PR for Fundraising: How to Attract Investors & Announce a Round

Jason Kirby (00:02.378) Welcome to episode 24 of Fundraising Demystified, the podcast where we uncover the untold stories of startup founders who have raised capital to bring their visions to life. Join me, Jason Kirby, as I interview these founders and dive into the hidden truths of how they got funded. If you have not already subscribed, be sure to visit join.thunder.vc, again, join.thunder.vc, to get our weekly newsletter that demystifies the process of accessing capital and deploying Today, I take you down a different path. We have Jordan Bantista on the pod, a startup public relations expert. I've hosted a few of his clients on the pod before and decided to bring him on to share his secrets for navigating the PR landscape for startup founders. We discuss how to get investor attention through PR prior to your capital raise, when and how to announce your capital raise, and when it's appropriate for the founder to do PR themselves versus hiring a pro. This is a bit different than our usual episode, so please be sure to let me know what you think in the comments, and don't forget, subscribe and give us a thumbs up. Let's get started. So Jordan, welcome to the show today. Jordan Bantista (00:16.93) Thanks for having me, Jason. Jason Kirby (00:18.676) I'm excited to have you be able to share your insights and expertise when it comes to making sure not only VCs and investors know about your existence through your public relations, but also that they very well know your existence after you raise capital. So Jordan, it'd be great if you just can give the audience a little bit of background on who you are and kind of what led you to running your own PR firm today. Jordan Bantista (00:40.802) Yeah, sure. So I'm Jordan Bantista. I'm the founder of my own consultancy called Jordan Bantista PR. I help startups get impactful press coverage, especially around funding announcements. So prior to this, I was in house at a number of billion dollar plus startups like Yelp, Roe, which is the telehealth company behind Roman, as well as Article, the online modern furniture company. So worked. Nearly a decade in PR, I've done every type of PR under their sun. I've always worked in tech, tech startups, always been attracted to the entrepreneurial spirit. So I went, started my own shop in April of 2022. I don't know that there was ever like an aha moment, but I had the opportunity to do some freelance PR work on the side while I was in house and just was really attracted to it. I think I... Again, I'm attracted to that entrepreneurial spirit. Companies who really wanna go out there, make a ton of noise, make buzz, and just be really loud. And I found that when I was in house, sometimes it moved a little bit more slowly. And I also found alternatively that the agency model just really wasn't for me, right? It was like a ton of work, not as much pay. As I got older, that just like wasn't as attractive. So again, not an aha moment, but I started to think, Jason Kirby (01:53.494) Thanks for watching! Jordan Bantista (02:03.358) Ironically, I've worked with founders, entrepreneurs who have always thought and done things differently. And I don't know, I just kind of had a moment where I was like, yeah, actually, why don't I try out just doing some freelance stuff on my own? That eventually just turned into, okay, I have to do this full time. I can't juggle both. So yeah, I decided to roll out my own shop April 2022. Jason Kirby (02:09.528) I wanted some things to be seen. Jason Kirby (02:24.455) Thank you. Jordan Bantista (02:28.77) I've been working with early and growth stage startups, everything from funding announcements to thought leadership to in-person speaking events, again, everything under the sun. Jason Kirby (02:30.864) stage startups, everything, I'm digging out expense. Jason Kirby (02:40.22) So, kind of tell us a little bit about some of your clients that you've worked with. What kind of capital raises did you support them on and kind of what are the results of the PR efforts you put out there? Jordan Bantista (02:51.074) So a couple of clients that I've worked with recently, one is Foraged, Jack Hamrick is the CEO. It's the marketplace for wild and specialty foods. So they had a $2.7 million seed round that was led by Bessemer Venture Partners with some participation from angels like the CEOs of Yelp, Shopify, Etsy and the like. They also had some prior investment from Gramercy Tavern co-founder, Tom Clicchio. So some pretty impressive angels. So Jack approached me to see if he can get some buzz around this announcement. We got them into like the tech crunches of the world, some of the big business publications as well as some food trades. So whenever I have a client who comes to me and says, hey, I have funding announcements, I always kind of just stop and say, okay, what exactly is this announcement? How much is it? Who's involved? What's the industry here? And who are, who's the audience? Who exactly are we trying to reach? Is this an announcement we're trying to make to show current investors that you're making traction, that you're making noise? Is this to attract new investors? Is this to attract talent? And I think always people are looking to get customers, right? So I always take a second and just say, OK, what exactly is the primary goal here? And who can we reach? How do we do that? So with any client that I have, whether it be something like a marketplace for wild and specialty foods, Jason Kirby (03:53.491) Thank you. Jason Kirby (04:16.776) Thanks for watching! Jordan Bantista (04:19.018) marketplace for luxury watches, I say, okay, what are the outlets that are gonna help us reach that primary audience? And then we back the strategy up and say, maybe it's TechCrunch, maybe it's a trade that actually would do better than TechCrunch. So every strategy is a little bit different. Jason Kirby (04:25.864) that is really too insane. Maybe it's too much. Maybe it's a train. But... Jason Kirby (04:35.984) And I guess from a PR perspective, what's the importance of it? Like why should founders care about it? Why should they be strategic about fundraising announcements? And what should be some of the things that they take into consideration when looking at announcing a fundraiser or planning to announce a fundraiser? Jordan Bantista (04:54.678) I think most people think of PR just as kind of like this amorphous thing, right? Like they think about PR is like, what are people saying about me on Twitter? But there's much more, we can be much more thoughtful than that. Right? I think you should care about PR because it helps you tell your personal story. Um, whether you're the founder, whether the story of the company, um, it helps you differentiate yourself from your competitors and who else is in the industry. And then it also just keeps you top of mind for media opportunities to continue that flywheel. So I think if you're thinking about PR, this is something that you know is important, you know you need to do. If you have the budget, I always think it's best to consult a professional, whether that be someone in-house, whether that be a consultant, whether that be an agency, but I know that's not always realistic for everyone, especially if you're in those early stages. So I usually just say, if that's not available, Jason Kirby (05:30.181) Thank you. Jordan Bantista (05:50.862) do your research, see who's writing about your industry, who's writing about your competitors. And I'm kind of reluctant to say this as someone whose job is to have companies hire them to do this job, but reporters do love hearing from founders directly. It helps them build kind of an authentic relationship when you're the one reaching out to them directly as opposed to someone from an agency, right? So I think... Jason Kirby (05:52.945) See you. Jason Kirby (06:02.5) Thank you. Jason Kirby (06:16.332) So, I think... Jordan Bantista (06:17.502) If you do have budget, talk to someone say, hey, this is what I have. I need some help figuring out what to do here. If this is newsworthy, whether it's a funding announcement, a new product launch, a new C-suite appointment. And if that's not within your purview, if that's not available to you, there are ways for you to get out there and get in front of reporters. Jason Kirby (06:20.62) That's what I have. I need some heat here and now. Jason Kirby (06:37.852) So let's get tactical a little bit. Sorry. Let's get tactical a little bit and talk about, you know, in particular Jack from Forge, we had him on the show, thanks to you. And they delayed their fundraising announcement extensively, you know, for, for quite some time, they didn't want to go straight to market with, you know, after raising the round to go and announce it. Why should founders delay their fundraising announcements? Jordan Bantista (07:07.438) So I think there are a number of things that go into what the timing of your fundraising announcement. Candidly, I don't think it's the best approach to delay your announcement by six months to a year, because with reporters, they're looking for everything that's new, right? They want fresh news, they wanna know who's doing the latest thing, who's raising the money, and what that means for this industry. So I don't know that you necessarily need to delay. And in fact, you know, I usually recommend getting in touch with someone from PR, whether it be a consultant agency or if you're in-house person, as early as you can, right? Because this is gonna help you build a strategy from the very beginning that's gonna be able to integrate PR and just have a more seamless process than you would if you're six months down the line after your raise, a year after your raise and saying, okay, maybe we should get into tech crunch. It makes things just not impossible, but like a little bit more tricky. So... With Jack and that example, we had to do a little bit more work because it was some significant time after. And you do have to think about, OK, so what happens if a reporter asks you, you've delayed your announcement? Why are you doing that? You know, what's the reason? And if the candid reason is, well, we just didn't, you know, we didn't announce this because it wasn't a priority. That doesn't really read really well into that TechCrunch article. Right. So whenever I'm working with somebody. whenever I'm talking to a founder, I always recommend to get in touch with somebody from PR as soon as possible. Not even, you know, it doesn't matter if you are starting with them right then, but just to say like, is this the right plan? Are we on the right track? When should we get in touch? If this is someone with experience and who's done this before, they'll be able to tell you, this is the right place to do it. This is the right timing. If you're too early, they'll say, no, you know, wait six weeks, wait till after the fund is closed and then get in touch. So there are a couple options to you. Delaying a funding announcement isn't the end of the world and it doesn't mean you won't get coverage, but I always recommend getting in touch as early as possible. Jason Kirby (09:11.304) It's true, but in the case of Foraged and actually one of my past companies, there are a reason to which they delayed was their product wasn't really ready. If they had a big press release, they wouldn't have been able to capitalize on the audience that came with it because the product and the public facing aspect of the company wasn't necessarily ready for prime time. An example for another company that I helped raise a series A for, um, back in 2021, we knew that coming out and saying, Hey, we just raised $11 million. When we were in the ed tech space and our number one customer and user are teachers. They don't like necessarily seeing like, Oh, here's this big tech startup making all this money as a negative narrative for, for that particular audience. But what we realized is we had to kind of find a way to make that announcement work and get it in the right publications. to establish credibility for our recruiting. We wanted to be able to recruit talent, and there was no public information from a recruiting perspective to attract talents. Recruiting was a big reason for us. Some it's customer acquisition, some it's credibility. But the one we haven't talked about is pre-fundraising success. To basically get yourself on the radar of investors, what are some of the strategies that you've seen? that founders can look at considering or using to kind of get the word out about their company before they go into a capital raise. Jordan Bantista (10:46.358) Yeah, if you're in that situation where it's before a capital raise, you're trying to get on the radar of folks. I mean, one of the easiest ways to do that is just to do some general media relations, some relationship building tactics, whether you have it's yourself, or you have someone who does PR, just reaching out to some reporters in your industry and their beat and saying, Hey, this is a new company that's should be on your radar. They're going to have some really cool things coming up in the future. Like if you'd love to have connect with the founder, the CEO, just chat about what they're doing, what they're building. I'd love to set that up. Again, reporters love hearing from founders directly, especially ones who are building in the space. And so if you're reaching out to them before you have that round closed and you're just trying to get on some radars in the very beginning, it's always an option for you. There's also thought leadership, there's also in-person events, speaking opportunities. These are just some of the many things that you can do. What I would say, if you're... pretty strapped for time. Again, just going back to those basics of seeing if you can get on the radar of some reporters, just reach out, say, hey, this is what I'm doing. This is what I've done in the past. I'd love for you to talk, you know, know about my company. Do you wanna get a coffee? Do you wanna do a Zoom date? Something like that, I think is always worth it. Jason Kirby (12:03.796) Does that kind of strategy work always or is it, you know, do you kind of have to come out with newsworthy announcements to kind of start that relationship? Are reporters jumping on the more they get to know you or are they jumping on like something just happened, I want to cover it first? Jordan Bantista (12:19.574) I think it's a little bit of both. I think that reporters will do this like pre-raise get to know you, depending, context is important, right? If you're coming from a big company, you've got an impressive background, you're a person that they wanna know, yeah, they're going to. But sometimes, and even if you are that profile, you feel like you're the perfect person for them to know, sometimes reporters just don't have the time. And this is when it's advantageous to have a PR person to kind of keep on them over time, constantly reminding them like, hey, this is a new company that you should know, this is what they're building, they're gonna have something coming up just so that they're aware of what you're doing in space. Jason Kirby (13:01.496) And from like a measuring perspective, like measurable results from PR, that's always been one of like the big caveats and difficult for people in your position. And PR firms I've hired in the past, like, you know, show me the results. Like how do you go about measuring the impact of the work performed in public relations and whether it be getting people into podcasts, public publishing, tech grunge, whatever it might be. Like, what do you, what do you do to measure performance? Jordan Bantista (13:29.646) So there are a couple of different ways you can do that. And I think you do raise a really good question. Like this has always been kind of the fundamental question of how is this successful? And I think if I think about it in kind of two different buckets, like corporate PR, that's thought leadership, that's funding announcements, that's big business features. Consumer PR, if you're a consumer product, makeup, food and beverage, that sort of thing, you're selling a physical product. They're kind of in two different. separate buckets. So for me, specializing in funding announcements, corporate communications, I work with my clients on leads per month. So I say, I can't really control the editorial pipeline. You know, I kind of think of myself as either like a translator or a realtor between the client and the reporter. I'm kind of liaising between the two. I can't force an editor or a podcast host to post when I want them to. But I can get that interest from them, get things going, and get the process started so that we can see those results over time. And then some people on this more consumer side, if you're investing in something like affiliate marketing, you can set up Google Analytics. You can track links. You can actually see who's clicking on those links in the stories and if these publications are actually driving traffic to your site. So I think whatever it is, it's always a conversation, again, with your PR professional of, Jason Kirby (14:33.594) Thank you. Jason Kirby (14:39.96) Thanks. Jason Kirby (14:52.316) It's always a fun position to get with professional. What do you say? Jordan Bantista (14:55.274) What exactly are you going to do for me? What can I expect at the end of this? You have to be super, super clear on what your expectations are and also ask them super clear questions about what they think they can get for you. Jason Kirby (14:58.884) expect that you're going to be super secure in your expectations are and also ask them super cool questions about what they think. Let's unpack that a little bit more. Like when it comes to choosing an agency, like last PR firm I worked with was, I was in the gaming space and you have someone that knew the gaming publications, knew the gaming world, had those connections already. And, you know, interviewed probably half a dozen PR firms before settling with one who, you know, had for years and, you know, still I believe is the provider for the company I left a couple of years ago. Like what kind of questions or attributes do you look for or founders should look for in a PR firm? Jordan Bantista (15:43.17) So great question. I think about 10 years ago, people used to say, what relationships with reporters do you have? Who do you know? Who have you worked with? I think oftentimes I hear that these days, but that's just really not the reality of where PR is today. There are fewer reporters and more publicists than ever. I think Muckrack, which is like a database of reporter information, put out a study that there, for every one reporter, there are six publicists trying to get their attention. So the reality of the situation is, is that whether you're talking to five different agencies, they're probably pitching the same people. What I usually recommend to people if they're talking to an agency is say, can you give me an example of a situation where you did cold outreach to a new reporter that you've never worked with and what the success looked like? I think that's going to demonstrate their ability to go out and not really rest on laurels, but really show you that they have an ability to go out and make results happen. And then I also ask for case studies. If there is a company that they've worked with that's in a similar space, can you show me the coverage that you've gotten for them in the past? You can also ask for references. If they have clients that they've worked with in the past that they no longer work with, can you connect them? Can they recommend you? Can they say why they liked working with you? That's all available to you. Jason Kirby (17:03.304) I think another thing that comes to mind is something that founders often don't think about when it comes to PR strategy as a whole is like, are you newsworthy? Is what you're building or what you're doing newsworthy? And is there a way to make it newsworthy? And I think that's a good challenge to a PR firm of a founder basically doing a mind dump or brain dump. Jordan Bantista (17:13.953) Mm-hmm. Jason Kirby (17:30.556) on everything that they're doing and allowing that PR professional to kind of cherry pick, these are the points that are newsworthy. These are the ones that we could probably schedule out over a series of publications over the next however long the engagement is with this type of objective. So that's something I think would be an interesting way to vet out PR professionals and add that value, whereas it's one thing to kind of just go out and pitch a story that the founder did all the work for. you know, for a PR professional to kind of articulate the right message or the right story is something that a founder I think should be looking for in a PR firm. Jordan Bantista (18:08.95) Yeah, I would say the danger with that is, or a red flag maybe to look out for, is when you're talking to an agency and they tell you, yes, everything that you have is newsworthy, this is 100%, the media will love this. I always say, like, you know, are the, if this is truly someone who's good at strategy, find out what they're telling you that is not newsworthy, that will say no, because in all of my experience, a lot of times... our internal news wasn't actually newsworthy. So whenever I work with someone, I always have to have a really honest conversation and say, hey, this is just not something that the media is gonna cover right now. This is a constantly changing landscape. Maybe five years ago, they would have covered a $500,000 pre-seed. That's just not gonna happen today. Not when there are mega seed rounds that are 20 to $50 million. So I always recommend, when you're talking to someone, an agency, consultant, whoever it might be, Jason Kirby (19:00.36) Thanks for watching! Jordan Bantista (19:04.438) Pay attention to the strategy, what they're recommending. If they're telling you everything, they're gonna be a yes man for you because that can often lead to pitfalls later on. Jason Kirby (19:15.332) And like, we've been talking a lot about fundraising announcements. That's obviously the topic of our podcast is how do you go to market and announce your, your fundraising and what publications make the most sense for whatever goal it might have, but what are some other strategies that founders or companies themselves can benefit from when it comes to PR? Jordan Bantista (19:35.19) Yeah, I mean, fundraising is just one tool in the greater tool belt. I think having worked in-house at different companies, you just get like a really well-rounded look at what PR, communications, marketing can be. So funding is one thing and one way you can kickstart this, but there's also thought leadership. Can we get the CEO out there on a byline and a publication that matters? Can we get them on a podcast that is really impactful, that's getting in front of an audience? Are there events in the local city? If there's like a, if they're in New York city, San Francisco, Los Angeles, are there local events? On top of that, like this should be part of your greater marketing strategy. It should be 360 degrees. PR works really well and hand in hand with growth marketing. SEO, paid. So I would say get really tuned in with this larger strategy, thinking. Jason Kirby (20:10.903) Thank you. Jordan Bantista (20:30.258) Funding announcements are great, but that should just be the first step or just one step in your greater strategy. Jason Kirby (20:40.014) Gotcha. What are some of the mistakes that founders make when they want to do PR, you know, get published in whatever publications, podcasts, media? What are some of the mistakes that they have? Jordan Bantista (20:52.798) Yeah, great question. I would say number one is just blasting hundreds of reporters, putting in a mail merge in and just sending out the same pitch to 500 people. I don't think there's anything reporters hate more than knowing that they were part of just mass outreach. Another one is focusing only on one publication, like TechCrunch. Again, going back to that, what I said earlier, sometimes TechCrunch may not be the right fit. Maybe there are other publications that would be just as good if not better than that. And then something too is not delegating this role if it's not an option. There's a reason that entire companies have big teams dedicated to this one channel, just like any other type of marketing channel. So if this is something that is important to you and you have the budget or you just have, you know it's important enough to hire a professional, just consult with someone. see, you know, the worst that can happen is that it's not a fit for you and you can end up doing yourself. And then you also can learn some nice tips to do outreach yourself and see some success. Jason Kirby (22:02.758) Thanks. Jason Kirby (22:07.856) Sorry, long pause here, we'll cut it out. Jason Kirby (22:14.464) I think from the questions that we had. Go ahead. Yeah. Jordan Bantista (22:18.162) Can I make a statement on the, how do you get the attention of reporters to cover a story? That's kind of, I feel like I have some tips just for folks to be like, understand your audience, tailor each pitch, keep it short and simple. Jason Kirby (22:33.718) Okay. So how do you get reporters to pay attention? Jordan Bantista (22:36.714) Yeah, cover your funding announcement, cover your company. Jason Kirby (22:39.528) Okay, so we'll do that. Clap, now we're back for the editors. All right. So what's a tip for founders or what's your founders taking into consideration on how they get the attention of a publicist or no, sorry, I don't know why I said publicist, reporter. All right, so cut that out. So how does a founder or a PR specialist get the attention? of a reporter to cover their story. Jordan Bantista (23:10.922) Yeah, so if you're a founder doing this yourself, again, there's one reporter for every six publicists trying to get their attention, so you have competition. There are hundreds of emails being sent every single day. So I usually recommend or say you have about 10 seconds to get a reporter's attention. So a couple of tips that I have for you if you're just doing this yourself. A, understand the audience. Again. TechCrunch, Bloomberg, Forbes, they are great names and they'll do wonderful things for your business, but sometimes they're not always the right fit for the announcement that you have. And again, consulting a PR professional, be able to tell you, okay, maybe this isn't the right avenue for me. Maybe we should go to a trade or go to a podcast with this type of story. So understanding where your audience is, is paramount to getting success and whatever story you're trying to tell. The second one is tailoring each pitch. Again, reporters hate knowing that they're part of a mass blast. They hate knowing that you did not do your research. So whenever I'm reaching out to a publication, I'm reading out, reaching out to a reporter. I always say in the pitch why I'm pitching them. Hey, Jason, I saw you covered competitor in my industry. So I thought you'd be interested in what we're doing from there. You got about 10 seconds to keep their attention before they move on to the next email. So I always say. Jason Kirby (24:15.639) Thank you. Jordan Bantista (24:31.95) Keep it really short and simple if you can. I've seen tweets from reporters who say, if you cannot explain to me in five sentences what your pitch is, what your company is, then I'm deleting your email. So you're seeing the severity of the situation here. I joke around with some of my clients and say, if you're pitching a reporter yourself, imagine that the reporter is your mom on the other side. Are they gonna understand the jargon that you're using, the terms that you're using? Jason Kirby (24:39.769) Thank you. Jason Kirby (24:58.297) Thanks. Jordan Bantista (25:01.386) Are they going to be able to read these huge blocks of text? Probably not. So keep it really simple, cut out any industry terms and be super specific on what this actually is and why you're pitching them. On top of that, why right now? Why is this timely? Why is your company building AI timely right now in 2023? These are the things that reporters really care about and will really help increase your chances of them actually covering your company. Jason Kirby (25:03.348) Thank you. Jason Kirby (25:07.976) but I'll mention this in a few words. I'll be super specific on what this actually is and why it works for them. We'll talk about it in a minute. Jason Kirby (25:31.664) I would say that advice is similar to outreach to investors in terms of get to the point as quickly as possible, make it personal, make it relevant, and don't send blocks of text. I think that's a pretty much a deal killer on anyone. Anytime I just see like a... Jordan Bantista (25:42.487) Sure. I'm anyone. I was gonna say, never send blocks of text to anyone. Investors, reporters, me, like we got to keep it short. Yes. No prospect. Yeah. Jason Kirby (25:52.124) sales prospects, anything. It's like anytime, I get like probably 10 of those a day where it's just like giant 10-cent paragraphs of why we're special, but it's like, it's never, it's just, I just, nope. Yeah, exactly. Not even gonna give it a shot. So when it comes to the overall conceptualization of new stories. Jordan Bantista (25:59.767) Yeah. Jordan Bantista (26:03.638) You're... Glazed over. Jordan Bantista (26:08.703) Yeah. Jason Kirby (26:18.308) What are some frameworks or ideas that founders should reflect on? Because it's kind of hard to like do something newsworthy every month. And typically working with an agency, there is some kind of expectation of monthly output or weekly output, whatever it might be. Like what are some frameworks or ideas that founders can consider or use for themselves or use with an agency they might be working with to drum up and create newsworthy content? Jordan Bantista (26:43.662) So I think it's helpful to think about this in a way that reporters are not writing stories to feature your company solely. They're not marketing promo. This is not advertisements. They're writing for their audiences. And one of the most important things to remember is what's the larger story here? You got a funding announcement, a new C-suite appointment, whatever the news is, think about what the larger trend is here. Again, reporters are always looking for the new and noteworthy thing. So thinking about how does my announcement, how does my news relate to a larger trend? How does it play into that? What does this say for the industry? And especially if this is a capital raise, this is money, that's they're looking to follow the money. So this is a significant thing for the industry. What does this say about where the industry is heading that investors are pouring money into the startup that's doing XYZ? So. I would say probably the most important thing is pay attention to these larger trends. What's happening in the industry? What are reporters talking about? What are they writing about? What are investors talking about? And see how can you slot yourself into that over time. You'll have much more success getting more consistent coverage than you would just pitching yourself to be featured on TechCrunch. Jason Kirby (28:02.644) Yeah, no, that really works. I know because I desperately tried in my first couple of businesses and they never responded, you know. But, you know, the PR can be, you know, it's just like raising capital. It's lots of rejection if you don't know what you're doing and, you know, it takes a long, long time to figure it out and then you should bring in experts to help and support the process. Jordan Bantista (28:09.771) Yeah. Jordan Bantista (28:21.758) Yeah, and those experts like myself were super used to being rejected, to being ignored. We know how to keep on top of this. We know how to keep iterating, changing things so that you do end up seeing that success. So it's always worth just having a conversation with someone to see how they do that. Jason Kirby (28:40.548) And kind of changing gears, like what are some non-traditional PR strategies to get attention? Jordan Bantista (28:47.306) Yeah, so I think a good example for my past experience, I would say influencer marketing and this bear with me. So when I was at telehealth company Rowe, we did a little bit of, I guess you could call influencer marketing and that this was before the pandemic, this was 2018, 2019. So telehealth really wasn't as big of a conversation as it is now. So there was a lot of skepticism around. Is this a legitimate business? Is this a real service? Am I actually talking to a doctor? So that we had built this advisory board of influencers who were notable doctors, anything from a former US Surgeon General to heads of urology at universities like NYU and Cornell, legitimate doctors who knew what they were doing, who were informing what our treatments were for our patients. So I think about what does that look like for you? This is not like influencer marketing for a telehealth company. It's not just like paying someone on TikTok to talk about erectile dysfunction. That's not how this works. But thinking about what is our weakness or what's a pain point that we have right now? And then how can we finagle ourselves to best that? And in that instance, for us, we were trying to work against the credibility aspect of this. Like, is this a legitimate telehealth business? Jason Kirby (29:47.713) Thanks for watching! Jason Kirby (30:00.732) And that instance was... Jordan Bantista (30:08.95) So we surrounded ourselves and involved ourselves with some of the best doctors in the country so that patients would feel that this was legitimate and that they felt comfortable coming to our platform to get treatment. Jason Kirby (30:21.616) What are some other examples in your background that can highlight some of these non-traditional PR strategies? Jordan Bantista (30:29.418) I mean, I think going back to what I said before, just the 360 marketing strategy, PR is just one step of a larger strategy. If you're only investing in PR, you may not see the results or you may not feel that you're everywhere, that everyone's talking about you at once. Advertising, SEO, events, we had community management going on when I was at Roe, at Yelp. You have to incorporate this into a larger marketing strategy. Um, otherwise you may not see your results maximized. Um, you got that really nice, like Forbes brand story. Now you want to go and put that paid behind that so that you can put it on Facebook ads, Instagram ads, you can put it on subway ads, the logo. We've been featured in X, Y, and Z. Um, that helps create that halo effect of your company is everywhere. People are talking about you. This is buzzing. Jason Kirby (31:26.8) That makes sense. Well, Jordan, it's been great having you on the show, but before we wrap up, what's some parting advice to founders that are looking at PR as a potential channel for them? Jordan Bantista (31:39.566) PR isn't as scary as it's made out to be. I think again, just going back, it's this amorphous kind of like Twitter like anxiety that I think a lot of people have. If you can ask around your network for recommendations for folks, for agencies, consultants, whoever it might be, just to have a conversation, confirm what you may know, or maybe get some ideas about what you can do to maximize what you're already doing. If you do have to go it alone, again, do your research, tailor your outreach to these reporters. It can keep it simple. Like these are the things, it's not as complicated as it has to be. These are the things that your PR professional is gonna do already. But if you don't have that option to go with somebody else, you can do them yourself and find that you're gonna have success. Jason Kirby (32:30.888) I appreciate that. And I'd also like to add one thing for our listeners, you know, from my background when it comes to doing PR, especially pre-capital raise, there is a ton of value in having your company be publicly known in some degree, in some niche or category before you go out for a capital raise because it just gives VCs some signal and also might put you on their radar where otherwise... If their only interaction with you is a cold email and they've never seen you anything at anywhere else, you know, no publications, they just might not think you're very legit or if they don't have a lot of VCs will have scraping engines or tools or resources to kind of pull in any kind of press releases related to the industry that they invest in. And it's a great way to just kind of get top of mind or get exposure to VCs. And it's not unusual for founders to get hit up by VCs when they do something interesting in the media. So. can be very complimentary to your capital raise in addition to just overall awareness of your business to your customers. So Jordan, with that said, where can our listeners learn more about you? Jordan Bantista (33:39.542) You can go to my website, jordanbandtista.com, or you can hit me up on LinkedIn, just Jordan Bandtista. Jason Kirby (33:47.383) And anything else you'd like to share before we wrap up? Jordan Bantista (33:50.526) No, thanks for having me on. This was great. Love talking about PR whenever I can. I really appreciate it. Jason Kirby (33:57.784) Perfect. Well, let me show you to keep those links in the show notes down below. And, you know, thanks for being on the show, Jordan. Thanks for sharing your insights and hopefully founders can get inspired, whether it's doing it themselves or bringing on an expert like yourself. Jordan Bantista (34:11.202) Thanks, Jason. Jason Kirby (34:12.828) Have a good one.