In the fast-paced world of tech startups, building a great product is only half the battle. Getting noticed by the right people—investors, customers, and top talent—requires a strategic approach to communication. This is where public relations comes in, but for many founders, PR remains a mysterious and often misunderstood discipline. To shed light on the subject, we sat down with Emilie Gerber, the founder and principal of SixEastern, a PR firm dedicated to helping startups and tech companies navigate the media landscape.
With a background that includes corporate communications at Uber and product communications at Box, Emilie brings a wealth of experience to the table. In this conversation, she demystifies the world of startup PR, drawing a clear line between earned media and paid marketing. She offers a practical framework for when early-stage companies should consider hiring a PR agency, how to set realistic expectations for coverage, and the art of crafting a pitch that resonates with today’s journalists and content creators.
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Nataraj: A lot of my audience is tech-heavy—people working in tech who are trying to start companies, founders, operators, and they’re usually unaware of the PR industry. A good place to start is if you can set a context about what a PR company or person does in general, and then we can narrow it down to tech specifically.
Emilie Gerber: The biggest misconception I see when chatting with founders, especially first-time founders that haven’t done PR before, is conflating marketing and public relations. Marketing involves a lot of paid methods: paid advertising, sponsorships, that sort of thing. There’s also owned content, stuff that you post on your blog, doing webinars, and the social channels that you post to. PR is really neither of those things, though there’s obviously always going to be a little bit of overlap.
PR is anything that’s earned media. So earned is when you are able to get that speaking slot or get that interview with a reporter or get on a podcast without necessarily needing to sponsor or pay. You’re getting it because of your credibility. The value in that is that because you’re not paying, there’s supposed to be this sort of objectivity to it where you earned the spot because of your credibility or the business you’re building or what you have to share with the reporter. It’s held in a different regard than other kinds of marketing, and it’s an important part of the puzzle. But for startups, because they’re usually small and new, there’s not going to be the same sort of interest necessarily in the business as the companies that are further along.
The other big misconception is that you launched your company, now let’s go get that big TechCrunch feature or that big Wall Street Journal feature. Most of those publications have maybe one or two relevant reporters to your business and they’re in charge of covering your entire space. So that’s not always necessarily what you can get right off the bat. There are other things that we can go into that you can get, but that’s usually what I find from the first conversation.
Nataraj: At what point in a startup’s stage is it worth having an internal or an external PR engagement?
Emilie Gerber: For a lot of seed-stage companies, it does not make sense to have a PR agency on retainer. There are exceptions to that rule. We’re working with a seed-stage company right now that is doing some really wild stuff. They have an AI tool being used for a class at Harvard Business Review and every student’s taking that course. To me, that’s a big enough story where it doesn’t matter how much funding they have; reporters are going to be interested regardless. But if you’re building a more infrastructure AI tool or software, chances are unless there’s something that’s really, really unique—and the bar for unique is super high—you don’t need to have an agency on retainer yet. What you can do is potentially still make a one-off announcement announcing that the business exists and that you’ve raised funding, especially if you have a relatively large seed round or some great investors. You just have to be more realistic with what you’re going to get for that piece.
Generally speaking, when we work with a company that’s early, we’re trying a lot of different things. We’re being really creative with the outlets we go after and we will get something, but you shouldn’t bring on a PR agency if you’re expecting a really top-tier piece of coverage in The Wall Street Journal, because that’s not realistic. But in a project capacity, seed-stage companies can do something, but I wouldn’t have someone on retainer. I think by the time you’re Series A, there’s more that can be done and it can make sense. There are some really great consultants out there too; you don’t necessarily need to bring on a full-fledged agency. We’re kind of in the middle where we act a little bit more like consultants, but we are an agency. But by then, you’re still not going to be getting the huge stories, but there’s going to be podcasts to go on, awards and lists you can submit to, and speaking opportunities at conferences. So there’s going to be stuff that you can be doing and find value out of the engagement. But really, the longer you wait, the more you can end up doing, and you’re going to get higher ROI from the engagement. So even then, some companies wait till they’re closer to Series B, I would say.
Nataraj: How do you cater expectations? Because every startup will see your previous success story and come to you saying, ‘I also want a TechCrunch or Wall Street Journal coverage when I raise my seed round.’ How do you gauge or set those expectations?
Emilie Gerber: I try to really dig into the details with them of their story versus what they’re comparing themselves to. Maybe they are the same caliber and we can go pitch something similar to something else we landed for another client. Even when we are able to do that, it often just comes down to reporter bandwidth. So I explain that. Sometimes you could have the coolest story in the world, but if it’s happening at the wrong time or you just have bad luck with pitching it—part of it’s luck—then you might not get the same win. The first thing I try to do is emphasize how much of it is not in our control.
Another thing to emphasize is that reporters are not paid by us; their only job is to report on the news and to tell stories they think their audience will find interesting. They don’t owe us anything. They don’t owe the startups that they cover anything. And then if they’re comparing themselves to a unicorn story that’s not similar to what we’re telling for them, I try to go into the details: ‘Well, this company shared that they just reached $100 million in ARR,’ or ‘This company has celebrity investors. What are we bringing to the table that’s similar?’
It’s a balance because you also don’t want to shoot down a founder who is super excited about what they’re building. So it’s a balance of showing them that we’re equally excited and that we’re going to try to get them the best possible outcome, but it’s just a tough world out there with media.
Nataraj: For podcasts specifically, do you advise founders to craft their message? Do you help with that? Because not every great founder is a great storyteller.
Emilie Gerber: It’s a fine line. I think a lot of the larger agencies spend so much effort crafting messages that the execution piece gets lost and they’re not even focused on pitching. I think it’s easy for founders to get too in their head if they’re going off of talking points. Those can be more valuable for traditional media interviews where you really do want to land the headline and one or two specific quotes. For podcasts, I’m a fan of going at it a little more casually.
If we can get the questions in advance, which some podcasts do share, that can be useful. We’ll say, ‘Hey, look these over, see if there’s any that you think are alarming or you want to discuss.’ But because it’s not really a product pitch most of the time—it’s talking about their journey and their story—I prefer they don’t spend too much time on specific talking points because they usually end up sounding really canned.
One thing that can be really great for prepping for podcasts is having a couple of stories or anecdotes in your back pocket that you always just use. Those can be useful to think of in advance; otherwise, they might not occur to you on the spot.
Nataraj: I always tell founders to start a document to note down their thoughts or the highlights they want to make. You can use it as a starting doc for future interviews. People see successful thought leaders and think it’s coming off the hip on a podcast. It’s not. They have running notes of ideas and sometimes a team of people bringing in interesting statistics.
Emilie Gerber: That’s why I like the stories. And a good point you raised that I forgot is having in your back pocket the stats that you can share, whether it’s customer names you’re able to disclose, the latest stats on the business, or any market or industry stuff. Those are not going to be top of mind for you unless you have them prepped in advance. And if you’re at a startup, you do want to make sure you’re being consistent with what you’re sharing and you’re not just riffing with company metrics. That’s another area where it can be really useful to have something written down.
Nataraj: There’s also this trend of founders going direct and not engaging with a PR filter. Every founder wants to be a persona on Twitter. Is that where the PR industry is going?
Emilie Gerber: It’s funny you brought that up. I’m actually doing a survey of startup founders, and so far, I think 96% put that it’s important to build up your founder’s social profiles, which is way higher than I expected. So the general sentiment is yes, you should be doing this. Personally, maybe this is a contrarian view, but I don’t think it’s realistic or scalable for that to be the case for everyone. Not every founder is going to have it come naturally to them. For some, it’s going to take a lot of time, especially if they’re not willing to just outsource their social presence.
I don’t know that it’s going to be possible for every founder to build up a huge social following where it’s actually worth the time investment. I just don’t know if it’s always realistic. Within our community right now, it’s definitely the hot new comms approach. I do think there’s tons of value in it, especially for the right founder. But for others, I just think it would be distracting them from the business and other marketing they can do. The work that we’re doing, the more traditional approach, is that if a client goes on your podcast, there’s a built-in audience. You’re able to tell the same story but without having to do the work of building the audience.
Nataraj: People say traditional media is dead, but we’ve been talking about TechCrunch, Wall Street Journal, and CNBC. Why does it still matter for startups to be on traditional media?
Emilie Gerber: It definitely is smaller. One of the biggest benefits is the trust that you get from being in a traditional outlet. There’s just a certain brand cachet that comes along with having your startup in a publication that people know and respect. I think it helps with trust with customers and with potential candidates. It’s a validation piece that companies still look for.
But I should also flag that beyond traditional media and podcasts, there’s this whole world of new media. Alex Konrad from Forbes just launched Upstarts. Eric Newcomer has Newcomer. Some of those are more open to startup stories and conversations. I think those are kind of blurring the lines. I really value those as well. There’s this third bucket that I think is very helpful right now too.
Nataraj: A lot of PR firms I see usually have a marketing wing. How do you think about that PR plus marketing service offering?
Emilie Gerber: It’s interesting because I’ve gotten asked about this a lot with how much media is changing. We basically had a waitlist for the past six months. We can’t take on new clients. We’ve been so busy that I haven’t felt the pressure to explore that yet. I’m sure it’ll happen eventually because media is going to continue to change, but it’s almost like, don’t mess with a good thing. For us, we’re busy with our current client base and we can’t take on new work, so adding new services doesn’t sound appealing to me right now.
Nataraj: What do you know about PR now that you wish you knew before starting your career?
Emilie Gerber: It has changed so much. A lot of publications overall have moved away from doing funding stories, period. Even TechCrunch and Axios, which covered them a lot. I think I would have maybe changed our model sooner to not be as focused on those. This is a lesson that I’m currently learning as we speak, but I think that the playbook is changing there and I don’t know what the new playbook is. But it’s one that I think I should have given more thought to maybe earlier.
Nataraj: You were at Uber during a period of interesting PR challenges. Are there any crisis mode situations you were involved in that you can talk about?
Emilie Gerber: I joined right when a lot of that stuff had started. My role at Uber was focused on comms for Uber for Business and their business development team, so any company partnerships. I wasn’t on the corporate comms team where we were focused on the actual crisis. If anything, it was a lesson for me to try to figure out how to pitch and land positive stories amidst a world where all this negative stuff was happening. I got some really great hits during that time, and I think it was about being very creative with who we worked with, doing the due diligence on them, and then pitching stories in a very specific way. It was a unique challenge trying to get them positive press during that time.
Nataraj: What type of positive press did you get?
Emilie Gerber: I launched Uber Health, which was HIPAA-compliant patient transportation. We went after health tech reporters, who could not care less about the ride-share side of the business, and got tons of product features on that. We put customers forward, we put a spokesperson forward that was the GM of that part of the business so it wasn’t anyone involved in anything else going on. We got some really straightforward hits that way. Some of these folks are just excited to get a unique opportunity to chat with Uber about how they’re thinking about healthcare, so they want to write a story that’s really focused on that.
Nataraj: Which niche or sector of startups is ignored by the PR industry right now?
Emilie Gerber: With all the focus on AI, a lot of those reporters that used to cover enterprise software more broadly are not anymore. If you’re not doing AI, there are not the right reporters out there for you right now. Those are the companies I struggle with the most in getting the right folks interested because everything is so all-consuming in AI right now. If your company doesn’t have that angle, you’re kind of left out to dry. I would say enterprise software, non-AI, is the answer.
Nataraj: Emily, thanks for joining the show. It was very insightful.
Emilie Gerber: Awesome, thank you so much. It was a great conversation.
This conversation with Emilie Gerber provides a clear and actionable playbook for any founder looking to leverage the power of public relations. Her insights cut through the noise, offering a realistic perspective on what it takes to build a strong narrative and earn valuable media attention in the competitive tech industry.
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