Photo: “I love going to visit the region, there is an electricity there, and a certain magic about the place even in the depths of winter when it’s cold,” says Matt Hartley, outgoing editor of the Financial Post Tech Desk, on the energy in Waterloo Region.
Media coverage can make a huge difference in taking a startup to the next level.
It brings credibility that can’t be bought by an early-stage company. And nothing sells your company or product to investors or potential customers better than an impartial third party talking about it.
But when pursuing media attention, startups often make mistakes that do more harm than good.
Who better to ask about pitching to media than one of Canada’s top tech journalists?
Matt Hartley, outgoing editor of the Financial Post Tech Desk, has spent the last seven years writing about technology from various angles.
After a few internships, he landed at the Globe and Mail in 2007. As the tech reporter for the Report on Business, he produced one of his proudest achievements: The Download Decade series in 2009.
Later that year, Hartley joined the National Post, where he continued to cover technology, with a close focus on BlackBerry. He also launched Post Arcade, a news site dedicated to the gaming industry.
He recently announced he is leaving the Post on May 23 to start a new gig as editor at North Strategic, a Toronto-based communications agency.
We sat down with Hartley to gain his insights on how startups should pitch to media, and on Waterloo Region’s tech scene.
Q – What types of companies do you like to write about?
A – [At] FP Tech Desk, we tend to cover companies from the business perspective. We tend to focus on business strategy; we like to talk about what a company is doing and where it’s going, and our readership tends to consist of both institutional and retail investors, and people who are interested in technology.
We don’t tend to cover too closely the technology itself, but we do at times, because obviously that’s integral to what the companies themselves are doing. But there are specialty sites out there and sites that specialize in specific technologies and they do a good job of that, and that doesn’t tend to be the focus of our readers.
We also have a specific focus on Canada, so we tend to focus on Canadian companies, and BlackBerry is obviously one of the biggest ones. We also cover things coming out of Google Canada; that’s an example of an international company that we cover fairly closely here. It tends to be companies that are doing things here in Canada; especially if any international company has any kind of engineering or software development happening here, we tend to take a closer look at that kind of a company, when you compare it to a company that only has a sales focus.
Q – What makes a good story, and how does a startup know when they are ready to take it to media?
A – On the startup end, we tend to cover big moments in a startup’s evolution.
There are milestones that tend to be things that you can hang a news story on, whether that is the launch of a company, a funding round, a new product or an acquisition by a bigger company. All of those things are signposts that can make for a story.
Quite often, and only because we have limited resources, we tend to need a news hook when it comes to writing about a particular company, because startups are not our only focus.
That being said, if there is a good story that comes out of it, maybe it’s something to do with a crowdfunding campaign, maybe it’s just an interesting personality, or an interesting anecdote that turns a company into something that we think would be interesting to the readers. Or it’s an example of an overarching trend within the industry, like 3D printing.
Often, startups and companies in general want to be the focus of the story, and quite often the best way to get coverage is to not be the focus, but to be an example of a broader trend, which gives us the ability to interview them and to tell their story while placing it in a larger context.
Everyone has an interesting story to tell; whether it’s unique enough or interesting enough for a newspaper to cover is something different. And I think that’s where you have to trust your media relations people, your advisors, because they are going to know the publication and the various media outlets and what they are looking for in a particular story.
It’s also very important in these instances to forge a relationship with a reporter, or with an outlet. If you can get to know them and understand them, and what it is that they cover, how they cover it and the kinds of things that they are looking for, then you start to look for how your company may fit one of those criteria.
Q – How should startups go about pitching once they have a good story?
A – Most of the reporters I talk to prefer first contact to be via email, because reporters tend to be busy and don’t have time for cold calls. Some prefer to be approached by social media and others really don’t like that.
Most like to start off with an introductory email of some kind, and quite often not necessarily saying, “We’re looking for coverage, would you like to write about us?”, but to say, “Hey, we’re an interesting company and we have a 3D printer that is unlike anything out there on the market, would you like to come see it?” Or “If you’re ever talking about 3D printing in a story and you’d like a source that really has a depth of knowledge in the industry, you can talk to our CEO. We just want to get on your radar.” That’s always a good way.
If the tech reporter is going somewhere to speak – a lot of tech reporters do panels at conferences – that’s a good time to get some facetime and go in and talk to them, and sometimes they are quite open to getting a quick elevator pitch.
Generally it depends on the reporter, and their wants and needs of how they are approached can vary, depending on who they are and the kind of outlet that they work for.
Q – What are some mistakes that young companies make when dealing with media?
A – The general, mass email to a whole bunch of reporters. Or the “Hello, insert name here” and it’s clearly copied and pasted and sent to three dozen reporters. Those tend to not get a great reception. And it’s not because we’re offended because it’s not been personalized, but they tend to not be effective because they don’t tend to focus specifically on what that reporter covers and how they do things. It’s also not effective, because it’s not immediately apparent how that company can fit into their coverage cycle.
Knowing what to tell and what not to tell. If you’re a startup and you have investors, or VC backing, you’re going to get advice and you should listen to those people around you.
The more information you give a reporter, they tend to be able to write a better story. The more data they get, the deeper they can get. If you have anecdotes, mini stories that you can tell that help to illustrate the broader point of what you’re doing, things that show the pain points that you’re trying to solve, or the particular challenges that you’ve faced, those all tend to make a better story.
It can be scary talking to a reporter, because you don’t know what they are going to write, but if you can form a relationship with a reporter, then you can have that trusted exchange of information. Then they are going to have a deeper and better understanding about your company, with the more info that you give them.
Q – How effective are press releases? Should companies be putting everything on the wire?
A – For a lot of reporters, when something goes out on a press release, everybody usually knows about it by that point. Or everyone is trying to scramble for the same thing and you may end up not really getting the coverage that you’re hoping for.
Again, if you can form that relationship with a reporter, or several reporters, and talk to some of them beforehand and give them the information that they need to create a better story, you may find that you’re more pleased with those results than the mass-market press release that’s kind of blasted out there.
Just remember that a reporter is not your publicist, and you may not love everything that they write about you, but that’s the risk you take. It’s not their job to be your publicist; it’s their job to present fair and balanced news to their audience. If they are critical of a certain aspect of your strategy, or they say that you’re up against competitors in a certain space, provided that it’s a fair and balanced comment, that’s something that you should be OK with.
Again, it comes down to that trust level, where you have somebody that you trust to be fair and balanced, and you hope to place the company in the right context.
Q – What are your thoughts on Waterloo Region and Communitech?
A – Waterloo is a fascinating city; I love going to visit the region, there is an electricity there, and a certain magic about the place even in the depths of winter when it’s cold.
There’s an energy within organizations like Communitech and the other incubators there, and the companies that have their headquarters there, whether it’s Google or BlackBerry, and the people are passionate about what they do.
People talk a lot about community in various areas, but I really do get a sense that there is a community around the tech culture in Waterloo, and it’s fascinating to see what has come out of there.
On and off I have been visiting Waterloo as a reporter for seven years, and it’s remarkable to see the change even in that period of time.
Q – Do you think it’s possible that the next equivalent of BlackBerry in terms size will come out this region?
A – That’s a really good question. I think that the technology startup scene in Canada continues to be strong. I think we are seeing some really interesting players coming out of a number of different parts of Canada. So I don’t know if the next BlackBerry will come out of Waterloo; it could come out of Vancouver, it could come out of Montreal, it could come out of Toronto, it could come out of Edmonton, or somewhere on the east coast.
And because of the way that technology has been distributed and the way that anybody can found one of these businesses, with a good idea and the right people, it really does open it up to a much broader group of people for potential entrepreneurs.
So I don’t necessarily think that it will come out of Waterloo, but there is certainly the infrastructure there, and the soil is ripe for something like that to grow.
