DIY PR for Early-Stage Founders

A working playbook built from six months of Tracy Samantha Schmidt's TikTok (51 videos, April 7 to October 7, 2026). Tracy is a former TIME reporter, media executive, and University of Chicago marketing professor who teaches founders and experts to get press without hiring an agency. Every section links to the videos it came from, so you can watch her explain it. She also sells a paid program (The PR Accelerator). This guide only uses the free advice.

Why do this yourself

Agencies quote $8,000 to $20,000 a month with a three to six month minimum. They can't guarantee coverage and will say so in the contract. When it ends, you usually don't keep the media list, the pitches, or any training, because the model depends on you renewing. (May 15)

Tracy's view is that a founder only needs outside expertise for four things: sharpening the message, setting strategy, picking the right journalists, and having someone to call in a crisis. Everything else you can do with an assistant, an intern, or AI. (Jul 7)

Press still matters at your stage for reasons beyond traffic. Outlet logos carry weight in sales and investor decks. Legacy coverage also shapes what ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini say when someone asks AI about your company. (Apr 30)

Get ready before you pitch

Write your one-line intro. Say plainly what you do: "I'm the founder of a company that does X." Then add one of two things. Either borrow credibility from a recognizable name (your accelerator, a customer, an investor), or give a fact that makes a reporter stop and think "wait, what?" like a traction spike or an unusual result. Skip the jargon and sales language. (Apr 30)

Have a narrative, and keep the story short. People want to know what you do, who it's for, why it matters, how it's different, and why you started. Your origin story earns about thirty seconds of attention. After that, give them facts, data, or a framework they can use. (Sep 30)

Make yourself easy to vet. Reporters will look at your social profiles and Google you before they reply. Your bio should show credentials a journalist would trust: title, company, notable customers or backers, anything third-party validated. Clean up search results you wouldn't want quoted. (Aug 1) Fix the top of your website too. One confident headline about the change you create, plus one button that tells people what to do next. (Oct 3)

Build a press folder. A public Google Drive or Dropbox folder with high-res photos, a one-page company summary, and any data or reports. Link to it in emails. Never attach files, since newsroom firewalls often block them. (May 10)

If you wear several hats, pick one for this season. Founders who are also writers, investors, or advisors confuse people by listing everything. Lead with the company now and let the rest sit in the background. (Aug 15)

The ladder: where to start if you've never had press

This is the order Tracy gives founders in her two most recent videos. (Oct 5, Oct 7)

1. Start local and trade. Thousands of trade publications still exist, and they need expert sources. Look beyond your exact niche to the adjacent industries. Her example is a dermatology app founder pitching dermatology, healthcare, and health tech outlets. (Sep 28) Local business press wants stories about innovation and impact in its own city. Sign up for Qwoted, a free network where reporters on deadline post requests for sources.
2. Write under your own byline. Local business publications and trade outlets often take contributed articles from founders for free. Search "[outlet name] editorial guidelines" and the editors will tell you exactly what they want. (May 5)
3. Go national. Use the coverage you've built as credibility and pitch reporters who already cover your space, with an insight about the industry or a customer story. Trend pieces are the other door. If you can name a moment the way "quiet quitting" got named, national outlets will listen. One of her clients pitched "the great fractionalization" to Fast Company and got picked up.
4. Befriend reporters. Over time they come back to you for comment, and eventually they cover the company.
5. Get on stages. Talks get clipped onto social media where reporters find them, and reporters sometimes wander into sessions at conferences they're covering.

How to pitch

Send a relationship email first. Pick a recent piece with the reporter's byline on it. Thank them, name one specific thing that surprised you, offer yourself as a resource, and end with two or three lines on why you're credible. Then stop. Don't pitch until they write back. Their email is usually in the article footer, their social bio, or on Qwoted. (Apr 13)

Then the actual pitch:

• 200 words max, and 150 is better. Muck Rack's State of Journalism data backs this up. (Apr 30)
• Paragraphs of two sentences or fewer so it reads on a phone.
• The first paragraph has to hook that specific reporter. If they have to scroll, it's deleted.
• The subject line carries a keyword or hook relevant to them. "Thank you" works for a first touch.
• Lead with the story. Can the reporter picture the headline? Is there a news peg (a trend, a holiday, something happening this week)? (May 10)
• Include at least one data point that shows this is bigger than your company.
• Keep credentials to two or three lines.
• Offer more than one angle or source so the reporter can shape the story.
• Make it easy: links to images, the study, ready-to-use quotes, an offer to visit.
• Send between about 8:15 and 11am Eastern on a weekday, when reporters decide what to cover.
• If you don't hear back, follow up once about a week later and again a couple of days before your news goes live. (May 15)

Don't let AI write it. Use it to research and brainstorm, then write the email the way you actually write. Reporters can tell, and they'd rather read your rough version. (Apr 30)

What to pitch when you think you're boring

• Your own data. Package original research into a short report, link it (don't attach), and send it. GPTZero, an AI-detection startup, has landed in the Financial Times several times this way, most recently by showing PwC reports contained AI hallucinations. Fact-check anything AI helped you research before you send it. (Jul 29)
• The media white space. What do your customers complain about that nobody is covering? Reporters are trained to look for the story their peers missed. (Aug 1)
• A story that's just starting to move. Her test: a big outlet runs it, aggregators link it, and only a handful of articles show up on Google News. That gap means reporters will soon be hunting for sources. Post a take, write a quick article, and email reporters on that beat. (May 24, May 17)
• Upcoming movies and cultural moments. A film about a real company or event (her current example is the Facebook film The Social Reckoning) sets the news agenda for weeks. Pitch before it opens. (Oct 1)
• The calendar. For the rest of 2026 she says editors want predictions for 2027, year-end business stories, consumer tech data, and anything on healthcare policy or everyday economics ahead of the midterms. (Aug 20)
• A reporter outside your obvious beat. Her filmmaker client got a New York Times exclusive through the food reporter, since the film was about a TV chef. Ask which beats your story touches. (May 15)
• Nothing at all. Send a short, kind note to a reporter you admire and offer to help. That counts. (May 5)

Speaking as a press channel

Reporters rarely cover conferences now unless someone famous is on stage. So you make the coverage yourself: turn the talk into a contributed article, post your own clips with relevant hashtags, and email reporters the most useful insight or data point from it. (Jun 27)

Build one signature talk and give it over and over, like a comic working clubs. Notice where the room leans in and where it checks out, and revise. (Aug 7) Her structure: 30 minutes, one pain point your buyers keep naming, stories of people who solved it, a framework they can use tomorrow, and a QR code at the end. No hard sell. (Aug 3) For founders the room is the prize. People Google you while you talk, and the customers, investors, and partners in the audience are worth more than any speaking fee. (Jun 29)

SXSW is the stage she pushes hardest. The 2027 cycle has closed, but PanelPicker opens again in late June with public voting in August. Her tips for next year are in the source list below.

When a reporter says yes

Prepare. Good media training means you get your key messages ahead of time, then practice in mock interviews until you can handle a gotcha question calmly. (May 9)

Record the interview. Tell the reporter you're recording "for my notes." Several states require consent. If you're misquoted, send a polite email with the correct quote and a public link to the audio. No fix in 24 hours, follow up. Still nothing after about another eight hours, write to their editor. (Sep 12)

Thank them in public. Post the piece, tag the reporter, and thank them. It's a humble brag that also helps them, since reporters are measured on the traffic they drive. Mainstream coverage goes everywhere. A trade write-up mostly belongs on LinkedIn. (Sep 28)

What to skip

Pay-to-play offers. "$5,000 and you're in Newsweek" is either a freelancer selling quotes behind an editor's back or an advertorial nobody mentioned until you paid. Ask whether it's editorial or advertising, and whether AI engines will read it as editorial. Then decline. (Aug 16)

AI-written op-eds. The WSJ opinion page published an AI-written piece by a billionaire in August and defended it, but most outlets have rules against it. A founder without a famous name won't get the benefit of the doubt. (Aug 30)

A first 90 days

This schedule is our adaptation of her ladder. She doesn't prescribe weekly numbers.

Weeks 1–2. Write the one-line intro and narrative. Update your bio, LinkedIn, and website headline. Build the press folder. Join Qwoted.

Weeks 3–6. List 20 trade and local reporters who've covered your space in the last six months. Send a few relationship emails each week. Answer Qwoted requests that fit. Submit one contributed article to a trade or local business outlet.

Weeks 7–12. Pitch your first two or three story ideas to the reporters who wrote back. Start one original data project you could publish as a short report. Apply to speak at one event where your buyers gather. Once trade coverage lands, use it to approach one or two national reporters.

Source videos