Scoring coverage in
TechCrunch is seen by many an Internet venture as the
key to making it big. In this post-bubble-1.0 world where the norm is smaller startups and less about securing massive funding or going IPO to generate big dollars for huge media buys, highly influential media are more important than ever to new ventures to help expose the venture to a large audience. To be clear, bloggers like Michael Arrington and his ilk are highly influential media. They should be treated as if they are Walt Mossberg, John Markoff or
Ed Baig when pitching them.
That said, as influential as Arrington, Scoble, Cashmore, Malik and others are, they can’t possibly cover every company they come across and every company they come across isn’t a good fit for them. Here are ten tips to getting TechCrunched.
1.
Read the blog you intend to pitch. Know what gets covered in TechCrunch and why. Chances are, if VCs are interested in you, TechCrunch will be too, but having a clear insight into what and how media write is invaluable when pitching them and will help whether you know the right VCs or not.
2.
Get an introduction. If you know anyone who knows someone at TechCrunch, this is your best in. TechCrunch gets piles of pitches every day. Because startups can be hard to vet, a referral will help open doors for you.
3.
Don’t write a press release, tell a (short) story. Crumple
up that press release, you don’t need it. Instead, write a note to your mom about what you do. Make it dead simple. No offense mom. While moms are willing to listen all day long to how we are “disrupting,” “revolutionizing,” or “changing the world,” TechCrunch doesn’t have the time. The note to your mom will help you distil your pitch to its essence. You only have a few sentences to catch TechCrunch’s attention.
4.
Know your value proposition and be able to express it in five words or less. This should be the lead of your pitch email. DO NOT say your product is unlike anything on the market today. Of course it’s not. That goes without saying. As a side benefit, you now have your elevator/party pitch. “Hi, I’m Christian. I work for a startup in Seattle. Think Facebook meets Monster.com.”
5. Give a frame of reference. The best way to do that is to say something like, “we’re the eBay for tickets” or “we’re MySpace for videogames.” It’s counterintuitive to use other companies to help define yours so think of it as defining your space – especially if you are trying to create a new space.
6. Know your space. Again, it is understood that you are different from your competition; you should still be able to list one or two competitors whose lunch you are going after.
Tip: don’t list every possible competitor, stick to the top one or two. Those are who you are going after and who you should be focused on. Leave the other emerging players off the list. 7. Don’t reference other coverage. That will make TechCrunch less likely to cover you, not more likely. The best place to try to leverage coverage is with TV. For example, if you get good coverage in the Wall Street Journal, you should immediately to go the cable TV channels and pitch them (I’ll go into depth in another post).
8. Be specific, concise and to the point. The remainder of the pitch doesn’t need to be overly polished. Too many adjectives can actually hurt you. If you reference stats to show a trend for example, make sure to include the stats. Including the stats saves time for the writer.
9. Who’s on the team. Who is working with you? Do they have past startup success to point to? Are they executives from well-known tech companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, etc.?
10. Make sure the timing is right. Do you have a news hook like you’re launching? You’re announcing funding? Make sure there is a news angle if at all possible. This creates a sense of urgency to cover you as well as makes the coverage more interesting for the reader.
Guy Kawasaki interviewed Michael Arrington, founder and editor of TechCrunch in November of 2006. It’s a bit long but worth checking out, here.
Michael is a good guy and exceedingly smart. Give him the high level into to your offering and he’ll ask all the right questions. If and when you pitch TechCrunch, be prepared for the eyeballs that follow.
Microblogging site 
M. FriendFeed = Facebook news feed. Robert Scoble is right. If you pay close enough attention to FriendFeed or your Facebook news feed, you can make out a conversation, IF you are following enough 
people. 
comments on sites like TC and others to Twitter and by extension, FriendFeed. This would capture the conversation Mike and Scoble had both in the comments of this post and tie them to the ‘offline’ conversation they had on the same topic on Twitter.