PR for start-ups without an agency

Most start-ups don't need an agency in their first year. What they need is someone senior spending a day a week on six jobs, in the order below, and the discipline to keep at it.

Where to start

One description of the company. Write about 40 words on what you do, for whom, since when and from where. Use it unchanged on the website, LinkedIn, Crunchbase, every release and every pitch, because assistants draw most of what they say from company websites and three versions of your story are three chances to be described wrongly.
A press list of 30. Start with the journalists who wrote about your competitors or your category in the last 90 days, and read their last three pieces. Put trade and specialist titles first, because they're what the assistants cite on buying questions and your buyers read them.
Comment on the news. When a story is building the follow-up pieces need an outside voice, so write a quote your spokesperson would say out loud and send it the same day to the few journalists already on the story. Catch stories while they're building, because by the peak the comment pieces have been written.
One announcement a quarter. That means a named customer, a funding round, a product with a customer using it or original data. A feature isn't news unless a customer will talk about it. Pitch under embargo to the ten people most likely to care, with an interview on offer, and put the reason their readers should care in the first line.
A coverage log. Log every piece the day it lands, with the publication, tier, estimated views and whether your key message appeared. As far as the board is concerned, coverage you can't list didn't happen.
A look at what ChatGPT says. Run a free check and read what ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity say about your category. If you're missing or described wrongly, go back to job one, then earn coverage in the titles the assistants cite. Check again each month, because the answers change as the sources do.

What a retainer costs

A published UK agency rate card puts a small B2B tech retainer at £2,000 to £3,000 a month, for a senior consultant working alongside your software. A standard retainer starts at £5,000, and larger programmes at £6,000 and up.

When to hire an agency

Hire one when the news outgrows the day a week. The usual trigger is a funding round under embargo across several titles, though a launch in a second market or analyst briefings alongside the press can do it too. What an agency adds is judgement about what is news, and the relationships to place it, and both matter most around a round or a launch. Try to arrive with the six jobs done, because an agency that inherits a clean description, a working press list and a coverage log gets results in its first month instead of its third. It doesn't have to be all or nothing, either. Some consultancies will add a senior consultant to the tools you already use before you commit to a full retainer.

Common mistakes

Nationals before trade. The trade title that covers your category is read by your buyers and cited by the assistants. The national is neither until you're much bigger.

A release for every feature. Save the release for the four things a year that are news. Anything else is better as a post on your own blog.

A bought list. The job is to find the journalists who are genuine candidates for your news, then give them good stories over time so a relationship builds. Spam them with announcements that aren't for their readers and they'll learn to ignore your name in their inbox.

Silence between announcements. A quarter with no comment and no news is a quarter in which a competitor becomes the name journalists call.

Tools

A spreadsheet and your own inbox will do at the start. Once keeping the press list and coverage log by hand starts eating into the day, Agentcy's free plan will hold both for one brand and watch your sector's news for you. We built it while doing these same jobs for clients.

Questions

How many journalists should I pitch per story?

Five to ten journalists is plenty for most start-up stories, each chosen because they've covered this exact subject in the last three months. Write to each one separately, with a note of three or four lines on why the story suits their readers, and paste the release into the body of the email. Follow up once, two days later, with a single line. A pitch sent to 200 names from a bought list teaches journalists to ignore your next one, and that costs more than the coverage you missed.

Do I need a press release wire?

A start-up rarely needs a press release wire, because a wire puts the release in front of nobody in particular while a pitch reaches the ten people who cover your category. The one time a wire earns its place is a funding round that investors expect to find in public. ResponseSource's UK wire is pay-as-you-go from £85 a release (checked 13 October 2026). For the rest of the year, put the money and the time into pitching the trade journalists who cover you.

What is newsjacking?

Newsjacking is offering a journalist your comment on a story they're already writing. When a story is building, the follow-up pieces need an outside voice, and a short quote from a founder with a view and a number in it often gets used. Keep it under 120 words and send it the same day to the few journalists already on the story. It's the cheapest coverage a start-up can earn, because the journalist already has the story and only needs the voice. Reactive PR and newsjacking covers timing and approvals.

How should I report PR to investors?

Report PR to investors with the same few numbers every month, so the trend shows from one update to the next.

Tier 1 pieces, on a tier list you agreed at the start and don't change mid-year.
Total estimated views, labelled as an estimate.
The share of pieces that carried your key message.
Share of voice against the competitors your investors ask about.

Add the month's best piece with a line on why it counts. Skip advertising value equivalents, which the industry's Barcelona Principles say are not the value of communication.

Should a start-up care what ChatGPT says about it?

A start-up should check what ChatGPT says about it, because buyers ask the assistants about a category before they reach any vendor's site. Studies that check AI answers against companies' own facts keep finding errors in most of them, such as an old price or a renamed product, and a young company changes those facts often. Run the free checker on your domain to see whether you're named, who's named instead and which sources the answers cite. Those sources are your first pitch list.