“If people don’t talk about me (whether it’s the truth or falsehood), then I worry. Because it means I ain’t nobody. So either way people better be talking about me.” – 2face

Public Relations is never an easy game, it’s tough, makes you anxious and sometimes very frustrating especially if it’s with a Lean Startup. I should use the next few lines to shed light on what I mean by “Lean startups” before I proceed. Over the past few years, the economy took a huge tumble, stocks lost their value, interest on moneys put away declined and ultimately investors lost a lot of money. As a result, it became incredibly hard for companies to get loans and it trickled down to smaller startups. Entrepreneurs who sought seed funding had to start cutting back on how much they asked for and sacrifice some aspects of the start-up that they had anticipated in order to succeed. This is where the term “Lean Start-ups” apply. When a start-up cuts its expenditure to fit a smaller budget while still optimizing products.

PR in itself isn’t easy, it’s even more difficult when you are Lean and fresh off the tracks in your start-up journey. I have seen both sides of the table, I’ve been involved with an established company that had no problem getting their press releases to the top news outlets, and most recently with a fresh off the tracks start-up with no reputation acting as wind beneath its wings. My experiences have shaped the way I think PR should be applied and how I talk about it with people. Despite all the differences, there’s still a universal agreement in what makes you succeed in PR: Make yourself/brand unmissable.

It’s normal, every Tom, Dick and Harry want their stories and press releases published in BusinessWeek, CNN, VentureBeat etc.. why not? those are the most popular news outlets. Even blogs like TechCrunch and Mashable are constantly receiving several hundreds to thousand pitches per day! So getting your new start-up published in any of those is almost as easy as walking through the eye of a needle. Based on my experiences so far, I have found some tips that could help New Entrepreneurs on their way which I’ld like to share.

1.) Don’t hire a PR Firm. I have nothing against PR firms, some of them are awesome and do amazing work. However, if you are a fresh off the tracks start-up with “Lean” on your mind, you know for damn sure that you can’t afford a PR firm. PR firms charge somewhere between $5k to $20k per month for their services. Besides the astronomical cost, the way I see PR, is different from the way many other people see it. You want to be a brand, a movement that people can relate to. With PR firms, that could get tricky. I have found that the most success comes from having a PR person who is part of your brand, speaks the brand language and HAS solid experience.

2.) Put yourself where you can be seen. For all the hype about social media and how it helps localize PR, I am of the school of thought that offline PR is still as important if not more important than online PR. Networking is absolutely vital for new start-ups and the more connections you make in person, the better your chances of getting heard. This sort of ties in some ways to the point I made above about PR firms. The physical connections that will be made via PR firms vs. those they make online for your start-up is a very small fraction. You want to interact and mingle with people who can make an impact for you. I have always been a fan of TechCrunch events, SXSW etc… these are the sort of places where lasting impressions can be made. Twitter is an example of a startup that found fame by putting itself where it can be seen. They chose to launch the service at SXSW interactive in 2007, we all know the state of Twitter at the moment. I always advise Entrepreneurs to go out and meet other Entrepreneurs, mentors, journalists and even Investors at these sort of events, you have a better chance of getting heard by meeting in person rather than being one of the 1,000 people sending them emails daily.

3.) Interact More, Pitch Less. When you are doing PR for your start-up, make sure you cut down on the pitches and interact instead. Even on my blog, I get many emails from people pitching their startups to me. I only put out very few of those on the site, and that’s only because of the way I was approached. When you talk to people about your startup, be the one who stands out, be the one who doesn’t pitch. It’s far easier to approach the situation as though it’s two random people, meeting for the first time and simply talking about their careers. It’s just more relaxed and less “in your face” when done this way.

4.) Focus on the smaller News Outlets. One method that has always worked for me and start-ups I’ve been a part of is starting on a small scale. When you contact smaller, less popular news outlets and blogs, you have a better chance of getting a positive result than when you contact a national/international outlet. Most of the smaller syndicates don’t get pitches or stories sent in from the bigger companies, so they are more receptive when smaller start-ups reach out to them. On the other hand, if you really have to get in touch with the bigger news sources, make sure you are contacting the junior writers rather than the Chief Editor. The later most likely receives 5 times as many pitches as the junior writers do, so you stand a better chance scrolling down the staff list. Either way, you are getting some “air time”!

5.) Build Relationships early with Journalists in your Niche. Getting press is the fastest and best way to endear your brand to your customers. We all know this, your start-up would either succeed or fail depending on how it is received by the customers. Your ability to secure top talent to join your team, raise capital and convert members all boils down to how solid your PR campaign is. That being said, nothing drives PR faster than Journalists. Their views and opinions about your start-up could make or mar your chances of making a splash.

For those who have tried pitching journalists, you know it’s rare to get a call back or reply email if you are part of a fresh off the tracks start-up. The key is relationship building. You need to start interacting with the journalists you intend to reach out to in the future on a regular basis and long before you need them. You need to comment on their articles, e-mail/tweet your thoughts on their previous articles and get them to know you. After a while, you name sticks out, they know who you are and start respecting your views. Soon enough, when you contact them with a NEWS-WORTHY article from your start-up, the chance of them working on it is far greater than if you are a random PR guy emailing them just like every other person does.

In summary, never forget that PR is all about getting people to know about you. Come up with creative ways to do this so you can make a lasting impression. This guy did it, even though he was selling himself and not a brand, but you get the message. He created ads on google for the names of the bosses at the company he wanted to work for, so that when they google themselves, they see his ad asking for them to hire him. Creative eh? Be that guy! Be daring, adventurous and you might just be ripping rewards sooner rather than later.

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Of dreams, not nightmares

” you might as well dream big, since it’s a dream. It doesn’t cost you any more to own a Lamborghini in the dream than it costs to own a Bicycle” – Unknown.

There once lived two boys in a small township. Boy A, growing up, had always been told how much money the the local cheese sellers made and how great it would be if someone from the family made that much money. As expected, the young boy set his sights on that goal and whenever he went to bed, he had dreams of being the top cheese seller in the town. Several blocks away form Boy A’s home was Boy B. Boy B never felt comfortable in this town, he always thought people were too cautious and the standard of living could be better. He started visiting other towns, reading books and learning about things other people did. He found that there were several other things he could do to make him be who he truly wanted to be. He started dreaming of making money and having people work for him, doing things people really wanted to see! Truth is, people always work toward their goal and you get what you work for…most of the time. Fast forward 40-something years, Boy A is the top cheese seller in Blackheath, England and Boy B is Founder/Chairman of the Virgin Group with an estimated net worth of £2.6 Billion.

When you dream, you open yourself to a whole new world of possibilities. You find that it is possible to imagine things and attempt to live them out. This ability to not only dream, but dream big is a common trait of the most successful Entrepreneurs of our time. When Mark Zuckerberg sat down with some of the board members of Facebook and told them he saw their numbers doubling in 6 months time to over 300million users and refused to back down on his decision to change the Homepage and not carry banner ads, things got heated. Some employees who were starting to see a decline in the rate of pageviews and signups at the time even started to panic, resign and take other positions. Today, the evidence is there for all to see, Zuckerberg did make the right decision.

There’s so much talk in Silicon Valley about the importance of Lean startups and why Investors are looking to invest only in Entrepreneurs who know how to make the most out of a little change. The gospel has spread like wildfire and Entrepreneurs have started cutting back on their goals and asking for less money in a bid to look like they can be “lean”. If you have built a prototype and you’ve shown without a doubt that there is a market for your product, it IS time to take over that market and scale up accordingly. Don’t target the west coast only and ask for 1/4 of the money you need because you want to appear lean, knowing fully well that scaling up and reaching out to the entire country will yield the best rewards. When you work on your startup, how about put it all on the line, dream of the best your company can do and go for that.

“…at Inter Milan  we are a blood team not a skin team. When we play, we leave it all on the pitch. You don’t see skin on there, you see blood. As long as we win, it doesn’t matter.” – Jose Mourinho (Manager of Inter Milan FC after beating Barcelona in the semi finals of the 2010 UEFA champions league)

Innovation comes in handy

Innovation is something you either have or you don’t. Some people will make good Entrepreneurs and some wouldn’t. Simple. The ability to envision something most people don’t even know they need and then make it really happen is what makes a true Entrepreneur. For the life of me I didn’t know why anyone would care about Twitter when I first heard the idea. Evan Williams (@ev), co-founder of Twitter was addressing a room full of Entrepreneurs, geeks and a handful of investors a few years back right after releasing the product to the public. He said “we had this idea of letting people express themselves and share what they are doing with friends in 140 characters or less.” At this time, Facebook was still rather bare and didn’t have the “status” feature it has now, but still a good number of people found the idea totally unnecessary and didn’t see the point behind it. They believed that bit of social interaction where you can tell you friends what you are doing was already available on Facebook, so why tweet?

The founders of Twitter obviously had several other ideas in mind as to what Twitter can be used for. They saw beyond the typical 140 character blab and anticipated celebrities building a following and keeping these “eager fans” updated. They saw Businesses taking advantage of the opportunity to share and showcase their products. They were innovative. The rest is history.

Take a risk

“…he’s gonna have a hard time explaining to Hayley and Laney, these food stamps and this weak sh*t, coz he never risked sh*t. He hoped and he wished it, but it didn’t fall in his lap, so he ain’t even here” – Eminem

Two months ago in donwtown NYC, I overheard some fresh-faced, college students talking about how “awesome” they thought the site textsfromlastnight was. Apparently, one of them had sent in a text he got from his ex-girlfriend two nights prior and luckily it made its way to the site’s homepage. The conversation slowly drifted into a discussion about their own little project they had been working on for a few months. One of them mentioned how it would be absolutely impossible to take on Foursquare, which happened to be their major competitor. He gave several reasons in his attempt to convince his partner to give up on this project and look in a different direction. He said “I am certainly not willing to put all that 10 grand seed money into something that will just fail dude, let’s find something else to do. If someone chooses to invest in us though, then sure, as long as we are not wasting our own money.”. But for the very beautiful girl I was entertaining on the day, I would have turned around, bounce my head around in disgust and told them to “grow some balls”…well maybe not, but you get my point.

If every one starts thinking this way and running away at the first sign of competition, the world we know now will be much different. There’s no way guys like that will make it 2yrs at the helm of any company, if they are even lucky enough to start one. Willingness to take risks has to be a driving force for Entrepreneurs. You have to be prepared to fail in order to succeed. We don’t need to start talking about posthumous stories of Thomas Edison and his lightbulbs, but it is common place, if someone like Ron Conway doesn’t take the risks he takes in investment, he won’t be the man he is today.

So Tolu, what are you saying? Dream big, think deep and lose the fear. What is failure anyway? if it isn’t merely 2 blocks down the road from victory…or so they say.

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Ideas are the center of all the growth we have been able to achieve since making fire and the wheel all the way to iPhones and SUV’s. Someone had an idea to improve their lifestyle or the life of others and then put that idea into motion. More often than not we are seeing young entrepreneurs start to talk to each other, in classes, networking events, dorms and bars about ideas. What starts as chatter is starting to become reality with the way Gen-Y has taken an interest to entrepreneurship.

Our latest endeavor, the Rock Star Business Series, started as a conversation I had on the phone with Matt from Under30CEO. We were chatting about college students and how many of them are not as keen on the whole personal branding, social media thing that we are accustomed to with the outspoken group over at Brazen or 20 Something Bloggers. For how many people are using these new tools to find great opportunities, network and form business relationships, there are that many more that are job board hopping and hoping that something falls in their lap.

This conversation led to a business idea that was put together over 2 weeks. We plopped up a site, leveraged our networks and had sales coming in seconds after the sales page went live. Nice conversation, right?

The key here is that we spoke up. Many times people keep their ideas bottled in, thinking they are not good enough, or people won’t “get it.” They will.

They will because deep down we all want to be part of the conversation. We want to be in the loop and use our own connections or ideas to help out. This is evident in many businesses that are starting at colleges and universities across the world right now. Kids are using strength in numbers to kick start their business and most times do not look at it as a business, but as a project. Something fun to pass the time with friends and make some happy hour cash.

Gen-Y is an extremely collaborative group. We team up for sports, book reports, science fairs and our parents combined with genius marketing developed the “buddy system” for going to the mall or parks. Now that we are evolving and getting into situations where we can use our talents and ideas to make changes in business, we are looking to friends and other like minded Gen-Y’s to start companies with.

But, how do we get the conversation started?

The first step is to be proactive with your idea. You do not need all the answers as to how it will work to start talking about it. You only need a concept and an approach to bring it up. Getting the idea out in the open will allow others to give feedback, direction and to see if its realistic or not.

The way to take your idea to the next level is to know who you want to tell. If you are a marketing guy with a software idea, you need to start chatting with programmers, IT pros and others that can give you feedback and ideas. You can meet these people online, at networking events or in the classroom. When I needed a team of developers for an idea I had, I stalked the Computer Science building for a few hours with fliers and handed them out after every class. I organized a quick meetup at the sandwich shop on campus and got a few people to really weigh in on the idea. It was a great success and helped us solidify our startup concept.

Use online collaborative tools. For the new Rock Star course we have sent surveys to people we think are potential customers to get feedback and ask questions about the material. We have opened up the doors to previous customers and partners to test drive the platform and used things like Google Docs and forums to get people involved and testing out the concepts. There are tons of tools from communication platforms like Yammer to Basecamp to mind mapping software like MindMeister that can get others involved in the process without having to bend over backwards to give their input.

Once you have the conversation started, be sure to capitalize on the excitement and put your words into action. The best time to get active is when there is a spark about the project. Keep the good vibes and motivation going in order to blast off and start testing the idea, the product and the startup. In today’s economy, you can afford to get things to market quickly, test, test so more and then deal with the business end.

So, what’s your idea and how can we get you started? I’d love to help out in the comments.

This guest post was written by Greg Rollet, a Gen-Y Entrepreneur and Internet Marketer. His new course, the Rock Star Business Series, helps Gen-Y build their brand and their business with online tools and resources. You can also follow him on Twitter, @g_ro.

Photo by darek.zon

Before I started this blog, Generation – Y Startup was a completely offline venture. I simply spread the word about what I did by word of mouth, flyers, handing out business cards e.t.c. I had promised myself that I wasn’t going to get into blogging just for the sake of it. I wanted to make sure I was equipped enough on the topics I was going to be talking about. I now own two companies (still very young and growing), I have met with several angel investors and VCs, pitched my ideas on exactly 9 elevators, 15 car parks and about 23 times at the end of several startup events. It was only after all these that I decided it was time to move my venture online. I figured I had real understanding of what I will be saying; I now know the pain and joy of building a startup from nothing.

I started genystartup.com a few days after I had completed a test social networking website (I was testing out dolphin by boonex software). It is barely a month old but I have been lucky enough to gain a few followers already. I have posted some worth-while articles (so I have been told, I don’t blow my own horn) and I am proud of how things are getting on with Generation – Y Startup. It might be my first blog, but I am always surrounded by bloggers and have spoken to so many to realize that a blog needs a lot of time to grow, several months they said before you get at least 100 uniques/day. Somehow after my first two posts, I was already averaging 100 uniques. Now for a lot of people, this might be very, very small, but for me…It was quite a number. I live in Maryland and I can’t brag of knowing Chris Sacca, Guy Kawasaki or a friend at techcrunch who at the click of their mouse can channel tones of readers to my blog, so I do appreciate those 100, thanks you. I refused to create ads to promote my website, not because of cost but because I am always striving to convince myself that a venture truly can become legendary without really spending money.

I totally understand the power of social media, and while I and some of my friends (working for me) use it and other means (SEO, link creation e.t.c.) to grow our clients’ status online, I don’t ever really try to use it for Generation – Y Startup. I want my readers to really be new entrepreneurs willing to learn from my mistakes and right-deeds, from my failures and successes, not just anyone who barely cares about my topic of discussion because I want to drive my traffic so high. But back to my reason for this post, I believe the power of twitter is truly remarkable and while I was about to lay in bed to one night (as I have just finished writing ‘Business Plan 101 – Your first business plan’ ), I thought of the several reasons why I needed to share with my few followers the power of social media and especially twitter, as per what I had noticed 2 nights before.

It was just another Friday in twitter world and if you are an avid twitterer, you know that means only one thing: followfriday! It was 3a.m. eastern time and I had just read an article about a company called startup2startup (@startup2startup) and the effect it was having on new entrepreneurs. Since this is my niche, I decided to follow the company and its founder, Dave McClure (@davemcclure). I was getting set for bed so I decided I’ld put up some people who have influenced me that week and I included @davemcclure on my followfriday list. I woke up the next morning, read my emails, checked out the Liverpool football club website and smiled at the news Fernando Torres had signed a new deal…awesome! And then I pulled up my tweetdeck. Few minutes later I realized Dave McClure had decided to follow me back. I went about my business and completed my tasks for a client when I just decided to get back on and re-read this post I had just put up (Have you got what it takes to be an entrepreneur?), just to make sure again there were no spelling errors and what not. I realized the post had been re-tweeted 15 times. That was strange as I only usually averaged 3 re-tweets per post, so I looked on tweetdeck and realized @davemcclure had retweeted the post and the traffic that came pouring in after that was ridiculous.

The point of this post is for no other reason but to point out that the traffic that came in was not just traffic, but real readers. They were followers of @davemcclure and so were in my niche, and just like I wanted, they were people whose real interest fall into the category I covered.

Moral lesson: Twitter is a powerful platform and the retweet tool is one that not just brings traffic, but unlike other sources of traffic it brings in targeted readers, hence followers.

Special thanks for Dave McClure and everyone who found that article worthwhile!

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