Forget the TechCrunch Launch

I see this type of argument often and I think it misses the point. The argument is:

"Techcrunch will send you un-engaged traffic. Nobody from Techcrunch is going to actually buy your product"

Which is used to persuade people that the "Techcrunch Launch" is not useful.

Wrong.

What Techcrunch can do for you - in one fell swoop - is declare that you've arrived. You get instant exposure across its audience - many of whom run tech blogs themselves, and I'm guessing a whole bunch of investors / VCs too. It's strategically useful to get in front of those eyeballs, whether you ship a single unit or not. That is PR. Yes it will die down almost instantly. But for a moment, you were in front of a ton of people. There is immense value in that.

People are confusing marketing with PR. They are not one and the same.

See Techcrunch as PR and personally, I think it's invaluable. It's not something I would invest much resources in because it seems like too much of a crapshoot, but it's definitely not something I'd poo-poo with a bunch of hand-waving about the psychological impact or "not being ready".

hint: you're NEVER ready for massive PR.

I agree with fookyong - we met our investor as the consequence of a techcrunch article.

The comments about the traffic can be true depending on your product... But if you are launching a virtual child's doll company aimed at 3yos on TC you'd expect that in the same way you'd expect poor conversions if you were launching an AWS deployment service on a football blog.

The author would be more credible if he had been through a techcrunch launch himself. While he makes valid points in theory, I didn't read any first-hand experience that would make this blog post a must read.