Founder’s Table: Looking for some PR for your company ?

I constantly get questions from people about how to get PR articles on the major news portals. The answer is simple: Lunchback! Here is how to hack PR: book a lunch meeting with a journalist and tell them your stories. If the stories are interesting enough, they will write about them.

Peter Helin

We are preparing for an official launch event for Lunchback, and we could use some PR articles to feed to the press (because the world should know about us!). I found Peter on Lunchback right when I was wondering how I could get this task done.

Peter is a ghostwriter who focuses on conversion. He has worked as a marketing director in various companies, and he knows a lot about what converts a reader of an article to a user of your product. I didn’t have to tell him about Lunchback, since he was already a user, and one who was already inspired about what we are trying to achieve: a community for knowledge sharing.

When I told him about our upcoming launch, he offered to write us an article. He said he would do it pro bono, because he wants to promote the vision for us. I could not thank him enough for his generosity. Not everyone who believes in us is also willing or able to help us in such practical ways, but now that I reflect on it, it happens regularly enough that I know there’s something behind it. I think that a community based on generosity inspires people to go beyond their normal obligations, and offer something positive. In turn, that inspires others to do the same. People like Peter see the success of projects like this as something that is for them as much as for other people, and they want to make it successful.

Howard Riminton

I asked Howard, who works for Dagens Industri, to a Lunchback meeting. I wanted to talk to him because Dagens Industri is a major voice in the Nordic business world, and I heard that he was the one who kept his eyes on the interesting projects from the Nordic Tech List (Cruchbase for the Nordic region). Howard is British, so I knew we probably had some common ground: how difficult it is to connect with people in Stockholm.

Howard liked the idea of Lunchback — he said “brilliant!” I know that the British use the word “brilliant” a lot, so maybe he didn’t actually mean it the same way I would mean it, but he sounded really enthusiastic when he said it. And more importantly, he added Lunchback to the Nordic Tech List, from his laptop, while we were at the table, so I think he meant it.

He listened to my stories about who I’ve met through Lunchback and how those people are using the app to meet mentors, widen their network, and get regular inspiration from people in other careers. He immediately thought of a colleague he wanted to connect us to for an activity we’re planning soon (it’s still a secret, but we’ll tell you soon!)

I enjoyed the lunch a lot, and I was glad to learn things from him, and to feel like I knew a journalist I could call on if I needed one in the future. If that was all that happened, I would have felt that the lunch was a success.

But just a few days ago I got an email from a reported from Dagens Industri asking about the recent progress of Lunchback. Most startups don’t get these emails, because there are so many startups doing interesting things that one reporter can’t keep track of all of them. But if you’re doing something interesting and you have connections, you’ll get noticed. The press wants to keep track of the interesting stories, and they want to know as early as possible.

The takeaway from this week: I hacked PR, effortlessly, through Lunchback. Don’t you think you should give it a try? If you do, let us know how it goes and we’ll share your story, too. Email hello@lunchback.co.