Startups: Do It Yourself PR

Many startups are on the shoestring budget.  They have gone and spent most of the budget just making their dream idea a reality, but now what?  How do you get the word out about what they have built?

Larger companies have the luxury of hiring PR firms.  This is one item not in the budget for small to very small startups.  I came across a good post “Startup PR: Tips For Getting Publicity Without a PR Firm” that I wanted to share with you.

Here i a list from the post on some things you can do to solve this problem

1.  “My philosophy of PR is summed up in six words: be amazing, be everywhere, be real.”

2.  First time I’ve ever the heard of the term ceWebrities.  clever.  With regards to these ceWebrities, “these overnight successes are 10 years in the making.”.

3.  “Be the brand…you must be in love with your brand and inspired by your brand’s mission to have any hope of getting press.”

4.  “Be everywhere…every single night I would go out and meet folks in the internet industry…while other folks went home to their families, I went out and made a family.”

5.  “Your job is to transfer the enthusiasm you feel for your brand to everyone you meet.”

6.  “Always pick up the check — always…everyone remembers who picked up the check”.

7.  “Set a goal of creating deep relationships with a small number of folks as opposed to running around trying to trade business cards with as many folks as possible.”

8.  “Be a human being.  The best way to get PR is not to sell someone on your company or product — it’s by being a human being.  Journalists hate being pitched…journalists and bloggers are, in fact, humans.”

9.  “Before meeting with a journalist, it is your job (as CEO) to read their last five articles in full…”

10.  “Your job as the CEO/founder is to create direct, honest and personal relationships with journalists.”

11.  “Attach your brand to a movement.”

12.  “PR is, by definition a reflection of what you’ve done.  When a startup hits, it’s not one thing that does it, it’s typically many things working in concer.”

Do you have any ideas to add to the list ?

Startups: Y Combinator Financing Documents

We have highlighted a few places for startups to get their hands on some good documents to help them out.  We have talked about Docstoc and the new Google Templates.  These are great resources for the new up and coming startup to use instead of forking out money that could be better spent on developement costs.

I now want to point your attention to some new documents that have just been put up for use by Y Combinator, the venture firm in Boston that specializes in helping early stage startups and incubates them to move them on to larger funding opportunities.

Now they have gone and done a really cool thing

Y Combinator and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati are happy to announce the Series AA Equity Financing Documents. Their goal is to make angel funding rounds for startups easier for both sides.

These documents were originally created for YC-funded startups to use when raising angel rounds. They seem to have worked well in trial runs so far, so we’re open-sourcing them.

While they may not be suitable for all situations, the goal was to make the terms fairly neutral. So while we would of course advise both parties using these documents to have their lawyers look at them, they provide a starting point that we hope can be used in many situations without too many modifications.

Needless to say, neither YC nor WSGR assumes any responsibility for any consequence of using these documents.

• Series AA Termsheet
• Series AA Stock Purchase Agreement
• Series AA Board Consent
• Series AA Stockholder Consent
• Series AA Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation
• Series AA Investors’ Rights Agreement

They’re also available on Scribd.

This is a really awesome gesture in order to help out other startups out there and again allowing them to be able to focus a little more on their core competencies and not the paperwork, all the while saving them a littel cash by not having to hire lawyers.  Some estimates I have heard for preparation of these documents is around the $20-$25k range.  Now you can put that money where you need it most and rest easy knowing these documents are out there to try to help.

Startups: Check out Google’s Docs new templates

In a recent post I mentioned a great resource for everyone out there buidling a business on a budget and for anyone who needed a business document, it is a service called Docstoc.

This last week, Google has released a great repository for their Google Docs online documents.  There are templates for all types, Documents, Spreadsheets, and Presentations.  I took a quick look and they have a lot of great resources.  I saw templates for business cards, budgets, and great themes from presentations.  I am a huge fan of Google Doc’s as it allows me to write and have access to all of my stuff from everywhere I can get online.  I even use it as a research tool to keep a running documents for notes collection and as a blog writing tool.  With the ability to take the Docs offline now even gives you the flexibility to write on the go away from a conenction.

So if you are working on yor startup and need a quick template, head over and take a look.

Need Some $$ For Your Startup ? Start Here

I came across a great post today over at Jason Nazar’s blog about raising money for a startup.  Jason is the founder and CEO of Docstoc, an online repository of professional documents.  Docstoc looks incredible and I am going to explore it some more and report back to all you budding startups out there on how to utilize it well, but in the meantime I wanted to pass along Jason’s post on rainsing money for startups.

As Jason notes

I had selectively helped some folks raise money for their companies in my last consulting business. The truth is, no one should ever be a better fundraiser for a startup than its founders. And if you are relying on an outside 3rd party to “raise you money”, you’re likely in for a huge waste of time.

In any case here is a link to his full document, Raising Money for a StartUP Company.

It is a good read, let us know what you think.

A Little Help for Your Pitch

I am always on the lookout for any resources to help those up and coming startups in the DC/Baltimore area.  There are a number of good blogs I have come across and I am going to start a good list as a repository for people to check out as well.  In any case, I came across a good post the other day on Leveraging Ideas that I wanted to pass along to my startup readers as a good resource.

Download Pitch Monster Here.

PitchMonster, according to the post is

a few pages of advice I put together from leading venture capitalists and angel investors on how entrepreneurs should prepare for an investment pitch

I gave it a read and it seems like there is some good advice.  So give it a look and let us know what you think.

Local Startup: SpotCrime, Mashing Up Local Crime

While attending the recent SocialDevCamp in Baltimore MD, I had the opportunity to see a lot of the cool startups that are popping up across the area.  I sat in one of the sessions with Colin Drane, founder of SpotCrime.  I did not have a chance to chat with Colin, but I noted hi company to follow up with.

The on Thursday heading downtown to see Larry Page talk at Google Unwired, I saw SpotCrime spotlighted on Techcrunch .. damn they beat me to the punch yet again… :)  SpotCrime is a pretty cool concept and use of a google maps mashup.  In essence, SpotCrime taps into local police databases and is able to display that data on a google map for you to view.  As it is right now, they have a limited number of cities they are drawing from, but hopefully they will be rounding that out.  Here is a look at the local Baltimore map with the incidents annotated.

Techcrunch noted that

While it’s hard to believe that the police don’t already know about the rougher areas of town, the visual overlays could conceivably held them identify trends. Other potential applications of the data include real estate evaluation, and (for more paranoid users) “safe” driving routes mapped by GPS.

I think another great applicaion for this is prior to moving to a new area.  When I have looked at buying my last couple of houses, I have taken the time at night to drive through the neighborhood and see if anything untoward may be going on.  This would be a great tool for prospective buyers to look at the area they are looking to move into in order to get a gauge on the crime in that area.