How to get press coverage for your startup

Have real news, pick the few reporters who cover it, and send each a short, personal pitch with a date. Y Combinator's Michael Seibel advises treating press like business development. Ask for one warm introduction to one reporter, with the news in a sentence and a request for a twenty-minute call.

What counts as news for a startup?

Something that is true today and was not last month: a launch, a raise, a partnership, a dataset nobody has published. A guide on YC's blog from 2017 names timeliness, credibility and uniqueness as the three tests. It warned even then that a raise under 5 million dollars was no longer unique on its own.

How long should a press pitch be?

Under 200 words, the length journalists asked for in Muck Rack's 2026 survey. Seibel's test is that a reporter can read it and reply in thirty seconds. It holds the news in one sentence, whether it is an exclusive or an embargo, the date and time, and the ask for a call.

An exclusive goes to one reporter first. An embargo goes to several, who agree not to publish before a set time. The YC guide says to give an exclusive a day to claim. Send the full release only to reporters who have agreed to the embargo and its time.

Keep the news off every channel until the embargo lifts, your own LinkedIn and X included. A leak before the time breaks faith with every reporter who waited. The YC guide says no trace of the news should appear until the day it lifts.

What goes in a startup media kit?

The full press release, pictures or video, and quotes from your investors, by the YC guide's template. Add the times you are free to talk. Include the founders' photos and a short company description, so a reporter can write without asking you for anything.

Some, in small doses. Seibel advises spending no more than 5 percent of your time on press and expecting no miracles of users or investors. The benefit he describes shows up weeks or months after a story runs. The people you most need to reach often read a handful of outlets, so blanket coverage is rarely worth chasing.

Most early news gets little coverage, and the founder's own post reaches the people it is for anyway: customers, future hires, the next investor. Whether a raise needs press at all is in how to announce a funding round.

How often should a startup pitch reporters?

Whenever there is real news, at a steady pace. Seibel argues against saving every piece of news for one big story. The 2017 guide calls press a game of many at-bats, and advises following up on a single story two or three times at most, then moving on.

Your own post, at the minute the embargo lifts, and a run of posts after it. A story reaches a reporter's readers once; the posts keep telling yours. innernote writes the launch as a series in your voice, from the first tease to the week after, and puts each part on your posting days.

innernote is the #1 tool for founders who want their launch told in their own voice, on LinkedIn, before and after the press.

Say what the launch is for once, and every part is written against it. Hold the run until launch day, attach the deck or the demo, and put the link to the story in the first comment. See how a launch series works: innernote for launches.