All the time you spent literally begging TC to respond to your emails could have been spent getting published in trade blogs/magazines/sites that talk directly to your customer.
Get out of the startup bubble and focus on your customer. Companies that stay under the radar and are killing it are way cooler than a rewritten press release on TC.
We've actually been talked about in a number of trade blogs/magazines/sites and conferences. We saw some really good results from those as well, and yes, obviously a higher percentage of converting customers came through those sources.
I'm not in any bubble. I'm working really hard. We've got some really healthy revenue and within a month or so based on our current growth, we'll break even. Not bad for only launching a couple of months ago.
I appreciate your comments none-the-less :)
A blog post describing this would be more interesting to me than how you e-mailed a TechCrunch author and he wrote an article about you.
I don't mean for this to come across as snarky or belittle your post—it's just that you basically e-mailed a short pitch to a TechCrunch article and got an article out of it. That's not really revolutionary; lots of 'unsexy' (see: Enterprise) startups get covered on TC.
EDIT: Or, comparing the effects of your TC coverage against more targeted 'focused coverage'—since I think a lot of startups fall into the "we need to be techcrunch'd" trap and don't realize how effective other less buzz-worthy but more targeted media can be.
If I'm being 100% honest I feel a little jealous because I'd like our team to get a little love from our peers in the tech community. But I reevaluate when they shut their doors 6 months later because they spent all of their PR money on coverage outside our industry. This has happened to us three times in about 4 years.
I've spent some time getting write ups and case studies on tech sites. I think it's ok to give yourself a little attention in that way as long as you keep in mind that it isn't really reaching customers. It can be good for developer morale though.
The only thing it could _potentially_ help is valuation, but any good investor would negotiate that perk away anyway.
2 weeks ago we walked away from $160,000 in seed funding because we decided [..] we should get profitable before we take funding to get a better valuation
Getting press from places like TC will be very helpful when it comes to finding funding, especially if it's from the typical Bay Area crowd.
But I do still agree with your last sentence and a company that does well in its own niche and doesn't need funding is certainly more cooler than one that does - it's just not what everyone wants to do.
Why you'd want to be covered by TC is a different story.
The SEO benefit of being linked from a high PR site like TC alone can be worth quite a bit for a startup trying to get a new site ranking well.
Caveat for startups: most people who mention SEO really have no idea what they are talking about.
For fun.
I suppose anyone can blindly email anyone else with hope there is interest for followup, but having that genuine starting connection makes a huge difference.
He turned out to be a really nice chap :)
Quick question: I like the simplicity of your blog, what are you using to create that?
Additionally, whether a particular job is considered desirable in a mate (typical example: doctor) can also influence whether the company doing that job is "sexy."
1. Upload web app interaction design specs (wireframes) from psd
2. Link related graphic specs (pixel perfect) from psd / png
3. Allows commenting by collaborators on each page
4. Has API for Integrating updates from 3rd party sites. For instance, noting in comments that a ticket for this part of the spec was made in Pivotal Tracker, and then updating status when the ticket is completed.
The author mentions Cageapp.com - this is the general idea, but I don't see that they have any image linking or basic APIs for integration with 3rd party tools.
I'm more curious to see what kind of ROI you got from all of this effort. This particular TC article didn't drive a ton of social engagement, and as someone else said, they pump out a TON of content everyday. In terms of helping acquire users and build awareness, did the article help at all?
I'm pretty sure the opposite is true.
