On this page11
- Who the teardown is for
- What to send before the call
- How to get the most out of 30 minutes
- Minute by minute: how the 30 minutes runs
- The mistakes I hear in the first five minutes
- The questions I ask
- What you leave with
- Where teardowns usually end up
- The no-pitch promise
- Teardown vs a typical agency intro call
- A sample follow-up note
What Happens on a 30-Minute PR Teardown Call
A 30-minute PR teardown is a strategy call where I look at your next announcement and tell you, plainly, whether it's ready for press. You bring the story, the deck and the outlets you want. You leave with three things: the strongest angle, a realistic outlet shortlist, and a recommendation on timing and format (exclusive, embargo or wide release). There's no pitch deck and no hard sell. If you don't need me, I'll say so.
I run these calls for Web3, AI and cybersecurity founders. This post walks through exactly what happens, minute by minute, so you can decide whether it's worth 30 minutes of your week.
Who the teardown is for
The call is most useful if one of these is true:
- You have a raise, launch, mainnet, TGE or major partnership in the next 90 days
- You've tried pitching yourself and got silence
- You have an agency proposal and want a second opinion on scope and price
- You're expanding into Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Singapore, India or the UAE
- You're a technical founder who wants to become a quoted voice in your category
It's less useful if you have no news in the next six months and just want "more awareness." I'll still take the call, but the honest answer will probably be to come back when there's something to announce.
What to send before the call
Prep takes 15 minutes on your side and makes the call twice as useful. Send what you have. Drafts are fine.
| Item | Why I need it |
|---|---|
| One-paragraph description of the announcement | I'll pressure-test whether it's news or a feature update |
| Pitch deck or one-pager | Shows how you explain the product today |
| Date or window for the announcement | Timing shapes the whole plan |
| Three outlets you'd most like to be in | Tells me your ambition and where it needs calibrating |
| Any past coverage | Shows which reporters already know you |
| Funding details, if relevant | Investors, amount and round shape change the angle |
If you'd like to tidy your materials first, the free press kit and launch PR template gives you a structure in about an hour.
How to get the most out of 30 minutes
A few things separate useful calls from polite ones.
- Bring the person who'll be the spokesperson, not just the marketing lead
- Be honest about the weak spots, like slow growth or a competitor that raised more
- Don't over-prepare a speech. Talk like you would to a sharp friend
- Have your calendar open so we can sanity-check the launch date live
- Write down the angle sentence before you hang up
If you're early and want to work on positioning first, the ICP and positioning worksheet is a good use of an afternoon before booking.
Minute by minute: how the 30 minutes runs
There's a shape to every call. It flexes, but this is roughly it.
| Minutes | What happens |
|---|---|
| 0 to 5 | You explain the announcement as if to a friend, no slides |
| 5 to 12 | I ask the questions a skeptical reporter would ask |
| 12 to 20 | We test two or three angles out loud and pick the strongest |
| 20 to 25 | Outlet shortlist and the order to approach them in |
| 25 to 30 | Timing, format, what to fix, and whether I'm the right fit |
The first five minutes matter more than founders expect. How you describe the company without a deck is usually closer to the real story than the deck is.
The mistakes I hear in the first five minutes
The opening explanation tells me most of what I need. A few patterns come up again and again, and each one changes the advice.
- Leading with the technology. "We use a novel consensus mechanism" is a feature. Reporters need the consequence: what's cheaper, faster or newly possible.
- Calling a feature update a launch. If existing users wouldn't notice the change, the press won't either.
- The funding amount as the headline. Unless the round is unusually large, the number isn't the story. Who invested and why usually is.
- No proof point. A claim without a number, a customer or a benchmark is hard for a reporter to print.
- Aiming only at the biggest outlet. One target with no fallback means one "no" ends the launch.
None of these are fatal. They just tell us where the next two weeks of work should go.
The questions I ask
These are the ones that come up on nearly every call. You can run them on yourself today.
- What's new here that wasn't possible or true six months ago?
- Who loses if you succeed?
- What would a skeptical reporter at CoinDesk or AI Magazine say about this?
- What number proves it: users, volume, revenue, a benchmark?
- Why now, and why you?
- What's the one-sentence comparison a reader would remember?
- Which bigger trend does this story sit inside?
- Is the founder ready to defend it in a live interview?
Question 6 is where most calls turn. Gaia's positioning as "the Stripe for AI agents" is the kind of line we're looking for: short, borrowed from something the reader already understands, and defensible. That frame carried a Forbes feature, a Decrypt deep-dive and a six-podcast founder tour. You can read the Gaia case study for the full arc.
What you leave with
By minute 30, you should have the following written down. I'll send a short follow-up note with the same points.
- The angle: one sentence a reporter could use as a headline
- The outlet shortlist: five to eight realistic targets, tiered by fit
- The format: exclusive, embargo to a small group, or wide release
- The timing: launch date logic, including what else is happening that week
- The gaps: what to fix first, such as missing data, a weak quote or an unready spokesperson
- The fit call: whether you need outside help at all, and if so which kind
That list is useful whether or not we ever work together. Plenty of founders take it and run the launch themselves, and that's a good outcome.
Where teardowns usually end up
Teardowns usually end in one of four places.
| Outcome | What it means | Typical next step |
|---|---|---|
| Ready, DIY | Story and team are strong, you can pitch it yourself | Use the shortlist and templates, check in if stuck |
| Ready, needs a sprint | Big moment, tight timeline, multi-outlet coordination | Launch sprint scoped to the date |
| Ready, needs ongoing support | Several stories ahead, founder visibility matters | Fractional retainer |
| Not ready yet | News isn't news yet, or the product needs work | Fix the gaps, book again in 6 to 8 weeks |
"Not ready yet" isn't a failure. It's the cheapest possible way to avoid a launch that gets ignored.
The no-pitch promise
I don't run a sales script on these calls. No slides about me, no "packages," no follow-up sequence of five emails.
If you ask what it would cost to work together, I'll tell you. The ranges are public anyway: a fractional retainer is $5K to $12K per month, a launch sprint is $15K to $40K over 4 to 8 weeks, and the other services are listed on the services page. If you don't ask, we spend the whole 30 minutes on your story.
And if the honest answer is that you don't need PR yet, or that an agency or an in-house hire suits you better, you'll hear that from me directly.
Teardown vs a typical agency intro call
If you've sat through agency intro calls, the difference is worth spelling out.
| Factor | Typical agency intro call | 30-minute teardown |
|---|---|---|
| Who's on it | Business development lead, sometimes a partner | The person who'd actually do the work |
| First 10 minutes | Agency credentials and logos | Your announcement, in your words |
| Focus | Scope and retainer | Your angle and outlets |
| What you leave with | A proposal to come | An angle, a shortlist and a timing call |
| Follow-up | A sequence of check-in emails | One note with the call's conclusions |
That's not a knock on agencies. Their intro calls exist to scope a large team. Mine exists to find out whether your story works, because that's the thing that decides everything else.
A sample follow-up note
So you know what lands in your inbox afterwards, this is the template I use. Details change per call.
Subject: Teardown notes: [Company] [announcement]
Angle: [one sentence]
Shortlist (in order):
1. [Outlet], exclusive offer, [reason]
2. [Outlet], embargo, [reason]
3. [Outlet], embargo, [reason]
Plus 2 to 5 tier-2 and trade targets.
Format: [exclusive / embargo / wide], lifting [day, time, timezone]
Fix first:
- [gap 1]
- [gap 2]
Fit: [DIY / sprint / retainer / not yet], because [reason]Thirty minutes won't make a bad story good. It will tell you which story you actually have.
Have an announcement coming up? Book your 30-minute teardown and bring the three outlets you want most.