How startups can get their message out there and accelerate their business without waiting for media attention

Christina Farr (left) and Jacquelyn Miller (right) are startup storytelling experts who say there’s a lot of value in going direct.

The bad news is that it’s harder than ever for a startup to get attention from the mainstream tech media, as the number of companies vying for media coverage keeps going up and the number of journalists on the scene seems to be going down. The good news is that there have never been more ways for founders to tell their own stories — in almost any format you can imagine.

This is called “going direct,” where companies large and small use newsletters, podcasts, YouTube, TikTok, social media, and any other format they need to make sure their message gets heard by the people who most need to hear it. If you have a decently-sized LinkedIn network, you’re already off to a good start.

I sat down with Christina Farr and Jacquelyn Miller, two advocates for the direct method who know a thing or two about helping startups reach the public. Christina Farr was a reporter at CNBC before becoming a venture capitalist with OMERS Ventures. Now, she advises and invests in early-stage health technology companies, and publishes her Second Opinion newsletter to over 19,000 subscribers. Jacquelyn, a communications and PR consultant, trained as a molecular biologist before going on to become a key comms leader at companies including Google (and its X moonshot lab) and Amazon (via its acquisition of Pillpack).

In their view, going direct isn’t a replacement for the brand-building benefits of getting coverage in the tech media. If a story is big or interesting enough to warrant pitching to the New York Times, then that’s what you should do. But those opportunities are rare, and startups have so many other options now for staying in the conversation and establishing themselves as a leading voice in any industry.

“In the past couple of years, you’ve seen social media platforms like LinkedIn, which now has news and editorial,” Christina says. “You see Substack, you see podcasts, you see X/Twitter, all these things have popped up and it gives founders and really anyone the opportunity to share what’s going on with your business, or just in your life, with the public without having that journalist in the middle.”

Here’s some of their top advice for founders as they consider going direct themselves:

• Start close to home: Jacquelyn recommends that you should practice your messaging strategy with stakeholders — your executive leadership team, your board, your investors — before trying it out with the public. Bigger audiences will come, but you want to “hone your story with the people who are paying the most attention,” she says. You’ll benefit from the chance to refine your message with a sympathetic crowd, and it’s good practice for the blogging, podcasting, or video shoots to come.
• Set realistic expectations: “I think we’ve just become way too obsessed with measurement,” Christina says. Pageviews, followers, and video views are the wrong way to think about success when it comes to going direct. Instead, think of it as an investment in building your personal brand and that of the company: Maybe someone will see a blog post you wrote and invite you to speak at a major conference, or your sales team will feel much more inspired and empowered after you speak on a podcast. Those outcomes are much more beneficial to the business than just getting a bunch of retweets.
• Build the discipline: To that point, Jacquelyn suggests that the best way to measure success in this endeavor is to focus on diligence and keeping to a schedule. It doesn’t matter if the CEO (or other executive) wants to be known for sharp LinkedIn posts, insightful YouTube videos, or comprehensive newsletters. Whichever medium they prefer, the most important thing is to just do it regularly, building your audience and laying a foundation for future messaging.
• Have a point of view: Christina says it’s too common for startup leaders to keep their posts strictly to the facts — “we attended a conference,” or “we just made a big hire.” It’s far more interesting and beneficial in the long run to share what you learned at that conference, or how you met that new hire and what impressed you about them. The best way for your message to get noticed is to be interesting and lend your unique perspective.
• Put yourself in their shoes: Building on that, founders would do well to remember that just because they spend every waking hour thinking about their problem space, it doesn’t mean that everyone else does too. Even if you think it’s obvious or well-known, there are very likely a lot of people who would find it fascinating and helpful. You don’t need to prove you’re the smartest or wittiest person who ever lived with every single post; you just need to show that you’re a thoughtful industry insider.
• Be authentic: Business leaders will often try to pass off the job of writing blog entries or social media posts to a ghostwriter or someone else on the team. This is often counterproductive, Christina and Jacquelyn warn: Yes, maybe the CEO isn’t as good as a professional writer, and perhaps it’ll need a little extra work. But there’s so much nuance, detail, and insight that only somebody who’s actually in the space can bring to any kind of writing. That can get lost if someone else’s fingers are on the keyboard.

In terms of common pitfalls, Jacquelyn and Christina say that both talking to the media and issuing press releases often get a bad rap in the startup community. Going to a reporter can be rewarding when you have something of general interest to talk about, like a funding round or a major strategic shift. And issuing press releases can be valuable for your company’s SEO, as long as you go in with the expectation that it will likely not lead to anything like media coverage. Jacquelyn says that it’s up to startup leaders to experiment and find their “fluency” with the different channels available to them, matching medium to message.

Ultimately, they advise that startups look at this kind of direct and authentic communication not as a marketing initiative, but as something core to the future of the company. Figure out who you want to talk to, what you want to say, and how you want them to respond, and set it as a major priority.

“I would view communications as an important function for the reputation of your business, versus splitting it across marketing and HR,” Jacquelyn says. “Look at the things that communications can achieve for the business and value it and resource it appropriately.”

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