# StartupPRPlaybook > The complete PR playbook for startup founders. Learn to write pitches that get opened, build journalist relationships, and land coverage in top publications. StartupPRPlaybook is a free, founder-focused resource for getting press coverage without hiring an expensive agency. It provides step-by-step guides, proven templates, and real examples covering everything from writing press releases and pitch emails to building media lists, running launch-day PR, and measuring results. It is built for early-stage startup founders and operators who want to do their own PR on any budget, even $0. ## Startup PR 101: Getting Press Without an Agency URL: https://www.startupprplaybook.com/guides/startup-pr-guide A from-scratch fundamentals guide explaining why PR matters for startups, covering credibility, SEO benefits, investor attention, and recruiting. It teaches the startup PR mindset (you are the story, think like a journalist, build long-term relationships) and breaks down the 7 factors that make something newsworthy: timeliness, significance, proximity, prominence, human interest, conflict, and novelty. It also maps the main types of PR opportunities, from company announcements and founder thought leadership to newsjacking, data stories, and customer success stories, and walks through building your PR foundation and core narrative. ## How to Write a Press Release for Your Startup URL: https://www.startupprplaybook.com/guides/press-release-startup A step-by-step guide to writing press releases that get picked up, including when (and when not) to write one and how a press release differs from a pitch email. It dissects press release anatomy using the inverted pyramid, with detailed guidance on headlines, the lead paragraph, supporting body content, using data, writing strong quotes, and the boilerplate, plus formatting and length rules. It includes ready-to-customize templates and a distribution strategy section covering wire services. ## Building a Media List: Find Journalists for Your Startup URL: https://www.startupprplaybook.com/guides/find-journalists-startup A guide to building a targeted media list by understanding why targeting matters and the four tiers of media targets, from major tech publications and industry outlets to local media and newsletters/podcasts/influencers. It covers researching publications and finding the right journalists through byline research, beat identification, and social media, with free methods like Google News, X/Twitter advanced search, LinkedIn, and publication mastheads. It also reviews paid tools (Muck Rack, Cision, Prowly, Hunter.io) and how to organize everything in a tracking spreadsheet. ## The Perfect Pitch Email: Templates That Get Opened URL: https://www.startupprplaybook.com/guides/pitch-email-journalist A practical guide to writing pitch emails journalists actually read, explaining why most pitches fail and what the ideal mobile-first pitch looks like. It provides 20 subject line templates and a four-part pitch body framework (the hook, the substance, the proof, and the ask), plus 7 full pitch email templates and a follow-up email strategy with timing guidance. It also covers common mistakes to avoid, such as first-email attachments, "checking in" subject lines, mass CCs, and no clear story angle, along with tracking and optimization. ## Creating a Media Kit for Your Startup URL: https://www.startupprplaybook.com/guides/startup-media-kit A complete guide to building a professional media kit and press page that impresses journalists. It details every component: company overview in three lengths (50, 150, and 300 words), founder bios and headshot requirements, logo and visual asset specs, product screenshots, and usage guidelines. It also covers press page setup, including URL structure, page layout, and download functionality, plus maintenance guidance and a checklist for what to update and when. ## HARO Strategy for Free PR URL: https://www.startupprplaybook.com/guides/haro-pr-strategy A tactical guide to using HARO (Help a Reporter Out) to land free press coverage. It explains how HARO works, the realistic success potential, and how to get started with account setup, the email schedule, and time investment, plus HARO alternatives. The core sections teach how to find and evaluate relevant queries efficiently and craft winning responses using a proven structure and templates, while avoiding common mistakes and applying advanced tactics like speed optimization, relationship building, and tracking success. ## Funding Announcement PR Guide URL: https://www.startupprplaybook.com/guides/funding-announcement-pr A complete playbook for maximizing coverage of a funding round, covering why funding news gets coverage and when to announce relative to the close and market timing. It explains embargo strategy and best practices, and sets coverage expectations by round size for pre-seed ($500K-$2M), seed ($2M-$5M), Series A ($5M-$20M), and Series B+ ($20M+). It includes a 4-week timeline, guidance on working with investors for PR support and quote coordination, interview preparation, key messages, and post-announcement amplification. ## Launch Day PR Coordination URL: https://www.startupprplaybook.com/guides/launch-day-pr A coordination playbook for maximizing launch day impact, starting with pre-launch preparation 2-4 weeks out. It compares embargo versus simultaneous release approaches and explains when and how to offer exclusives, then provides a launch week timeline with hour-by-hour execution. It also covers coordinating all channels together, including Product Hunt, social media, and email, plus post-launch PR follow-through. ## Crisis PR for Startups URL: https://www.startupprplaybook.com/guides/startup-crisis-pr A preparation and response guide for handling PR crises before they damage a startup. It identifies common types of startup crises, covers crisis prevention, and shows how to build a crisis plan with defined team roles and assets prepared in advance. It walks through the critical first hour with an assessment protocol, internal notification, and what NOT to do, then provides a response framework and scenario playbooks for service outages, data breaches, and negative viral content, finishing with recovery, post-crisis analysis, and rebuilding trust. ## Building Journalist Relationships URL: https://www.startupprplaybook.com/guides/journalist-relationships A long-term strategy guide for moving beyond one-off pitches to become a trusted source. It explains what journalists want, the pressures they face, and what annoys them, then covers identifying key journalists and an initial outreach strategy built on a non-pitch introduction. It details how to provide value as a reliable source through background information, data, and introductions, plus social media relationship building on Twitter/X and LinkedIn, maintaining relationships with regular non-pitch touchpoints, and handling rejection and negative coverage. ## PR Timing Strategy URL: https://www.startupprplaybook.com/guides/pr-timing-startup A guide to timing PR efforts for maximum coverage, identifying Tuesday through Thursday as the sweet spot for pitching and the best send times around the 6-9 AM morning window in the journalist's timezone, plus times to avoid. It covers seasonal considerations across the calendar (January, Q1, summer, fall, and November-December) and dead periods to avoid, along with news cycle awareness and newsjacking timing. It also provides follow-up timing rules for first and second follow-ups, when to stop, when to re-pitch, and how to build a PR calendar. ## Measuring PR Success URL: https://www.startupprplaybook.com/guides/pr-metrics A measurement guide explaining the PR measurement challenge and how to track what matters. It covers coverage metrics (quantity, publication quality tiers, and reach), quality assessment (message inclusion, sentiment, prominence, and link quality), business impact metrics (website traffic, lead generation, and other signals), and SEO impact (backlinks, domain authority, and branded search). It then shows how to set up tracking with Google Analytics and a UTM parameter template, monitor coverage, and report results using weekly, monthly, and quarterly frameworks. ## Case Studies URL: https://www.startupprplaybook.com/case-studies The index of real-world startup PR and growth case studies, breaking down the tactics behind successful campaigns and how founders can apply them. ## Smile Taxi Service: Multi-Location SEO Strategy Case Study URL: https://www.startupprplaybook.com/case-studies/smile-taxi-service A deep-dive case study on how Smile Taxi Service built a network of geo-targeted websites to dominate Thailand's taxi market. It covers the company overview, the multi-domain strategy and location network, the SEO tactics that worked, lessons for startups, and how to apply the same multi-location expansion approach. ## eSIM Hub URL: https://www.startupprplaybook.com/case-studies/esim-hub A case study on how eSIM Hub, an online seller of data eSIMs for travelers, built market-specific credibility and a PR-ready footprint using a network of localized exact-match-domain (EMD) sites: one per country across 10 Asian markets (Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia), all funneling demand into one central brand hub. The PR and authority angle is honest by design: rather than claiming press hits, it explains how local-language landing pages make a brand quotable and findable in each market, including by AI answer engines that summarize "best eSIM for <country>" questions. It then covers how to convert that footprint into earned coverage per market through localized media lists, market-specific media kits, and honest measurement. ## Flower Delivery in Korea URL: https://www.startupprplaybook.com/case-studies/flower-delivery-korea A PR and trust case study on Flower Delivery in Korea (flowerdeliveryinkorea.com), a cross-border flower-gifting service that lets people outside Korea—in the Americas, Europe, and the Korean diaspora—send flower gifts to recipients inside Korea. The case study leads from the overseas buyer's core anxiety: when you pay for a gift to be delivered in another country, the real purchase is confidence that it will arrive fresh and on the occasion's exact date, which cannot be redone. The central insight is that the conversion barrier is trust, not price or selection. The brand resolves it with a "local Korean florist, global reach" narrative—an overseas buyer places the order and a Korea-based florist sources, arranges, and hand-delivers a locally-made bouquet—so the reassuring party is local to the recipient and nothing is shipped across an ocean to wilt. The narrative is persuasive because it is literally true, which keeps the brand honest. It then covers the concrete trust signals that close the sale (plainly stated local fulfillment, a clear same-region on-the-day delivery promise, honest representation of what is delivered, and the "nervous then relieved" buyer testimonial as the highest-converting social proof), and the architecture that backs the promise: one exact-match domain (flowerdeliveryinkorea.com), a US-East origin server in Virginia for fast load times across the Americas, a global Cloudflare CDN serving overseas buyers everywhere, and Korea-local florist fulfillment. This is a single-brand case, not a satellite network. Finally it outlines honest earned-media angles a journalist can actually run—cross-cultural diaspora gifting, the trust-and-logistics explainer of how a bouquet arrives fresh, and the founder-as-reliable-source angle—and stresses honest measurement (genuine mentions, review sentiment, repeat-gift rate, share of voice) with no fabricated press, awards, or metrics. ## ThaiQROrder URL: https://www.startupprplaybook.com/case-studies/thaiqrorder A PR positioning case study on ThaiQROrder (thaiqrorder.com), a free QR-code table-ordering system for restaurants, cafes, and street-food stalls in Thailand. The product: a diner scans the QR code on their table, the menu opens in their phone's browser auto-translated into one of 8 languages (Thai, English, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, French, German), and they order instantly with no app install and no signup (only the table number is stored). Restaurant owners onboard in under five minutes with a phone number and OTP, then manage incoming orders from a dedicated iOS/Android app with loud push alerts, menu and category management, per-table status and bill management, an order queue with cooking-status buttons, and sales reports. The brand is software-only: it does not cook, deliver, or process the diner's food payment, which stays directly between diner and restaurant (PromptPay or cash). Pricing is 100% free for everyone through 31 December 2026, then tiered by orders-per-month (not per table; 0-100 free, with small flat monthly fees above that), with 0% commission on every order forever. The case study leads from positioning rather than press: it shows how a single verifiable fact—zero commission—forms a newsworthy counter-narrative to high-commission delivery apps that squeeze small restaurants, and how the brand names a structural antagonist (the commission) without disparaging a named rival. It then maps two distinct, honest media angles a reporter could run—a local SMB cost-savings story for a business desk, and a tourist-friendly multilingual-menus story for a travel or tech desk—each pointing to a different media list and a claim-checked media kit. The narrative stays honest by relying only on verifiable product facts (0% commission, 8 languages, no app install, under-five-minute setup, free until 2026) and by measuring real outcomes (earned mentions, message pull-through, share of voice) rather than fabricated traction, download, or revenue numbers. This is a single-product case (web QR ordering plus iOS, Android, and a business signup portal), not a satellite-domain network. ## DevTeam Korea URL: https://www.startupprplaybook.com/case-studies/devteam-korea An authority and positioning case study on DevTeam Korea (주식회사 뎁팀 / DevTeam Co., Ltd.), a Korean software development studio where one team handles MVP, web, app, and AI development end to end—design, build, deploy, and then operate (performance, security, scalability, maintenance). Its services span MVP development; AI integration (OpenAI/ChatGPT, Anthropic/Claude, Vision, RAG, vector DBs, workflow automation); Flutter cross-platform web and app; Electron desktop apps; global multilingual websites; SEO/AEO/GEO marketing; website performance/security/quality audits; and finishing AI-generated code. The stack is Laravel and Livewire, Flutter, Electron, AWS with CDN, Redis, CI/CD, and OpenAI plus Anthropic Claude with RAG and vector DBs. The case study leads from authority rather than tactics: it argues that a verifiable category-leading position is itself the strongest trust signal a B2B startup can carry. DevTeam Korea fused three things startups usually buy from three vendors—development, web security, and post-launch digital marketing (SEO/AEO/GEO)—into one integrated offering. That integration produced a #1 ranking on Google for core Korean development keywords (for example "mvp 개발 업체" / "MVP development company") and led to signed contracts with dozens of major clients. The narrative explains why category leadership functions as authority (default-choice perception, reduced perceived risk, self-reinforcing credibility, media legibility), how that position shortens the enterprise sales cycle, and how to convert it into earned coverage by leading the pitch with the verifiable position, building a category-focused media list, embedding the position in a media kit, and owning the AI-generated answer through AEO/GEO. It stays honest by relying only on the verifiable facts—#1 ranking and dozens of clients—and avoids fabricated revenue, traffic, or exact client-count figures.