and jobs to be done.

Emilie Gerber (00:42:48):
Oh, really?

Lenny (00:42:49):
There's a lot of passion on both sides.

Emilie Gerber (00:42:52):
I mean, sure, you can point to examples of the two companies that have done category creation well, but it's two out of what, thousands?

Lenny (00:43:06):
I love it. I'm going to keep poking this hornet's nest. I love it. Okay. But you're saying in your experience doesn't work when pitching reporters?

Emilie Gerber (00:43:10):
For PR. Yeah, simply for PR. In other areas of the business I can't comment on, but for PR, it's just not a useful tactic.

Lenny (00:43:18):
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(00:44:12):
So I asked you to bring some examples of pitches that are great, and also examples of pitches that could be better, and I know... Yeah. Okay, cool. So thank you for doing the homework. Let's pull them up and then I'd love to just show people what you find has been really effective and works great about these examples and then what somebody could have done better, whatever you want to share about that example.

Emilie Gerber (00:44:35):
Sure. Sounds good. I guess since we're on the topic of category creating versus not category creating, I'll start with an example that's very relevant to that. So we worked with RAMP in their very early days, and one of their first product announcements that we did together was the launch of their bill pay offering. And so at the time, I think they were like a three billion dollar company, something along those lines. So big, but not as big as they are today. Product news rarely gets big feature coverage, especially for something along the lines of a bill pay offering for B2B companies.

(00:45:09):
And so essentially the way that we framed the story was how RAMP was now able to take on Bill.com, which at the time I'm not sure if it still is, was one of the best performing FinTech IPOs public company that really had still only captured two percent of this market overall. And so by positioning it as allowing them to take on this massive incumbent that was getting a lot of press, we actually were able to get a CNBC story on the launch of this product. Generally they won't even consider product stories, but they really liked the angle of this underdog doing something that could take on a piece of market share from them.

(00:45:47):
And the next day there was actually another story about how Bill.com stock had gone down and they did make mention of RAMP's news in that story. So it ended up really just, it was a very powerful way of telling the narrative there.

(00:46:02):
And another way, if we hadn't pitched it like that would've just been RAMP brings simple, seamless, streamlined ability to do vendor payments and new finance offering, first of its kind. All these things that might be how you would talk in your customer emails, but if I had pitched it that way, probably wouldn't have been a story. So if we had pitched it as them creating a new category of this all in one software, which I mean, yeah, it could be argued, that's another way to tell the story. I don't think CNBC would've been interested.

Lenny (00:46:34):
Awesome.

Emilie Gerber (00:46:36):
So, okay, another example, we work with a company called Column Tax, which is embedded tax filing software. So essentially they work with other FinTech's to allow people to file their taxes within the tools that they already use. And last year they partnered with a company called Propel that offers SNAP benefits. So essentially for low income families to receive the government benefits to offer tax filing directly within the app that they've created.

(00:47:04):
And that was one thing that they were doing amidst many other customers, that they had lots of different threads we could pull on with them, but we decided to really just focus our press strategy on that one initiative because it allowed us to tell macro story about TurboTax had to pay all these fines for practices that many considered unsavory around calling themselves free but not really being free. The IRS is building a free filing system, but it's in its very early days.

(00:47:35):
So the fact that they were having this offering that was supporting a lot of low income families, and I believe 40% of the people that filed their taxes with Column hadn't filed taxes in the previous year, so hadn't gotten a return. It's like identifying the piece of the story that's most interesting and then doubling down on that. So we were able to get a great fast company piece instead of pitching this macro here are Column Tax's latest growth metrics, and they're announcing a partnership with Propel. And so it's like...

Emilie Gerber (00:48:00):
Growth metrics, and they're announcing a partnership with Propeller. And so it's figuring out how to tie it to these things that people actually care about, and not just the company's messaging I think is our job.

Lenny (00:48:12):
Amazing, is there any other examples? Otherwise, I'll share your pitch of someone coming on my podcast, and what worked about that.

Emilie Gerber (00:48:20):
I do want to share one more, because it's my favorite. I want to share my favorite funding story that I worked on. And so I'm actually going to pull it up, because this one is very graphic, in terms of how we went about showing the product. So we worked with a company called Gamma, which is essentially bringing a PowerPoint into something that's much more modern, and interactive, and usable. So when we did their launch, they were a seed stage company, we tried to get really creative with how we could display or talk about the company. And so instead of doing your standard company blog posts, we actually made a Gamma presentation, and we kind of included all these fun elements that made it really interesting to reporters. So firstly, it's a visual platform. So we created... Or actually I don't want to take credit for this. The Gamma team created this great visual.

(00:49:11):
And we kept it very to the point. Every year, half a billion people create presentations in Google Slides and PowerPoint. We're not using marketing language here, we're talking in a very direct way, we're including fund visuals. We talk about Gamma's mission, pretty short, this is not a long essay on why the company exists. And then we include some customer love, so they're early stage, so we didn't really have necessarily growth metrics that we wanted to share. So we tried to make it a little bit more personal, and focus on actual users and what they're saying, while also showing the product capability here. And then instead of doing a long thing on each investor, we just bulleted who the investors are, which is very to the point, easy for a reporter to repurpose.

(00:49:55):
And then the fun part that I really loved, is we did a video from the lead investor talking about why she invested, instead of including an investor quote. So it's a little bit different than what you expect. And their videos are fun, because they have all these interactive elements. And yeah, team photo, make it a little more personal. And that was about it. But anyways, it was a very successful story, and I believe the title of the TechCrunch article that we got as a result was Gamma Brings PowerPoint into the 21st Century. Exactly, that's exactly what we're talking. Maybe they are creating a new category, we weren't talking about it then, we're talking about how it's better than the existing solutions. And so yeah, I guess the piece of advice there, is feel free to get kind of fun and creative with it, and don't just follow the typical issuing press release format.

Lenny (00:50:42):
And is that something we could link to for people to check out? Is that just on their site?

Emilie Gerber (00:50:42):
Yeah.

Lenny (00:50:42):
Okay, amazing.

Emilie Gerber (00:50:46):
Yeah, I actually had to for some reason do some digging to get it. But yeah, I have it now, so I can give it to you.

Lenny (00:50:52):
Okay, great. And the way that you use that is when you sent emails or DMs to reporters, you included this link?

Emilie Gerber (00:50:58):
After they had that they're potentially interested, because again, if I had shared it right off the bat, it would be their prerogative to just publish it essentially or share it publicly. And I guess one important note, is everything you say to a reporter in an email is on the record, and so that's why I make the point on not sharing the entire story right off the bat.

Lenny (00:51:19):
Got it. So many companies won't have... They're not a deck product, so they can't do something like this. But the takeaways for other folks here, is be just very human in the language, the investors are just bullet points, make it fun, add some visuals, don't just have blurbs, and paragraphs, and things like that.

Emilie Gerber (00:51:41):
Yeah. I think reporters are used to getting the same thing all the time, and so this one obviously worked well for the format. But I think we try to always think of, what can we do that's slightly different for this one? Or how can we make this a little more fun? I guess the one exception, if the product is very technical, and you have a very technical audience, and you're probably going to work with a very technical reporter, it's totally fine to talk to your audience in those cases, and you don't need to necessarily dumb it down so everyone can understand. But that doesn't mean... I mean, you can do that while still using clear and concise language.

Lenny (00:52:18):
Okay, so let me share the element of the pitch that you sent me, that convinced me to bring this guest on. So this is going to be the chief product officer at NewBank. I barely know anything about NewBank. And so in your email to me, you basically had just two bullet points, and the way you put is, "Two fun facts about NewBank, growth has been 80 to 90% organic because of the way they try to make customers fanatical about the product." And to me that's like, "Wow, that's very rare, is 80, 90% of your growth being organic." So to me is like, "That's an interesting story." And then the other tidbit is, "NewBank is bigger than Coinbase, Robinhood, Affirm, SoFi, and Lemonade combined. Seriously, so much bigger than people in the US realize." Which I 100% did not realize. So to me both were just like, "Okay, this is an interesting story to tell, I think people would be very curious to hear how a company like this operates." So now I'm going to start getting all these emails from people, all these couple bullet points.

Emilie Gerber (00:53:15):
They're going to combine a bunch of companies, and see which they're bigger than.

Lenny (00:53:19):
Yeah, or use AI to help them figure this out. But I think what you identified here is just what I get excited about. Is there any advice there of just what you did there that other people can learn from?

Emilie Gerber (00:53:32):
Yeah. I mean, I think with pitching you, speaking to the audience, it's not just about having... You don't want the most well-known CEOs all the time, you're not looking just for the biggest companies and the most well-known people. You're looking for the things that they can talk about, and how the things that they can talk about are relevant to your audience. And with the first bullet, it was indexing on that. The second bullet was more so like, "Hey, you might not know about this company." And it's a little bit of a unique one, I wouldn't necessarily always include that. But to me the first bullet was really what mattered, because it wasn't just about the fact that they were a huge company, it's that they grew in a unique way, and I knew that was the kind of thing that you'd be interested in.

Lenny (00:54:13):
And how did you figure that out? Is it from emails we were exchanging ahead of that? Is it listening to some podcasts? How did you get to those conclusions?

Emilie Gerber (00:54:21):
Yeah, listening certainly helps. But I do think just figuring out... If you even just scrolled the names of all the episodes that you've done, it would be pretty easy to spot a trend there. And so you're not talking about product launches, you are not talking about entrepreneurial journeys, you're talking about tactical lessons. And so pitching people based on those sort of things, I don't even think you necessarily need to listen to a whole bunch of episodes most of the time, maybe occasionally you want to gut check something before you reach out. But yeah, you can tell a lot just by doing a little bit of research.

(00:54:53):
And then we did have a little back and forth, because I will take responsibility, I did try pitching you on a CEO at one point, which I know you don't have on as guests.

Lenny (00:55:03):
Once in a while, very rarely.

Emilie Gerber (00:55:08):
Yeah, actually, there's obviously some exceptions. But I had known the subject matter you were looking for, but I did not spot the trend that you've never had CEOs on. So I think my pitch was actually okay, but the spokesperson was not the kind of person that you would want on. So maybe you won't get it right 100% of the time, but you can tell a lot just by doing some searches.

Lenny (00:55:24):
And oftentimes I just reply, "Here's my policy." And then, "Okay, good to know." Kind of along these lines, something I wanted to ask earlier, you mentioned a few publications to go after, and then how to pitch people. Obviously the way that you're describing takes a bunch of time. How many people are you often emailing, DMing per attempt to get a story? Because it sounds like it's not a ton, and so you have time to do these sorts of custom pitches. Or is it a lot higher than it sounds?

Emilie Gerber (00:55:51):
I would say for hard news, funding, the startup launch, those sort of things, less, and I try to really stagger it because we're offering exclusives, and I highly recommend offering exclusives. So the worst thing that can happen is two reporters reply, and are both interested, and you have to go back to one and say, "Nevermind." And sometimes that's okay if they left you, if it's been a week or something, they hadn't gotten back, and they'll understand. So it's fine to move on without getting an answer. So I would say, yeah, with the funding story, it could be anywhere from one to six reporters on average, sometimes more. With stuff like general just outreach, relationship building, trying to get on podcasts, it kind of is a numbers game, and you really have to balance quality and quantity.

(00:56:38):
And that's why I love starting with the first note and not saying much, and just saying, "Hey, you open to guest ideas?" Because it allows you to do more. I'd rather do that than send a bad pitch, and not have it be targeted to the right sort of audience. And so that's kind of a way to play the numbers game while still being respectful. But yeah, I mean, with some clients maybe they get one opportunity for every 20 or 30 things that we send. And so yeah, we try not to do... We don't do blasting media, it's not about sending the same pitch to a single list of people. It's figuring out, which ones do I want to really double down on because they're the perfect target? And you'll keep trying, you'll be really custom, which deserve maybe a slightly higher level note, which deserve a DM, and just figuring out your strategy from that.

Lenny (00:57:27):
Awesome, okay. Do you have examples of pitches, announcements that were not as effective as they could have been, and advice for how they could have been better?

Emilie Gerber (00:57:37):
Yeah, I have some excerpts that I pulled from press releases where I think there's room for improvement. So Lenny, I want to read one to you, and then I want to see if you can tell me what this company does. Okay, "Today X announced their workflow automation product, which combines AI assistance, human in the loop collaboration, and a robust multiplayer experience to help teams save time."

Lenny (00:58:03):
Absolutely no idea what's going on.

Emilie Gerber (00:58:05):
You kind of gained something from workflow automation, and then after that it's like, "Wait, what?"

Lenny (00:58:05):
Just a bunch of things.

Emilie Gerber (00:58:10):
Okay, now let me read to an excerpt from the TechCrunch article, and this is how TechCrunch positioned it, "A new automation startup is setting out to eat Zapier's lunch. It helps people tackle mundane and repetitive tasks, and goes beyond the triggers and actions popularized by similar platforms like Zapier." So to me, yeah, it's a better version of Zapier, where they aren't just doing triggers and actions, and there's a little more substance and depth to it. If you know what Zapier is, you can kind of start to figure out what they do based on that.

Lenny (00:58:41):
Yeah, it comes back to your point about referencing incumbent to help you understand what the heck you're talking about

Emilie Gerber (00:58:47):
And you wouldn't necessarily need to do that in your press release, but I think they could have been a lot clearer, and not use... Because terms like robust multiplayer experience, that makes it sound like a game. Are we talking about just collaborative multiple users? Human in the loop collaboration, isn't all collaboration between humans, and we're all in the loop? AI assistance, that just means they use AI. So yeah, sometimes I push my clients to like, "Okay, let's talk through what each of these phrases actually means. And if you can't articulate it, then let's change it to the way that you just articulated it, and it might be more successful." So yeah, that's a good way to do it. And just read it out loud, read it out loud and see if someone understands it.

Lenny (00:59:34):
Someone hearing this is like, "How could possibly anybody think that was great? How did these come about, these really bad descriptions?" I know it's hard to come up with something really short and pithy, but where do these come from?

Emilie Gerber (00:59:49):
It's just a culture within marketing and comms, of this is how we're supposed to write. And I just think that's a majority of how people do it, and they think it sounds smart, or they think it sounds more professional. I just think it's just how people are trained. And so even when we bring on someone new, part of my job is stripping away at a lot of that, and getting people... Everyone's capable of talking like a human being, we do it every day. But it's stripping away that thing that goes off in your head that you're supposed to be writing in a very marketingy way. Because I would say at least 50% of releases are like that, it's not a small problem.

Lenny (01:00:30):
Right. I love the advice you shared of just trying to say it out loud, hearing yourself, what does it sound like? Do you have any other tips for trying to make it something people get and connect to? I know that, again, it takes a lot of time to really do well and it's very context specific, but is there any other tricks that you find help you communicate what you're actually offering?

Emilie Gerber (01:00:48):
It's talking through the basic questions, what does this product do? Who is it for? Who are your customers? If you can answer each of those in one sentence... What product launch are we talking about here? If you can just answer each of those verbally, chances are you're not going to be far away from what you're looking for. Because when I talk to marketers, and founders, and teams, generally in the conversations I have no trouble understanding what they're talking about. They can articulate it just fine, it's only in the writing that it gets that way. So actually I think it's kind of easier to solve than many might realize. And then also I think there is some skill involved in removing words, not over explaining, you can make things more concise. But at the bare minimum, just strip out all the jargon, that's the first step.

Lenny (01:01:36):
I love it. So one way to think about it is, just think about, what does it do? Who is it for? Who are the customers? Is there something else along those lines that you shared there as a bullet point?

Emilie Gerber (01:01:45):
Well, I mean, if you're talking about what makes this business interesting? Why should people care? And not over indexing on that. I think that's just one part of the overall story, is why people should care about this business. And then what's new? Is it growth metrics? Is it the customer piece? Is it product? What makes this timely and relevant right now?

Lenny (01:02:08):
Okay, awesome. There's actually this awesome Twitter thread from a couple of days ago, where the CEO of Product Hunt did this thread where he asked people, "Share your tagline, and I will give you a much better version of the tagline." And he's really good at this. So I'm going to link to it in the show notes, where he can give you an example of what it looks like from bad to good.

Emilie Gerber (01:02:26):
I love that. That's exactly the kind of thing I would love to do too, because it's so fun and so easy.

Lenny (01:02:33):
It's easy if you're good at it, most people are not great at it. You mentioned press release in this example, you shared thoughts on value of press release, traditional press release versus not.

Emilie Gerber (01:02:44):
Press releases came about because reporters would be checking news wires for ideas of what stories they want to write. No reporters do that anymore, or a very small percentage, I don't know any reporters that do that anymore. So now it's this thing where you go to one of the PR distribution services, you pay them anywhere between 300 to $2,000, that's literally what it costs, and they put it on the wire. And for the more expensive services, it does get syndicated to this press release section of some business websites. No one, in my opinion, goes there for their news. I've personally never read an article, like a Yahoo Finance article, that was a press release syndication. So in that sense, they are not helpful for getting eyeballs. They also require... Going back to that more marketing form of writing, they require that you write like that.

(01:03:39):
The standard press release format, it's so formulaic, and I think it actually encourages that more marketing speak. The benefit is that you're getting all the news details in one place, so it's relevant for a reporter. However, you can do the exact same thing in a blog post. And the blog post can be this first person piece of content that's written by either the founder, or the product lead, or whatever executive, that has a lot more flexibility in the style. You can kind of write it however you want, it can still include all the same news elements. And it's much more shareable on social, you're not going to share a link to a press release on your Twitter or on your LinkedIn, but a blog, for sure. You can add your own graphics, it's great.

(01:04:21):
And you're also encouraging people to go to something that lives on your website versus this black hole of a newsletter. I should be fair, so I think that the reason that people say that they still do them, is that it helps with SEO. However, I've read a few articles that have said that Google no longer does prioritize press releases in SEO, so I don't know how much that holds up. And that it signals to the market that the company is more serious, so that's a perception thing. I personally think that blogs actually signal a more modern, kind of cool company than a press release. But at a certain stage in your growth, public companies, they do press releases for earnings, makes 100% sense. There are certain rules around when companies do need to issue press releases, so there's still a use case for them, I just think your average early to mid-stage startup doesn't need them.

Lenny (01:05:10):
This mention of blogs is where I wanted to go next actually, so it's a good segue. But before we do that, is there any other examples that you wanted to share of less than ideal ways of pitching a product?

Emilie Gerber (01:05:21):
One sentence I found in a press release that a lot of companies want to include that I always try to remove is... Well here, I'll give you the sentence, "Since exiting stealth in May, we've witnessed a 700% increase in organizations using our product." You're saying that since you were in stealth to now you saw a 700% increase, so you could have had one customer, now you have seven. And it's every company wants to do these percentage growth stats when they just launched, and I've never seen reporters include that in their stories.

(01:05:50):
And so there are ways to give signals of how fast you're growing without being that kind of disingenuous. One way that you could put something similar is, "Our revenue hit six figures at the end of last year, and has been growing about 30% each quarter, with 40% of adoption coming from the enterprise sector." So you're giving color to the growth, and you can kind of play with that, it doesn't need to be exactly something like that. But if you can make it a little more specific, I'm not against doing percentages, but I think there's a way to balance that with something that seems a little more realistic.

Lenny (01:06:25):
Or, "We went from zero to six figures in ARR in X months."

Emilie Gerber (01:06:29):
Yeah, no, totally. And it doesn't need to be huge, especially if you're doing your first story, they're not expecting that you're necessarily going to have massive revenue. And so I think founders might sometimes be concerned that it's not going to seem big enough or significant enough, whereas from working with a lot of companies, it's kind of the case across the board.

Lenny (01:06:49):
You mentioned a bunch of amazing companies, you've worked with Ramp, Perplexity, a few others. And people may feel like, of course you're getting pressed, those are amazing. Ramp grew to a 100 million AR in two years, Perplexity is this killer AI product, everyone's talking about AI. Most products are not that, they don't have as interesting of a story to tell. Is there either an example you could share of a company that didn't have an amazing story to tell, that you created an interesting story out of? Or just any advice for, how do you help find something that is a nugget that gets people excited?

Emilie Gerber (01:07:23):
So some of the examples I gave, so Clockwise and Column Tax aren't as big as some of the other brands I mentioned. So that's certainly actually the bulk of our business, I would say 80% of the companies we work with are at a stage where they haven't reached that kind of mass awareness yet.

(01:07:40):
Another really great company that we work with is Entropy. And so essentially they work with transaction data, they're an API. It's a very technical tool, it's not something that necessarily every reporter is going to instantly understand. But for them, we've actually really leaned into the founder story. She's this incredible woman who moved to the US, and actually struggled with getting her first apartment here because of the way that our credit scoring system is set up. And one of the use cases for what she's building actually directly relates to how our credit system could change in the future, and so we've been really leaning into that angle. And her personal story is really powerful. And so maybe sometimes the product isn't going to be something that you can easily pitch, but you can kind of find those other personal angles in or pull on certain threads.

Lenny (01:08:33):
And there it connects back to find the publication that cares about these sorts of personal stories, because TechCrunch probably won't.

Emilie Gerber (01:08:40):
Yeah. But she spoke at Money20/20, so it's useful for speaking abstracts too. Actually it was on a panel with Column Tax, we got them on together at Money20/20.

Lenny (01:08:52):
What a win.

Emilie Gerber (01:08:56):
No, and we love doing that, it's so fun when you do have multiple companies that you can connect. Actually, that's kind of a good macro point as well. It doesn't always need to just be about you, if you have an idea for a conference session, reaching out to colleagues that you've worked with at other companies, peers, people that are building other things that maybe don't compete better in a similar space, and packaging that up as like, "Hey, this could be a really strong panel." It's actually way more successful than just pitching yourself.

Lenny (01:09:24):
Awesome, okay. So you've mentioned a couple of times the rise of newsletters and podcasts. So there's kind of two buckets of questions here. One is going after these kind of non-traditional media platforms, and then the other is building your own following, and building a following on Twitter, for example. I know you worked closely with the CEO of Vox who's really good at this, and basically doesn't need press. Elon is amazing at this, maybe that's why he bought Twitter, he has this huge platform to talk about all the stuff. So maybe in the first bucket, talking about when you're trying to decide, should I go after traditional media, Vox, and VentureBeat, and Axios, and all these guys? Versus I'm going to go for newsletters. As an example, Ramp got a lot of benefit from Not Boring, that newsletter with Packy, who wrote about them constantly and loved it. And they're sponsored posts, and organic posts. So I guess the question there is just, how do you think about going after podcasts, newsletters, Twitter, LinkedIn, influencery platformy people versus traditional press?

Emilie Gerber (01:10:31):
I think of newsletters and podcasts actually in the camp of, if we're pitching traditional press, we're 100% pitching those. Social is its own ball game, but I would not leave out newsletters and podcasts from any core PR strategy. To me, it's now just a part of any PR program that we're going to run, because it's just part of media now. And to me, it's just a very important part of media. In terms of social, I think doing social well is very hard. So you gave Aaron from Vox as an example, that was all 100% him. I think I helped with one tweet once about a Microsoft partnership that we did, and I was so excited.

Lenny (01:11:10):
How did it do?

Emilie Gerber (01:11:11):
Actually really good. A publication ended up writing a story on the tweet about Microsoft and Vox partnership because of it. Yeah, so that was fun. But generally it's not always something that you can just turn on by hiring an agency. And I've seen many companies try doing that, and not necessarily see as much success as they'd hoped for. So if a founder is naturally good at that stuff, lean into it as much as humanly possible, go for it. If they're not, and you're trying to outsource it, it can be done to some success. But I don't necessarily think it's as easy as just posting three times a week on relevant topics, there has to be more going on there. I think that if the spokesperson or the executive that you're trying to build the presence of is willing to... Going back to what I said earlier, kind of push the limit.

Emilie Gerber (01:12:00):
... Presence of is willing to, going back to what I said earlier, push the limit on opinions that they have, be bold, be controversial, then it could be worth potentially investing in. And I have seen it play out where reporters have seen those posts and used and quoted things in their articles as a result, so it can tie to your traditional media strategy a little bit, they're not necessarily fully siloed, but I would say if you're considering investing in social to just do corporate channels and not think about executives, you're really leaving a lot on the table. Corporate channels, it's very hard to build a following.

(01:12:39):
To get someone to follow a brand and care about a brand, you have to be bringing something new to the table, because they don't want to read your latest blog post, they don't want to read a relevant article that your social person just decided to put out there. When you have an executive, you're following a personality, you're following a person, ideally there's more flexibility with tone, all of that sort of stuff. And so I think it's important to think about it from the people perspective and not just the brand perspective.

Lenny (01:13:07):
So just to make it clear, the CEO or some execs should be the people tweeting and LinkedIn, and not the company as a brand?

Emilie Gerber (01:13:17):
Yeah. And I don't know. I think that it can be a little industry specific as well for where it makes sense to be investing in the corporate channels. And you certainly can do that sort of thing. But I also think if you're going to do that, have an exec that you're also trying a social strategy with. Don't just do the plain corporate channels.

Lenny (01:13:36):
When I think of a brand doing this really well, it's Duolingo. They're just so hilarious and so ridiculous in there. And I don't know if the key is just funny is the way to go, and that's how you get any attention, but they're so funny and creative in their videos, especially TikTok.

Emilie Gerber (01:13:50):
It's interesting though, we're getting to the point where even brands having a personality on social is becoming its own meme. People are making fun of how all the fast food brands all are like these Gen Z like TikTok-

Lenny (01:13:59):
And they're all replying to each other on Twitter threads.

Emilie Gerber (01:14:02):
Yeah. And so things change quickly. So, yes, that was a good strategy, but you just have to stay on top of it.

Lenny (01:14:11):
So you talked about how if this comes naturally to you as a founder, obviously do it. I'm guessing for most people it doesn't. Do you find that it can work if you're just like, "I know this is important, I need to tweet often and share things," have you seen that work or is it just like it's just probably not going to be something that works great for you?

Emilie Gerber (01:14:31):
Yeah, I think it can work to some extent. Maybe you're not going to necessarily be going viral or getting hundreds or tens of thousands of followers. But for me personally I push myself to post on LinkedIn at least once a month, because every time I post we get at least one client inbound and maybe a candidate inbound. And so if you test it and you start to see value, push yourself to do it even if it doesn't come naturally. And that's, I guess, the nice thing about social is it's easy to test out. You can try doing it, you can post for a while, even for a month or two, see how it's going, and then adjust your strategy accordingly.

(01:15:06):
But, yes, I think for a lot of execs that we work with, it does feel like it's something that's really hard, there's a lot of overthinking, making sure it's right. You can get really in your head about it, and I totally understand that because I feel the same way. And so if it's taking up so much of your time and bandwidth just thinking about your social strategy, then I guess you can weigh if it makes sense to do that, but I think pushing yourself to try it is a great idea.

Lenny (01:15:31):
And then Aaron specifically is very good at this, is there anything that you learned from his approach to tweeting specifically? I don't know if he uses other platforms. That works really well for him.

Emilie Gerber (01:15:42):
I actually think I just learned so much. So it was my first in-house job, so I had worked in an agency, I hadn't worked internally at a company before, and I think I just learned so much about comms best practices from him in general, just even beyond social. He was so good at figuring out how to comment on things happening in the news, having just the right stance that was both interesting to the reporter but not necessarily threatening to the business, and just capitalizing on all those moments. And I just watched how that worked and I was like, "This is how good PR is." And it's like the space that they're in is not necessarily one that reporters are all writing about, but he was able to insert himself in those conversations really well. And I think also at the time that I was there at least just really valued press and was willing to put the time in and do the briefings.

(01:16:34):
And so just getting to hear how he speaks over and over again was really helpful. And then on Twitter, I think it clearly just comes naturally to him, and so it wasn't necessarily something that needed to... Like I mentioned, how some execs will spend all this time thinking through to the point where it could get in the way of other things. I think that's not the case there. And if anything, it just helped the business. And actually with his Twitter presence, I would say it's a good example too of stuff getting included in articles, like I mentioned in that Microsoft article. So it helps the PR strategy as well.

Lenny (01:17:10):
Amazing. And we'll link to his Twitter account. This is Aaron, CEO of Box, by the way. I think I mentioned at the beginning and then we just started talking about Aaron. Also, I realize, he tweets about this sometimes, he actually makes money from Twitter, and now the Twitter pays you for views and things and they share ads, he makes thousands of dollars also from X now, by the way, not Twitter.

Emilie Gerber (01:17:29):
That's so funny.

Lenny (01:17:30):
Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous. I think I've gone through every question that I had for you. I'm curious if there's anything else that you think might be helpful to share or cover or leave listeners with.

Emilie Gerber (01:17:43):
I can leave with one very tactical media opportunity that I love.

Lenny (01:17:51):
Amazing.

Emilie Gerber (01:17:52):
Okay, so here it is. It's a way to get a morning brew feature pretty somewhat easily. So they have this series called Morning Brew Coworking series, and they have it for Emerging Tech Brew, they have it for HR Brew, all their verticals. I think there's a CFO one, marketing one. And essentially if you go to the series, the coworking series, either at the top or the bottom, there's something where it's like, "If you want to be featured, click on this link and fill out this form," and it's about 10 questions. If you keep your answers interesting and fun and not too self-promotional, we've had, I would say, 50% success rate with getting execs featured that way. And all you have to do is submit through a Google form. And it's just one of my favorite media opportunities right now. It doesn't need to be CEO, actually probably shouldn't be a CEO in a lot of instances, but it's basically intended to help readers understand what the day-to-day looks in certain jobs and just get a little insight into the people that are in these jobs. And so I guess I just wanted to share that as something that you could do today for over 10 minutes and potentially get a story. Although, maybe not after you post this, so we'll see if they get an influx.

Lenny (01:19:03):
We're going to take down Mailbrew. Funny enough, they have an interview with Zuck today that they published on Morning Brew, so it could be you alongside Zuck.

Emilie Gerber (01:19:10):
There you go, yeah.

Lenny (01:19:13):
Maybe before we get to our very exciting lightning round, it might be fun to chat about how to pick a PR agency. Obviously you run one. When people are trying to decide who to work with and also when to decide to pick and work with a PR agency versus doing it themselves, what advice can you share when they're trying to make that big decision?

Emilie Gerber (01:19:33):
I think there's an assumption that bigger, more well-known agencies are going to do a better job. I think a lot of those bigger, well-known agencies are used to working with a lot of household brands. And so their strategies tend to be very reactive, focus in the messaging, maybe have to turn down a bunch of opportunities, control what people say. That is the polar opposite in my opinion of doing startup PR. Startup PR, you got to experiment, you got to try new things, you got to be scrappy, you got to be fast. We actually personally love diving into pitching right away rather than spending several months on messaging just testing and market right away. And so don't assume just because they have the huge logos... To your point, you're like, "Oh, well, you work with [inaudible 01:20:16] Perplexity, does that mean you know how to work with all these tiny companies?"

(01:20:19):
That's not necessarily a good thing, so don't just go buy the big logos. I would say that's my first piece of advice. My second piece of advice is find out what month one looks like with them. If month one is them just doing intake calls and learning about the company, and you're a startup that's still really paying close attention to how much money you're spending, you're not going to necessarily want to partner with an agency that needs a three-month ramp up cycle. And so really tactically understand what those first few months look like. I think that's something that I've noticed is a lot of agencies take a while before they get their hands dirty and start doing things. My third piece of advice would be writing recent writing samples. To the point of all those press release excerpts I shared, is that how they write? If it is, maybe they're not the right agency. So ask them. That's so easy. That's so easy to do.

(01:21:14):
Just ask them for a couple recent blogs or releases, whatever they tend to go for, and read those. And, of course, wins too. You want to see what kind of stories they're getting, but that's a little more obvious. A lot of people have already talked about this, so I'll just mention briefly, it's important to meet with the actual team you're working on, not just the founder of the agency. So asking who's our day-to-day going to be? Can we chat with them really quick? One thing I would say don't do is an extensive RFP process. We actually as an agency don't participate in RFPs. The two times I've done it, I have regretted it just because of the amount of work going in versus the value that's there. And it's you're asking a team to do a lot of free work for you, and generally I think the best players are not going to do that, so you're going to weed out some of the best players if you're asking them to do a lot of free upfront work. So those are a few considerations.

Lenny (01:22:06):
Perfect. And then just two more questions, because I imagine this is what people are thinking about when they're trying to decide should we find somebody is how long ahead of time they should find someone before something big is happening? And then just what's a budget they should have in mind for something like this? What's a minimum or a range, whatever you think would be helpful for people to understand here's how much you're probably going to be investing here?

Emilie Gerber (01:22:27):
Start times can vary from agency to agency. I think we can get started the week that a client needs us to, so maybe I'm not best equipped to answer this, but I would say before an announcement happens, you probably want to kick off six weeks in advance. So when we start with the company, it's like we're working on the blog, we're doing a media training, we're doing the media outreach, we're getting quotes from investors, or coordinating with all the parties, making sure images are being created so it's not just pitching and securing the article. So I would say buffer with time to pitch, make sure that the reporter is actually able to cover it. Six weeks is ideal. I would also note I highly recommend not having a firm date that you think you need to announce something and going instead with when a reporter is able to cover your story.

(01:23:12):
We get so many clients that come to us and they have this set date in their head, but there's not usually a real reason for it. It's like they're planning around it, it's like they have other comms they want to go out that day, but if you can optimize for the reporter over the timing, you're going to see such a better outcome because getting the first choice reporter is going to drive way more for your business than announcing it four days sooner. So leaving a little bit of flexibility for that agency is key. And I've even seen companies like issue a press release for big news with no coverage because they had stuck to a certain day and were very rigid about it, and they didn't get any stories for that reason. And so I think a good agency would counsel to offer that flexibility.

(01:23:54):
So six weeks I think is the ideal amount of time. And then budget, I would say the lowest end would probably be about 10K a month for an agency. You can find consultants, I think the best ones would be at least 8K a month, but for a small boutique agency starts at 10. I'll just be transparent, I'm very open about our pricing, our rates start at 15K a month for our retainers, and actually that's for a series A companies generally what they're at. And then I would say unless you are a global business that needs basically different teams for different product lines, which happens when you're a Microsoft of the world, that's another story. But if you're just a series C startup that's getting a lot of attention, I wouldn't go beyond 30K probably. There are plenty of agencies that go into the 50s and 60s a month, but that's just a whole nother world, and I'm not an expert on that part.

Lenny (01:24:56):
Amazing. Thank you for sharing all that. What if you're going for just a one-off, just help me get one story, what's a range there for budget you should expect?

Emilie Gerber (01:25:04):
I would say between 10 and 20. And you might be able to find a consultant that'll do it for eight.

Lenny (01:25:12):
Amazing. So helpful. Emilie, is there anything else you want to share before we get to our very exciting lightning round?

Emilie Gerber (01:25:19):
No. I'm ready.

Lenny (01:25:20):
Well, welcome to our very exciting lightning round. I've got six questions. Are you ready?

Emilie Gerber (01:25:25):
I am.

Lenny (01:25:26):
First question, what are two or three books you've recommended most to other people?

Emilie Gerber (01:25:32):
I have one that's very top of mind right now, so it's How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan. Actually, I leave tonight for a week long psilocybin retreat.

Lenny (01:25:46):
We should have done this... N [inaudible 01:25:48]

Emilie Gerber (01:25:52):
I know. I would be getting much more philosophical maybe.

Lenny (01:25:53):
Wow.

Emilie Gerber (01:25:56):
So very excited, I'm going to Jamaica.

Lenny (01:25:58):
Amazing.

Emilie Gerber (01:26:00):
And ever since researching that field, there's the whole concept of changing your neural pathways is just very fascinating to me. And just opening up and shifting perspectives is something that I think will actually help me a lot just even in running a company, being a better leader, I think we're at a stage in our growth right now where we're hiring a lot and there's a lot of pressure and I just want to make sure I'm bringing my best self forward every day. And so I'm really excited about it.

Lenny (01:26:27):
What an amazing answer. This is going to be part of your set and setting this interview, but hopefully you can get it out of your mind.

Emilie Gerber (01:26:34):
No, totally. I was nervous. I'm like, "It's actually really great that this is happening and then I can completely unplug after it. And so I think it's actually good timing.

Lenny (01:26:34):
I'm excited to hear how it goes.

Emilie Gerber (01:26:45):
I'm not a big book recommender. I have ADHD and reading full books is very hard for me, and so I'm just going to leave you with that one. I can do the occasional beach read I'll really focus, but it's not my main format of content consumption.

Lenny (01:27:01):
Amazing. All right, great answer. One's plenty. Do you have a favorite movie or TV show you've really enjoyed?

Emilie Gerber (01:27:08):
My favorite genre is post-apocalyptic, end of the world survival. I need to mention my all time favorite show, because it would be bad not to. So Walking Dead is my comfort TV show, I can watch it when I'm going to sleep at night, but my most recent favorite was Yellowjackets. Are you familiar?

Lenny (01:27:30):
I've seen the poster on my TV, but I've not watched it.

Emilie Gerber (01:27:35):
Nice. I discovered it a little late. I think the second season finished and they're working on the third. But it has plane crash, and it has just shocking moment after shocking moment like cannibalism, very weird stuff. And it's one of those shows that sticks in your mind, which I like where you're thinking about it afterwards. It's kind of creepy.

Lenny (01:27:59):
Wow. I thought you were going for Last of Us, but I now have to watch this show.

Emilie Gerber (01:28:05):
No, I watched Last of Us and I didn't feel like it had enough survival elements to it. It was like storytelling in that environment, but it wasn't actually a survival post-apocalyptic show in the way that I was looking for.

Lenny (01:28:17):
Hardcore. Do you have a favorite interview question you like to ask? And you could take this in any direction you want.

Emilie Gerber (01:28:25):
Yeah. I have a new one. We actually just revamped our interview process, so I wanted to make it harder. So my new favorite question is if a client comes to you and they're convinced they have something that's press worthy, like an announcement that they think should be, I don't know, in the Wall Street Journal or something, and you know for a fact that it isn't, what steps do you take? What do you do next? And I like that question because they can handle it, one, from the client relations standpoint, how do you communicate with the client when they say something like that, but it's also a critical thinking and creativity question of how do you take a no and turn it into a yes? How do you take what they're giving you and make it into something interesting? And so I like to dig into that, and they can use a real example if they want, but I also think a lot of our job is pushing back in a way. And so that also shows if they're able and willing to push back.

Lenny (01:29:17):
I'm so curious to hear people's answer to that. Do you have a favorite product that you recently discovered that you love?

Emilie Gerber (01:29:24):
I was very skeptical of Apple Vision Pro and I was making fun of it at the beginning, and the first time I tried it, I completely changed my tune, I'm so into it, I'm ordering one, and I'm very excited for actually using it for work. I think it could be a really good use case for just my day-to-day at work. After I had tried it, the next day I messaged a bunch of clients that I thought could have relevant applications for it. I'm like, "Do we have an Apple Vision Pro strategy? Are we billing to talk about it publicly yet?" Because sometimes it's tying back to the PR conversation, I love if you're willing to push the envelope on stuff that you are building or are going to do and getting ahead of those conversations, so that's a lot of conversations I'm having right now is trying to convince clients to talk about that.

Lenny (01:30:10):
So you have an Apple Vision Pro strategy, amazing.

Emilie Gerber (01:30:13):
And then my other one, which is very self-serving, because they are a client, but I do use them every day, is Perplexity. I find it so helpful even just for like I'm working on an award submission, I forgot how much funding a client has raised, asking them that instead of opening five different Google links and trying to find the answer, it's just huge for quick information. Or writing a bio for an executive, getting just the TLDR of what they've done in their past, it's so good for PR use cases, and I actually think marketing and PR is going to be one of the core work applications for them.

Lenny (01:30:52):
I've also already shared how much I love Perplexity, I have the Chrome extension installed. I probably use it at least once a day for podcast interview prep along with a bunch of other stuff. So good find for customer. I think they're going to do great. Wish I was an investor.

Emilie Gerber (01:31:07):
I'm the happy investor. I rarely angel invest and I was...

Lenny (01:31:12):
Drinks on Emilie someday.

Emilie Gerber (01:31:15):
There we go.

Lenny (01:31:16):
That's awesome. Good job.

Emilie Gerber (01:31:18):
Thank you.

Lenny (01:31:18):
Okay, two more questions. Do you have a favorite life motto that you often come back to, share with friends or family, either in work or in life?

Emilie Gerber (01:31:26):
Strong opinions loosely held, I'm a very opinionated trust my gut kind of person, but that doesn't mean I'm not willing to change my mind on things and be wrong. I first heard it from an influencer [inaudible 01:31:38] and then I Googled it, and apparently... What was it? Jeff Bezos also said it at one point, so I have no idea the origin of the quote, but I think that's a good one. You can still be really opinionated in life, but that doesn't mean you always are going to be right.

Lenny (01:31:52):
Emilie, this was everything I hoped it would be. I feel like this is going to help so many people get awesome press. Thank you again so much for being here. Two final questions. Where can folks find you and reach out if they want to learn more or work with you? And how can listeners be useful to you?

Emilie Gerber (01:32:06):
Our website is sixeastern.com and our email is hello@sixeastern.com, so you can find us there. And actually I have a newsletter called On Background. It's on Substack. And really what it's intended to be is a place for people to find these tactical opportunities, so it has media moves, it has reporters that are working on stories, it has awards that are open, all of this stuff that basically an intern in an agency would spend their days researching we put into a newsletter. And so its main audience is PR people, but I actually think it could be a great resource for people within companies that don't have PR teams to stay on top of stuff. So I guess to be helpful, feel free to subscribe. And then other than that, we're hiring, so if you happen to be a PR person that got this far in the episode, always looking for great people to bring on.

Lenny (01:32:57):
Amazing. Is there anything specific you're looking for in people you're hiring for people that may want to reach out other than they've been in PR?

Emilie Gerber (01:33:02):
Ideally some B2B experience. I think doing B2B PR is very different from doing consumer PR. If you work with startups, that's a huge plus, you know how to be kind of scrappy and fast. And also people that just love to be really hands-on and doing the actual work. We're very flat, so we're not a place where there's much managing of teams. So it's really much more like a consultancy than anything else.

Lenny (01:33:24):
Amazing. Emilie, thank you so much for being here.

Emilie Gerber (01:33:27):
Yeah, it was so fun. Thank you so much.

Lenny (01:33:29):
Bye everyone. Thank you so much for listening. If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review as that really helps other listeners find the podcast. You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at lennyspodcast.com. See you in the next episode.