---
title: "How to Get Press Coverage for Your Startup Without an Agency"
description: "A DIY plan to get press coverage for your startup: find the angle, build a 30-name list, pitch an exclusive, follow up and time it well. Free templates inside."
author: "Shilika Jain"
date: "2026-10-01T06:46:36.101+00:00"
tags: ["press coverage", "media relations", "startup pr", "pitching"]
canonical: "https://www.shilikajain.com/blog/how-to-get-press-coverage-without-an-agency"
---

# How to Get Press Coverage for Your Startup Without an Agency

By [Shilika Jain](https://www.shilikajain.com/authors/shilika-jain) - 10/1/2026

A DIY plan to get press coverage for your startup: find the angle, build a 30-name list, pitch an exclusive, follow up and time it well. Free templates inside.

---

# How to Get Press Coverage for Your Startup Without an Agency

You can get press coverage without an agency by doing five things in order: find one angle that's genuinely new to a reporter's readers, build a list of about 30 journalists who covered your space in the last 90 days, pitch the best-fit one an exclusive, follow up once, and time the announcement for a Tuesday to Thursday morning with materials ready. Expect a 10 to 20 percent response rate from a well-built list and two to six weeks of work per story.

That's the whole method. Most founders fail at the first step, not the pitch.

I've pitched reporters at CoinDesk, Decrypt, Forbes and AI Magazine for six years. Most of what works is unglamorous and repeatable, and a founder with a few spare hours a week can do a surprising amount of it alone. This is the DIY playbook, including the parts that will be hard without help.

## Step 1: find an angle a reporter can actually use

Reporters don't cover companies. They cover stories, and your company is evidence for one. Before you write a single pitch, write one sentence that answers: what will a reader learn from this article that they didn't know yesterday?

"We launched our AI scheduling assistant" fails that test. "Clinics using AI scheduling cut no-shows by a third in six months, according to data from 40 practices" passes it, if the data is real.

Angles that tend to work for startups:

- Original data: a number from your product usage nobody else has.
- A trend with you as proof: you're one example of something bigger happening.
- A contrarian take from the founder, backed by experience.
- A funding round with a reason it matters beyond the money (who invested, why now, which market).
- A notable customer or partner, named and quotable.
- A regulatory or industry event you can react to quickly, with expertise.

Pick one. A pitch with three angles reads like a pitch with none.

## Step 2: build a 30-name media list

Thirty is the right size for a first DIY campaign. Big enough to get a few yeses, small enough to personalize every email.

To build it, search Google News and the outlets your buyers read for your category terms. Note every reporter who has written about the space in the last 90 days. Read two of their recent pieces. If you can't explain in one line why your story fits their beat, cut them.

Tier the list so you know who gets it first.

| Tier | Who | How many | How you pitch them |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Reporters at the outlets your buyers and investors trust most | 5 to 8 | Exclusive or early embargoed briefing |
| 2 | Strong trade and vertical outlets | 10 to 12 | Embargoed pitch after tier 1 decides |
| 3 | Newsletters, podcasts, regional press | 10 to 12 | On announcement day or after |

My [media list template](/resources/media-list-template.xlsx) has the columns pre-built, and the full process is in [how to build a media list](/blog/how-to-build-a-media-list).

## Step 3: write and send the pitch

A good pitch is short: under 150 words, plain text, one ask. Lead with the story, not the company.

```text
Subject: Exclusive: [specific news in under 10 words]

Hi [first name],

You wrote about [specific recent article] last month. [One sentence connecting that piece to your news.]

[Company] is announcing [news] on [date]. [One sentence on why it matters to their readers, with a number.]

I can offer this to you as an exclusive until [date and time, with timezone], including an interview with [founder name and title] and [data, customer, or investor quote].

Want me to send the details under embargo?

[Your name]
[Title, company, phone]
```

Send pitches Tuesday to Thursday, in the reporter's morning. Avoid Mondays (inbox overload) and Fridays (nobody's committing to anything). For more variations, the [journalist pitch email templates](/resources/journalist-pitch-email-templates.pdf) cover funding, launch, data and reactive pitches.

## Step 4: use exclusives deliberately

An exclusive means one outlet gets the story first, usually with an interview, in exchange for a commitment to run it. It's the single most useful tool a founder has, because it turns "maybe" into "yes" for a reporter who wants the scoop.

The rules are simple and non-negotiable:

1. Offer it to one reporter at a time. Never shop an exclusive to two people at once.
2. Give them a clear deadline to decide, usually 24 to 48 hours.
3. If they pass, move to the next name on your tier 1 list.
4. Once they accept, don't pitch anyone else until their story is live.
5. After it runs, pitch tier 2 and tier 3 with the exclusive as social proof.

Breaking an exclusive is the fastest way to get blacklisted by a newsroom. If in doubt, ask the reporter what they expect. I explain the differences between formats in [press release vs pitch vs exclusive](/blog/press-release-vs-pitch-vs-exclusive).

## Step 5: follow up once, then move on

Reporters get hundreds of pitches a week. One follow-up, two or three business days later, is normal and often works. A third email is annoying. A phone call nobody asked for is worse.

A good follow-up adds something: a new data point, a customer who agreed to talk, a different angle. "Just bumping this" adds nothing.

```text
Subject: Re: Exclusive: [original subject]

Hi [first name], one addition in case it's useful: [new fact, customer, or data point]. Happy to hold the exclusive for you until [time]. If it's not a fit, no problem at all.
```

If there's no reply, assume it's a no and go to the next name. Don't take it personally. Timing and news cycles kill good pitches every day.

## A 4-week DIY timeline

Here's a realistic schedule for a founder working on PR a few hours a week alongside everything else.

| Week | Focus | Output |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | Angle and assets | One-line angle, press release draft, founder bio, 3 photos, fact sheet |
| Week 2 | List and pitch drafts | 30-name tiered list, personalized pitches for tier 1 |
| Week 3 | Pitch tier 1, then tier 2 | Exclusive offered and accepted, embargoed briefings booked |
| Week 4 | Announce and distribute | Story live, tier 3 pitched, coverage shared across sales and social |

Build your press kit before you pitch. A reporter who says yes will want photos, a bio and a fact sheet within the hour. The [press kit and launch PR template](/resources/press-kit-and-launch-pr-template.pdf) gives you the structure.

## After the story runs: make one placement work five times

Founders treat the published article as the finish line. It's closer to the halfway mark. A single good piece of coverage can feed your sales, hiring and investor updates for months if someone actually uses it.

Within 48 hours of a story going live, work through this list:

- [ ] Thank the reporter with a short note. No requests attached.
- [ ] Share the piece from the founder's account with one line of real commentary, not "Thrilled to be featured."
- [ ] Add the outlet to a "featured in" bar on your homepage and press page.
- [ ] Send it to your investors and include it in the next monthly update.
- [ ] Give your sales team a two-line email they can forward to open deals.
- [ ] Pitch tier 3 outlets and podcasts, using the coverage as proof the story has legs.
- [ ] Log what worked: which angle, which reporter, which subject line, how long it took.

That last step is how DIY PR gets easier. After two or three campaigns you'll have a short list of reporters who know you, a feel for which angles land, and a much faster second campaign.

One more reason to care about distribution: AI assistants like ChatGPT and Perplexity lean heavily on third-party articles when they describe a company. A placement that's linked from your site, your founder's profiles and other coverage becomes much easier for them to find and cite.

## What you'll struggle with alone

DIY works. It also has limits, and it's better to see them coming.

- **Knowing who takes exclusives.** Some reporters love them, some outlets won't accept them, and the only way to know is experience or relationships.
- **Judging newsworthiness honestly.** Founders are too close to their own story. Almost everyone overestimates how interesting their news is to an outsider.
- **Embargo management across many outlets.** Running five embargoed briefings across time zones without a leak takes practice.
- **Getting replies from top-tier reporters.** Cold pitches to the most-pitched people in tech have low odds unless the story is exceptional.
- **Time.** A real campaign is 20 to 40 hours of work. For a founder also raising or shipping, that's often the dealbreaker.
- **Sustaining it.** One placement is a project. A steady drumbeat across a year is a function.

## When to bring in help

If your first DIY campaign lands, keep going and do the next one yourself. You've learned more than any agency deck would teach you.

Bring in help when the stakes go up: a large round, a launch across several markets, a category you need to own, or a crisis. That's where relationships, sequencing judgment and spare hours make a real difference to the outcome. For those moments, a short launch sprint or a fractional retainer through my [Web3 PR campaigns service](/services/web3-pr-campaigns) or [AI startup PR service](/services/ai-startup-pr) usually costs less than a full agency and keeps a senior person on the pitch.

The founders who get the most from PR, whether DIY or hired, have one thing in common. They decide what the story is before anyone else does.

*Planning your first DIY campaign? [Book a 30-minute teardown](/contact) and I'll pressure-test your angle and list before you hit send.*

---

**Book a 30-min teardown with Shilika** - https://calendly.com/shilikajain/30min/

Canonical: https://www.shilikajain.com/blog/how-to-get-press-coverage-without-an-agency