Stupid Things Startups Do: Bad PR

I don't think startups need brand management - what they need, in my opinion, is "space management" - they need to bring awareness to the general business space they are operating in - so if you're in a start up building predictive analytics software, you want to bring awareness about the benefits of that solution. The best startups define their own space - Hubspot being a great example with their early definition of inbound marketing which is now standard part of our lexicon.

PR is most definitely not something that startups just do when they mess up - PR, done correctly, works by extending you name (and space) out to the world. It's also easy to look at the success of a company and not recognize that there was likely a coordinated, deliberate PR strategy behind it that resulted in dozens of article that promote the brand.

All that being said, I agree with the core argument of the article - namely that spending a lot of money, early on, on an external PR agency is likely to be a waste of money. I would add, however, that if you can align your product with a PR agency or person that has actual relationships with press in the area the start up works in, then you can get value.

The biggest mistake I see is when a startup hires a PR agency because they are a big name, but lack the fundamental relationships with the press you care about. At the end of the day, the value the PR agency brings is those relationships - so if you are going to hire someone, find a specialist in your field rather than a big-name generalist who will get you in Techcrunch but miss your core audience of actual prospects.