Author: Paul Cafiero, Communications Partner at a16z Marketing Team
Compiled by: Saoirse, Foresight News
Original title: Essential Media Communication Handbook for Crypto Entrepreneurs
"Communications" (often abbreviated as "comms") is an umbrella term referring to the various strategic systems that companies develop to effectively communicate with different groups—including employees, media, investors, and other stakeholders.
The core scope of communications includes: creating original content on owned websites and social media platforms (also known as "direct communication," i.e., reaching audiences directly without relying on third-party channels); writing thought leadership articles; coordinating internal communication efforts to ensure information alignment; establishing collaborations with key opinion leaders (KOLs) to amplify messages through their influence; and securing both organic (non-paid) and paid opportunities for event participation and public speaking. Additionally, communications inevitably involve media engagement (i.e., public relations, or PR), which is a crucial channel for companies to convey information externally.
No single communication strategy or execution method is absolutely superior to others. Therefore, determining which approach best suits one's needs becomes a key question.
In this article, I will systematically explain how to build a communication strategy, what core methods can be leveraged to achieve goals, and also clarify that, although traditional media relations have a mixed reputation in some tech circles, they remain an important tool for startups to accurately convey brand messages and expand their influence.
How to Build a Scientific Communication Strategy
The core mental model I use to build communication strategies revolves around the answers to the following three key questions:
-
What are your core business objectives? (e.g., expanding user base, attracting investment, building industry reputation)
-
Which key audience groups must you reach to achieve these objectives? (e.g., potential customers, industry investors, technical developers)
-
What are the most effective execution methods to reach these audiences?
At the heart of all these considerations is the company's "core message and narrative logic"—the core problem you and your team are working to solve, the industry or social value that solving this problem will bring (what the new world will look like), and which groups will directly benefit in this "new scenario."
Regardless of the audience or the medium used (e.g., text, video, offline events), the company's core narrative and message should remain consistent, as this is the foundation for building brand recognition. However, different content dimensions should be emphasized for different audiences: for example, investors focus more on business data, profit models, and future growth potential, while media are more interested in the "hook" of a news story (headline appeal), key turning points in the company's development journey, and the readability of the story.
What Core Communication Methods Can Be Leveraged?
Although the business objectives and target audiences of different projects vary, the framework of reusable communication methods is consistent and主要包括 includes the following five categories:
-
Owned Content: Refers to content channels fully controlled by the company, such as building an official blog, producing brand videos, or publishing industry white papers or research reports on the website. The advantage of this type of content is that it can deeply convey the brand philosophy without relying on third-party review.
-
Social Platforms (Brand Accounts + Personal Accounts): Although companies do not own the social platforms themselves, they are efficient channels for reaching target audiences—because audiences are active on these platforms daily (e.g., X, Discord). For startups, it is recommended to adopt a "brand account + personal account"联动 model: the brand account conveys official information (e.g., business progress, industry perspectives), while the personal accounts of founders and core employees can share more personal content (e.g., entrepreneurial insights, technical thoughts). The combination of both can enhance audience trust.
-
Community Building: Building dedicated online communities through tools like Discord, Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, and operating around brand or industry topics. This method can directly connect core people within the ecosystem, such as technical developers, partners, and loyal users, facilitating feedback collection, consensus building, and forming a "private domain base" for information dissemination.
-
Speaking Opportunities and Industry Conferences: Includes serving as a speaker at important offline community events and industry summits, or appearing as an attendee. These scenarios not only directly reach high-quality audiences (e.g., industry practitioners, investors) but also reinforce the brand's professional image through live interaction, while accumulating materials for subsequent communication (e.g., speech videos, media coverage).
-
Media Collaboration: Divided into "active outreach" and "passive response" modes: The active mode includes pitching story ideas to media (e.g., the company's innovative technology, industry insights), recommending experts for interviews to provide commentary, and submitting original articles. The passive mode involves responding to media inquiries (e.g., interpreting industry hot topics, explaining company developments). Here, "media" encompasses two types: first, vertical cryptocurrency media (e.g., Coindesk, The Block, etc., with more targeted audiences), and second, traditional mainstream media (e.g., The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, etc., with broader coverage and credibility背书 value).
The Core Value of Media Collaboration for Startup Teams
Among all the communication methods mentioned above, "media relations" (i.e., public relations, or PR) is the most controversial among tech founders. This is not without reason: on one hand, some journalists and media institutions have become increasingly critical of the tech industry, even with negative presuppositions; but on the other hand, in my consulting work with startups, "how to do media collaboration well" remains one of the most frequently mentioned needs by founders.
Many founders have specific requests: How to get their funding round covered by TechCrunch (an important exposure channel in the tech industry)? How to publish a positive feature article in Fortune magazine showcasing the company's value? Or how to get an invitation to TBPN, collaborate with the Bankless team to record an hour-long industry podcast (reaching the core audience in the cryptocurrency field)?
Why do founders value media collaboration so much? The core reasons are: Regardless of one's overall view of the media, "news coverage" possesses two irreplaceable values—
First, the "third-party endorsement" effect: Compared to self-praise, objective media coverage is more likely to gain audience trust;
Second, the potential for "breaking through circles": Through media, companies can reach audiences that are otherwise difficult to access, such as potential core employees (talents who follow industry trends), potential customers (who learn about brand value through media), and industry opinion leaders (who may initiate collaborations as a result). Simultaneously, reaching new audiences can also feed back into the company's owned channels (e.g., guiding followers to official accounts). For resource-constrained startups, opportunities to "increase exposure and enhance influence" are crucial and should not be missed.
Take the cryptocurrency company Kalshi as an example: its founding team recently participated in a recording for CBS's "Sunday Morning" program—the audience reached by this traditional mainstream media platform is completely different from the core users who are "always online" on X platform (formerly Twitter) in the tech领域 (the former covers a broader general public, the latter consists mainly of industry practitioners). Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour shared a detail: the mother of one team member truly understood Kalshi's business value only after watching this program. This story恰恰印证了 the unique value of "reaching diverse audiences through traditional media"—it allows companies to break through existing circles and reach previously untapped groups.
Screenshot of the Kalshi team's interview segment on CBS's "Sunday Morning" program, discussing Kalshi's prediction market business
Note: The man on the left is Kalshi's CEO Tarek Mansour, the woman on the right is Kalshi's co-founder Luana Lopes Lara (she is also one of the world's youngest self-made female billionaires)
This is precisely why "media relations"始终稳居 the core position in the communication toolkit: Media can not only drive traffic to company-owned channels (e.g., inserting website links, account prompts in reports) but also help founders and companies establish a professional image (e.g., showcasing technical strength through in-depth reports), and even accelerate business progress—for example, companies with media coverage背书 are more attractive to talent during recruitment; during sales, the trust cost for customers who learn about the brand through media is significantly reduced. In the long run, media collaboration can also enhance the effect of "direct communication"—when owned content and media coverage echo each other, the penetration power of information delivery is stronger.
Therefore, founders should not be afraid to establish connections with media; instead, they should proactively learn how to leverage this tool to突出自身价值 amidst the vast amount of information and achieve "effective breakout."
The Key to Building Media Relations: How to Stand Out
We now live in an era of "information overload," which is particularly evident in the media industry—especially for the journalists you are trying to reach, who are inundated with massive amounts of information daily.
If you randomly open the inbox of a tech or cryptocurrency journalist, podcast host, or content creator, you would be shocked: there might be hundreds or even thousands of emails from PR professionals, all promoting their respective clients or projects. In fact, data shows that the ratio of media relations practitioners to journalists is as high as 6:1—meaning, on average, one journalist faces "information bombardment" from six PR people. In this situation, journalists have almost no energy to screen information one by one, making it difficult to distinguish between valuable in-depth content and敷衍的 "promotional rhetoric."
Why does this chaos occur? There are two core reasons: First, many PR professionals have not received professional training and do not understand the real needs of media (e.g., journalists need newsworthy stories, not mere corporate advertisements); Second, some PR professionals lack professional judgment and dare not反驳 clients' unreasonable demands (e.g.,强行要求 media to cover insignificant "small matters"), resorting to a "spray and pray" approach to send promotional content, ultimately leading to "flooding of low-quality information," further exacerbating the dissatisfaction of journalists, producers, and podcast hosts—forming a vicious cycle.
Worse still, some cryptocurrency projects overpromise in their promotions, claiming to "solve major industry problems," but their actual business progress is slow, or they are merely "castles in the air" (referring to projects that are only at the conceptual stage with no real product). This "false宣传" further damages media trust in the industry, making it significantly more difficult for "quality projects to gain more attention."
But from another perspective, the contrast between "scarcity of quality news resources" and "flooding of劣质信息"恰恰 provides an opportunity for truly valuable companies: Those that can clearly tell their story (conveying core value) and establish deep trust relationships with mainstream media professionals will gain a significant competitive advantage—because they can make media believe that "covering this company is valuable," thereby obtaining more exposure opportunities.
A Practical Guide from 0 to 1
If founders want to achieve efficient interaction with media, they need to keep in mind the following four core principles:
1. The Founder is the Company's "Best Spokesperson"
The company's core narrative and brand story are essentially "an extension of the founder's理念," so never expect an outsourced team to handle everything for you. Although hiring professional PR personnel, PR agencies, or freelancers can provide support (e.g., structuring content frameworks, connecting media resources), they can at best help you "knock on the media's door." What truly impresses media and resonates with audiences is the story told by the founder personally—because the founder knows best the company's original intention, the challenges in development, and its value, and can convey the most genuine emotion and professionalism. Therefore, the founder must personally participate in构思 the story and deliver it in an engaging way (e.g., accepting interviews, writing bylined articles).
2. "Trust Relationship" is the Core of Media Collaboration
View media relations as analogous to "business development" (BD)—the core is not "one-time推销" but "building long-term trust." Whether actively pitching speaking opportunities to media or interacting with journalists on X platform about industry topics, the key is to establish personal-level trust through continuous, valuable communication. Often, a journalist's decision to cover a company, invite a founder to participate in a podcast, or provide a speaking opportunity is not solely because "the company has a news point," but because "trust has been established with the founder/PR team"—the journalist knows they can obtain真实, valuable information from them (e.g., exclusive industry insights, timely interview feedback), rather than敷衍的 "official rhetoric." The foundation of this trust is the PR team's long-term "reliable performance": for example, promised materials are delivered on time, questions are answered坦诚ly without concealment, and媒体 are not forced to publish worthless content.
How to build trust relationships with core media?
Specific methods vary from person to person, but the core logic is "provide value first, then discuss cooperation."
-
Step 1: Proactively become the media's "information resource库." For example, when an industry hot topic emerges,主动 share professional perspectives with familiar journalists (without promoting the company itself) to help journalists interpret the event more comprehensively; or when journalists need data or case studies to support their reporting, provide力所能及的支持 (e.g., excerpts from industry reports, cases within compliance boundaries).
-
Step 2: Avoid "功利性 communication." In initial interactions, do not rush to promote the company's products or developments; instead, first focus on "what the media needs"—for instance, understand the journalist's coverage areas and expertise, and provide valuable content based on their needs, making the journalist feel that "you care about the value of their work, not just using them."
-
Step 3: Leverage offline scenarios to deepen relationships. Industry conferences, forums, and other offline events are good opportunities for face-to-face communication with media. At this time, you can step away from "work topics" and engage in appropriate light conversation (e.g., discussing industry trends, sharing personal insights), upgrading the relationship from "business dealings" to "professional partnership," which is crucial for long-term cooperation.
3. Media Are Neither "Friends" Nor "Enemies," But "Professional Partners"
It is necessary to明确 a perception: Some media do have their own reporting stances or topic preferences (e.g., focusing on industry regulation, corporate social responsibility, etc.), but for the vast majority of journalists, the core demand is always "discovering and reporting valuable stories"—this is their professional goal. Therefore, do not regard media as "friends that must be pleased" (trying to obtain positive coverage through personal relationships), nor as "enemies that may smear the company" (avoiding interaction for fear of negative coverage). The correct attitude is "professional to professional": both坦诚ly share the company's strengths and achievements, and do not avoid challenges in development (e.g., when asked sensitive questions, respond objectively within compliance boundaries, rather than敷衍搪塞). Also learn to "judge interaction boundaries": Some topics (e.g., undisclosed financing details, core technical secrets) can be clearly stated as "not convenient to disclose at the moment," without overcompromising to "please media"; and when media make unreasonable demands (e.g.,要求 exaggerate performance), have the courage to refuse—in the long run, an image of "坦诚且有原则" gains more respect from media than "blindly迎合."
4. The Company Story Must Be "Embedded in the Era Background" to Resonate
The founders who are best at conveying value through media all possess one ability: to connect the company's business, products, or理念 with broader industry trends and social needs—making the media and audience understand that "the existence of this company is not only for profit but also to promote industry progress or solve a social problem." This kind of story "embedded in the era background" has far more news value and is more likely to resonate than a mere "company introduction."
For example, the annual year-end summary content (e.g., Spotify's Year in Review, Google's Year in Search trends analysis, or a16z and Coinbase's cryptocurrency industry status reports) can be widely disseminated primarily because they "jump out of their own business," combine data with "user behavior changes" and "industry trends," providing unique perspectives and value—while further expanding reach through charts and visual design to make the content easier to understand.
For founders in the cryptocurrency field, this logic can be borrowed: Combine the company story with industry hot topics, such as "how stablecoins help improve cross-border payment efficiency," "what industry pain points can be solved by combining AI and blockchain," "how decentralized finance (DeFi) promotes financial inclusion," etc. When the company story is tied to these "era topics," media are more willing to report—because this is not just "company news" but also "a microcosm of industry trends," providing greater value to readers.
The core principle is: Don't just say "what we did," but also explain "what what we did means for the industry and society"—this is the key to breaking through the information noise.
The "Active Defense" Strategy for Media Relations: Prepare in Advance, Don't React Passively
Some founders might ask: "What if I completely don't want to deal with media?"
This thought is understandable, but the reality is: As a startup grows, especially as its business scale expands and its influence increases, it is almost impossible to completely avoid public attention—whether through active business exposure or passive industry attention, media may come knocking.
Therefore, a wiser approach is to "actively build media relations" rather than "passively respond." Especially when facing negative coverage or crisis events (regardless of the fairness of the event itself), "pre-established media trust" will become an important safeguard: If the company has maintained good interaction with core media beforehand, journalists are more likely to be willing to listen to the company's side of the story when reporting, presenting the event objectively rather than relying solely on one-sided information; conversely, if the company has never engaged with media, once negative news emerges, it may become passive due to "lack of voice."
"Crisis PR" itself is a professional skill, and specific methods will be discussed in detail in another article. But the core logic can be summarized as "the best defense is a good offense": Before a crisis occurs, do three things—build完善的 communication channels (e.g., official accounts, owned communities) to ensure rapid delivery of the company's voice; establish trust relationships with core journalists and industry opinion leaders to ensure there are "communicable objects"; deeply understand the needs and concerns of core audiences to ensure the information delivered can accurately reach them. Doing these three things well will allow for a more从容 response even in the face of a crisis.
Conclusion
Today, some founders view media as "intimidating entities," while others use them as "scapegoats when business is not smooth" (e.g., blaming insufficient exposure on media lack of attention). But in fact, media are essentially "bridges for information transmission"—as long as adequate preparation is made (crafting a clear story, building a professional team) and the right mindset is maintained (professional to professional, focusing on long-term trust), it can become a powerful aid for founders to drive company development: helping companies break through circles to reach audiences, establish a professional image, and accelerate business growth.
May all founders move forward steadily on the path of "building a brand openly and transparently," while mastering the core tool of media collaboration, allowing the company's value to be seen by more people.
Twitter:https://twitter.com/BitpushNewsCN
Bitpush TG Discussion Group:https://t.me/BitPushCommunity
Bitpush TG Subscription: https://t.me/bitpush
