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How I started BetaList

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Re: How I started BetaList

#21
post #16

The title should actually be "How I trick all of you into reading this story". I'm probably not alone in hoping that this story contained some slick hack.

Nice! That will be my next article: How I tricked Hacker News into reading about my writing about how I tricked TechCrunch into writing about my startup.

I'll probably read that one too

Re: How I started BetaList

#22
post #17
post #7

As someone who went through almost the same exact process, these are my tips for getting coverage: -Keep your email brief (three sentences, tops). -Tell a story. Many of the stories on publications like TechCrunch are as much about the founders as they are about the startups. Look for an interesting angle related to yours and pitch it accordingly. -Bloggers have to create several stories a week. Do as much of their j…

I totally agree with keeping the message short. Also I have read from several other sources that telling a story is key. But how are you supposed to tell a story in 4 sentences?

This reminds me of Fredric Brown, who was able to tell a horror story in two sentenced: "The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door..."

So I don't think it should be that hard. I guess the idea is to _not_ tell everything, but let them directly see the potential of developing on some loose ends of that story.

Re: How I started BetaList

#23
post #18

I was honestly out to thrash you guys in the comments when i read the title. But the article indeed turned out interesting. I guess this is what people have now termed "growth hacking"!

And don't forget, while it is unethical to intentionally deceive a reporter, a large part of a journalist's job is to vet sources and do some research to make sure claims are true. In reality, blogs make their money on advertising so if they publish downright fabrications or knowingly stretch the truth, they do not care as long as they are getting clicks. In other words, don't feel bad for the blogs.

I honestly didn't consider for a second I'd feel bad for the blogs. The reality is they get tons of e-mails and you have to sell it like you'd sell your handmade flutes in the market to somebody that is bombarded by people selling flutes. Now, lying about it through your teeth is a different story.

Re: How I started BetaList

#24
post #16

The title should actually be "How I trick all of you into reading this story". I'm probably not alone in hoping that this story contained some slick hack.

Nice! That will be my next article: How I tricked Hacker News into reading about my writing about how I tricked TechCrunch into writing about my startup.

+1 Sending a journo an email is hardly an innovative trick. All online journalists have a minimum number of articles they have to publish per day mandated to them, so are quite happy to receive unsolicited suggestions to meet their quotas.

Re: How I started BetaList

#26

The title should actually be "How I trick all of you into reading this story". I'm probably not alone in hoping that this story contained some slick hack.

Yeah, started skimming it, looked at what betalist is (startup reporting service)... link on startupnews to post by startup founder of startup tracking service on how he got coverage from a startup oriented news site for his startup. This is some inception-level circle jerking IMO. "The best minds of our generation" :)

Re: How I started BetaList

#27
post #17
post #7

As someone who went through almost the same exact process, these are my tips for getting coverage: -Keep your email brief (three sentences, tops). -Tell a story. Many of the stories on publications like TechCrunch are as much about the founders as they are about the startups. Look for an interesting angle related to yours and pitch it accordingly. -Bloggers have to create several stories a week. Do as much of their j…

I totally agree with keeping the message short. Also I have read from several other sources that telling a story is key. But how are you supposed to tell a story in 4 sentences?

Don't feel the need to be courteous or overly polite. In my pitch I didn't even use complete sentences.

Citing my previous example:

Hi,

My name is X and I'm a founding member of [insert name of startup]. We've developed a new way to [do awesome thing phrased as simply as possible, preferably in the context of other popular startups] and are launching today. We like your publication and wanted to give you first crack at a write-up.

Please message me if you're interested and would like more details.

Regards,

Re: How I started BetaList

#28
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice! That will be my next article: How I tricked Hacker News into reading about my writing about how I tricked TechCrunch into writing about my startup.

+1 Sending a journo an email is hardly an innovative trick. All online journalists have a minimum number of articles they have to publish per day mandated to them, so are quite happy to receive unsolicited suggestions to meet their quotas.

The 'trick' wasn't so much in emailing TechCrunch, as it was creating a separate website altogether (BetaList) and emailing them about that instead. And then leveraging the publicity that platform is getting through TechCrunch to get publicity for the startup (Openmargin) I was trying to promote in the first place.

Re: How I started BetaList

#29
post #18

I was honestly out to thrash you guys in the comments when i read the title. But the article indeed turned out interesting. I guess this is what people have now termed "growth hacking"!

And don't forget, while it is unethical to intentionally deceive a reporter, a large part of a journalist's job is to vet sources and do some research to make sure claims are true. In reality, blogs make their money on advertising so if they publish downright fabrications or knowingly stretch the truth, they do not care as long as they are getting clicks. In other words, don't feel bad for the blogs.

Not sure if you're saying this was unethical, but what I emailed them was 100% true. It's just that I disclosed only one reason for starting BetaList (wanting a platform like that) and not the other one (wanting to leverage TechCrunch's article to also promote my own startup). Whether that's deceit depends on whether you consider the other reason being relevant to TechCrunch. As far as they were concerned they wrote about a cool platform that was interesting to their audience.

It would be different of course if I swapped out the sites at the last minute, lied to them about how long I've been working on it, etc, etc, but that wasn't the case.

Again, not sure if you were saying you thought it was unethical, just trying to clarify.

Re: How I started BetaList

#30
post #7

As someone who went through almost the same exact process, these are my tips for getting coverage: -Keep your email brief (three sentences, tops). -Tell a story. Many of the stories on publications like TechCrunch are as much about the founders as they are about the startups. Look for an interesting angle related to yours and pitch it accordingly. -Bloggers have to create several stories a week. Do as much of their j…

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