Written by: Paul Cafiero, Communications Partner at a16z Marketing Team
Compiled by: Saoirse, Foresight News
"Communications" (often abbreviated as "comms") is an umbrella term referring to the various strategic systems that companies establish to communicate effectively 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," reaching audiences directly without relying on third-party channels); writing thought-leadership articles; coordinating internal communication to ensure information alignment; collaborating with Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) to amplify messages; and securing both organic (non-paid) and paid opportunities for event participation and public speaking. Additionally, communications inevitably involve media relations (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 your needs becomes the key question.
In this article, I will systematically explain how to build a communication strategy, the core methods available to achieve your goals, and illustrate that, despite the mixed reputation of traditional media relations in some tech circles, it remains a vital tool for startups to accurately convey their brand message and expand their influence.
How to Build a Scientific Communication Strategy
My core mental model for building a communication strategy revolves around the answers to three key questions:
- What is your core business objective? (e.g., user growth, attracting investment, building industry reputation)
- Which core audience groups must you reach to achieve this goal? (e.g., potential customers, industry investors, technical developers)
- What is the optimal execution method to reach these audiences?
At the heart of all this thinking is the company's "core message and narrative"—the core problem you and your team are working to solve, the industry or societal value its solution will bring (what the new world will look like), and which groups will directly benefit in this "new scenario."
Regardless of who you are communicating with or the medium used (e.g., text, video, offline events), the company's core narrative and message should remain consistent; 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 care more about 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 Utilized?
Although the business objectives and target audiences of different projects vary, the reusable framework of methods is consistent, mainly including the following five categories:
- Owned Content: Refers to content channels fully controlled by the company, such as building an official blog, producing brand videos, publishing industry white papers or research reports on the website. The advantage of this type of content is the ability to 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 to reach target audiences—because audiences are active daily on these platforms (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 views), while the personal accounts of founders and core employees can share more personal content (e.g., entrepreneurial insights, technical thoughts). The combination enhances audience trust.
- Community Building: Building dedicated online communities using tools like Discord, Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp to operate around brand or industry topics. This method directly connects core people within the ecosystem, such as technical developers, partners, and loyal users, facilitating feedback collection, consensus building, and forming a "private domain" for information dissemination.
- Speaking Opportunities & Industry Conferences: Includes serving as a speaker at important offline community events and industry summits, or making appearances as an attendee. These scenarios not only directly reach high-quality audiences (e.g., industry practitioners, investors) but also strengthen the brand's professional image through live interaction, while accumulating materials for subsequent communication (e.g., speech videos, media coverage).
- Media Collaboration: Divided into "proactive" and "reactive" modes. The proactive mode includes pitching story ideas to media (e.g., the company's innovative technology, industry insights), recommending experts for interviews or commentary, and submitting original articles. The reactive 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, with more precise audiences), and second, traditional mainstream media (e.g., The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, with broader reach and credibility endorsement value).
The Core Value of Media Collaboration for Startup Teams
Among all the communication methods mentioned above, "media relations" (Public Relations, 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 preconceptions; 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 from founders.
Many founders have specific requests: How to get coverage of their funding round in TechCrunch (a crucial 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 space)?
Why do founders value media collaboration so much? The core reasons are: regardless of overall views on 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": Media can help reach audiences otherwise difficult to access, such as potential core employees (talents following industry trends), potential clients (understanding brand value through media), and industry opinion leaders (who might initiate collaboration). Simultaneously, reaching new audiences can also feed back into the company's owned channels (e.g., guiding followers to official accounts). For resource-limited startups, opportunities to "increase exposure and enhance influence" are crucial and cannot 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 "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 a team member truly understood Kalshi's business value only through this program. This story precisely illustrates the unique value of "reaching diverse audiences through traditional media"—allowing companies to break through existing circles and reach previously untapped groups.
Screenshot of Kalshi team's interview segment on CBS's 'Sunday Morning' program about 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 (also one of the world's youngest self-made female billionaires)
This is precisely why "media relations" remains core in the communication toolkit: media can not only drive traffic to owned channels (e.g., inserting website links, account prompts in reports) but also help founders and companies build a professional image (e.g., showcasing technical strength through in-depth reports), and even accelerate business progress—for example, companies with media endorsement are more attractive to talent during recruitment; in sales, trust costs significantly decrease after clients learn about the brand through media. In the long run, media collaboration can also enhance the effect of the company's "direct communication"—when owned content and media coverage echo each other, the penetration of information delivery becomes stronger.
Therefore, founders should not fear building relationships with media but should proactively learn how to leverage this tool to stand out amidst the information overload and achieve "effective breakthrough."
The Key to Building Media Relationships: 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.
Just open the inbox of any tech or cryptocurrency journalist, podcast host, or content creator, and you'll be shocked: there might be hundreds or even thousands of emails from PR professionals, all promoting their 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 little energy to screen information individually, making it hard to distinguish valuable深度 content from敷衍 "promotional pitches."
Why does this chaos occur? The core reasons are two-fold: first, many PR professionals lack professional training and don't 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 things"), resorting to a "spray and pray" approach to send promotional content, ultimately leading to "inferior information泛滥," further exacerbating the dissatisfaction of journalists, producers, and podcast hosts—creating a vicious cycle.
Worse still, some cryptocurrency projects overpromise in promotions, claiming to "solve major industry problems," but their actual progress is slow, or they are merely "castles in the air" (referring to projects停留在 concept stage with no real product). This "false宣传" further damages media trust in the industry, making it significantly harder for "quality projects to gain more attention."
But from another perspective, the contrast between "scarce quality news resources" and "flood of inferior information"恰恰 provides an opportunity for truly valuable companies: those that can clearly tell their story (conveying core value) and build deep trust relationships with mainstream media practitioners 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
Founders who want to achieve efficient interaction with media should remember 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 vision," so never hope that an outsourced team can handle everything for you. Although hiring professional PR personnel, PR agencies, or freelancers can provide support (e.g., structuring content, 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初心, challenges, and value, and can convey the most genuine emotion and professionalism. Therefore, the founder must be personally involved in crafting the story and delivering 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 proactively 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 exchanges. Often, a journalist decides to cover a company, invite a founder to a podcast, or provide a speaking opportunity, not solely because "the company has a news angle," but because "trust has been built with the founder/PR team"—the journalist knows they can obtain真实, valuable information from them (e.g., exclusive industry perspectives, timely interview feedback), not敷衍 "official rhetoric." The foundation of this trust is the PR team's long-term "reliable performance": for example, delivering promised materials on time, answering questions坦诚ly without concealment, and not forcing media to publish valueless 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 collaboration."
- Step 1: Proactively become a "resource library" for media. For example, when an industry hot topic emerges, proactively share professional insights with familiar journalists (without promoting your own company), helping journalists interpret the event more comprehensively; or provide力所能及 support when journalists need data or case studies for their reports (e.g., excerpts from industry reports, compliant case examples).
- Step 2: Avoid "utilitarian communication." In initial interactions, don't rush to promote the company's products or updates; instead, focus first 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 their work value, not just using them."
- Step 3: Leverage offline scenarios to deepen relationships. Industry conferences, forums, and other offline events are great opportunities for face-to-face communication with media. You can then move beyond "work topics" for适当的轻松交流 (e.g., discussing industry trends, sharing personal insights),升级 the relationship from "business dealings" to "professional partnership," which is crucial for long-term collaboration.
3. Media are Neither "Friends" nor "Enemies," but "Professional Partners"
It's important to have a clear understanding: some media do have their own reporting stances or topic preferences (e.g., focusing on industry regulation, corporate social responsibility), but for the vast majority of journalists, the core诉求 is always "discovering and reporting valuable stories"—this is their professional goal. Therefore, don't view media as "friends that must be pleased" (trying to gain positive coverage through personal connections), nor as "enemies that might 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回避 challenges in development (e.g., when asked sensitive questions, respond objectively within compliance boundaries, rather than敷衍搪塞). 同时要学会 "judge interaction boundaries": some topics (e.g., undisclosed funding details, core technical secrets) can be clearly stated as "not convenient to disclose at the moment," no need to over-compromise to "please media"; and when media make unreasonable demands (e.g., exaggerating performance), have the courage to refuse—in the long run, an "坦诚且有原则" image gains more media respect than "blindly迎合."
4. The Company Story Must be "Embedded in the Era Context" to Resonate
The founders who are best at conveying value through media all possess one ability: they can integrate the company's business, products, or理念 with broader industry trends and societal needs—making media and audiences understand that "this company's existence is not just for profit, but can also drive industry progress or solve a social problem." This type of story, "embedded in the era context," has far more news value and is more likely to resonate than a mere "company introduction."
For example, year-end "annual summary" content (e.g., Spotify's Wrapped, Google's Year in Search trends, or a16z and Coinbase's State of Crypto reports)广泛传播 precisely because they "jump out of their own business," combining data with "user behavior changes" and "industry trends," providing unique perspectives and value—while using charts and visual design to make the content more understandable, further expanding its reach.
For cryptocurrency founders, this logic can be borrowed: link the company story with industry hot topics, such as "how stablecoins enhance cross-border payment efficiency," "which industry pain points can AI and blockchain solve together," "how decentralized finance (DeFi) promotes financial inclusion," etc. When the company story is tied to these "era topics," media are more willing to cover it—because it's not just "company news," but a "microcosm of industry trends," providing greater value to readers.
The core principle is: Don't just say "what we did," but explain "what what we did means for the industry and society"—this is the key to breaking through the information noise.
The "Proactive 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? Is that possible?"
This thought is understandable, but the reality is: as a startup grows, especially as its business scale expands and influence increases, completely avoiding public attention is almost impossible—whether through active business exposure or passive industry attention, media may come knocking.
Therefore, a wiser approach is to "proactively build media relations," not "react passively." Especially when facing negative coverage or crisis events (regardless of the event's fairness), "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 during reporting, presenting the event objectively rather than relying solely on one-sided information; conversely, if the company has never engaged with media,一旦 negative news emerges, it may easily 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完善的传播渠道 (e.g., official accounts, owned communities) to ensure rapid dissemination of the company's voice; establish trust relationships with core journalists and industry opinion leaders to ensure there are "parties to communicate with"; deeply understand the needs and concerns of core audiences to ensure the delivered information精准触达. Doing these three things well allows for a more从容 response even in a crisis.
Conclusion
Today, some founders view media as "intimidating entities," while others use them as "scapegoats for business difficulties" (e.g., blaming insufficient exposure on media neglect). 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 the company break through circles to reach audiences, build a professional image, and accelerate business growth.
May all founders steadily advance 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.
