Planning a Media Tour in Asia for a Startup Founder

A good Asian media tour for a startup founder covers two or three cities in about ten days, anchored on a conference week, with meetings booked four to six weeks ahead. Most of the meetings should be background briefings, not interviews, because the goal is to start relationships with local reporters who'll cover you later. Budget for interpreters in Korea and Japan, and plan the follow-up before you fly, since that's where the coverage actually comes from.

I've seen these trips from three sides. I've organised on-ground press for clients, including interviews with CoinDesk at Messari Mainnet for Magna. I've been the interviewer, doing on-ground interviews for CryptoDaily UK at TOKEN2049. And I've watched founders arrive with a packed schedule and leave with nothing published. The difference was almost always planning.

What a founder media tour in Asia is actually for

A Western founder's first trip is rarely about a single big headline. It's about becoming a known name to the reporters who cover your category in each market, so that when you have news, they already know who you are.

That changes how you plan. You're not trying to fill every slot with an interview. You're trying to have useful conversations with the right eight to fifteen people across the trip.

The trap is treating Asia as one stop. Seoul, Tokyo, Singapore, Mumbai and Ho Chi Minh City have different media, different languages and different expectations. A tour that tries to hit all of them in a week meets everyone and impresses nobody.

Which cities, in what order

Start with the anchor. Most good tours are built around one conference week, because reporters, partners and investors are already concentrated there. In recent years Korea Blockchain Week and TOKEN2049 Singapore have fallen close together, which makes Seoul and Singapore a natural pair.

Then add one city where you have a real reason to be: a market you're entering, a partner you're launching with, or an investor base you want to meet.

Order matters within the trip. I prefer to start where meetings are hardest to get and preparation takes longest, usually Japan or Korea, and finish in the city with the most flexible schedule. You'll be sharper at the start of the trip, and you want your sharpest self in the meetings that took longest to secure.

How to time announcements across these markets is a separate question, and it's covered in global announcement timing across APAC time zones.

Briefings or interviews: which to book

This is the decision founders most often get wrong. They ask for interviews everywhere because interviews feel like results. But an interview needs a story, and most founders on a first trip don't have one that's local.

On a first trip, I aim for most meetings to be background briefings, a couple of on-record interviews where there's a real angle, and commentary availability offered to everyone. Make the ground rules clear at the start of each conversation. Don't let a reporter discover at the end that you thought it was off the record.

How to work with interpreters and translators

For Korean and Japanese media, plan on interpretation for at least some meetings, and translated materials for all of them.

A few practical rules I use:

• Halve your content. With consecutive interpretation, every answer is said twice. A 30-minute interview holds about 15 minutes of your material. Cut your talking points accordingly.
• Brief the interpreter the day before. Send your one-page brief, product terms and any jargon. Crypto vocabulary isn't standard, and a confused interpreter makes a clear founder sound vague.
• Use short sentences. Long answers with three clauses get compressed. Short ones survive.
• Translate the leave-behind properly. A one-page fact sheet in the local language, written by a native speaker, not machine-translated. Reporters will use it to check facts after you've gone.
• Don't use your local partner's BD lead as an interpreter. They'll soften or reframe your answers, often with good intentions. Use someone whose only job is accuracy.

If you're choosing a local person to speak alongside you or for you after the trip, that's a different decision, covered in do you need a local spokesperson for APAC.

The six-week prep timeline

Here's the sequence I'd run for a ten-day, two-city trip.

1. Six weeks out: confirm cities and dates. Build a target list per city: reporters who've covered your category in the last few months, plus podcasters and newsletter writers.
2. Five weeks out: prepare the founder brief, a short local-angle note per market, and translated fact sheets.
3. Four weeks out: send personalised meeting requests. Say why this reporter, why now, and what kind of meeting you're offering. For Korea, my notes on pitching Korean crypto journalists cover how to approach local outlets.
4. Three weeks out: one follow-up to anyone who hasn't replied. Book interpreters.
5. Two weeks out: lock the schedule. Leave at least 45 minutes between meetings and more across town. Traffic during conference weeks will eat your buffer.
6. One week out: media-train the founder on each market's likely questions, especially regulation. Confirm every meeting by message.
7. During the trip: one person (not the founder) keeps notes on every conversation, what was promised and to whom.

Founders always underestimate how tiring these weeks are. I once posted what a typical schedule looks like.

pre-travel preparations, itinerary planning attending the conf, side-events, parties jet-lagging post conf rinse & repeat Shilika Jain on X, 24 Jul 2023

Build rest into the plan. A jet-lagged founder in a 9am interview is not the founder you want quoted.

Follow-up: where the tour actually pays off

Most coverage from a media tour doesn't run during the trip. It runs weeks or months later, when the reporter has a reason to write and remembers you.

Within 48 hours of each meeting, send a short thank-you with anything you promised: data, a document, an introduction, a translated answer to a question you couldn't fully cover. Within two weeks, send a brief update if something relevant happened. After that, stay in touch only when you have something useful.

Expect some silence. Even reporters who say yes in person sometimes go quiet. I've asked publicly how to handle it.

what are PR folks supposed to do if reporters ghost after saying yes? Shilika Jain on X, 4 Oct 2024

My answer now: follow up once, politely, with something new. Then let it go and come back when you have news. Pushing harder burns the relationship you flew there to start.

The tour only works if the target list was right in the first place. Knowing who covers what is most of the job, and it's the part I'd never hand to a database alone:

my biggest flex is that when i see a launch announcement i can exactly tell you which publications + reporters would cover that first. Shilika Jain on X, 29 Sep 2026

On a tour, that judgement decides which eight to fifteen people get your founder's time. Get it right and the follow-up has somewhere to land.

When a media tour isn't worth it

A trip is expensive in money and founder time. I'd advise against one if:

• You have nothing to say to local audiences yet. No local users, partners or plans means briefings with nothing behind them.
• You can't commit to follow-up in the local language after the trip. Relationships started in person die quickly without it.
• The founder isn't comfortable with media yet. Do media training and a few remote interviews first. Japanese and Korean reporters in particular will press on regulation and compliance.
• You're hoping one trip will replace a local PR presence. It won't. A tour opens doors. Someone has to keep walking through them.

For founders who are ready, a well-planned tour can set up a year of regional coverage. That's the kind of work I do under founder profiling and my APAC PR service.

FAQ

How far in advance should I book interviews for an Asian media tour?

Start reaching out four to six weeks ahead, and earlier for Japan. During conference weeks reporters' calendars fill fast, so later requests often get declined or pushed to a call after the event. Confirm every booking again a week before.

Should the founder do the tour alone or bring a PR lead?

Bring someone. A PR lead or comms person handles logistics, keeps notes, manages follow-up and steps in if a conversation goes off track. Founders who tour alone usually lose half the value in the follow-up gap.

Can a media tour work without a conference to anchor it?

Yes, but it's harder. Without a conference you're asking reporters to make time for you specifically, so you need a stronger local angle, such as a partnership, a local launch or local data. The upside is less competition for attention.

What should the founder leave behind after each meeting?

A one-page fact sheet in the local language, the founder's short bio, and the contact details of whoever handles follow-up. Add a link to a press kit with logos and photos. Skip the merch and the long deck.

Planning a founder trip through Seoul, Tokyo, Singapore or India? Book a 30-minute call and we'll map the cities, meetings and follow-up together.