A few years ago I asked myself the following question: What would I hate for a competitor to do?
I think it's a helpful exercise for entrepreneurs to get a fresh perspective on the business they are building and prevent optimising for a local maximum ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hil... ).
As the founder of BetaList one of my fears was that someone would 1) create a list of startup directories that would become the go-to resource for startups, 2) grow their audience, 3) provide founders a paid service to have their startup submitted for them, 4) gain control over an ever-increasing influx of startup submissions, 5) start their own media publication, 6) outcompete my business, BetaList.
So I decided to build that potential competitor myself rather than have someone else do it.
That's what I planned anyway. Halfway through I realised that journalists much prefer direct contact with the founders, and there's not much value in submitting your startup in bulk. It's way more effective to find a few key publications and go for the personal approach.
Still left me with this big spreadsheet and nice domain name though, and there's tons of people asking me for these kind of lists. Especially startups that want to get featured on BetaList, but aren't eligible for one reason or another. We used to send them a Google Doc with a bunch of links, but now we can send Submit.co
That's all :)
@marckohlbrugge Great strategy, Marc! In your case, not only a product is a point of interest, but also a story of its creation. Thank you fo sharing it! :)
@marckohlbrugge So that's why you didn't want to partner with Startuplister :)
But seriously, Great list and thanks for putting it out there for all to use. Since you mentioned a while back that you were working on something similar, I've been sweating bullets.
@crixlet Reason for not partnering was because 1) I like to build a relation with the startups we feature, so having someone else submit the startup go against that, and 2) we already get more submissions than we can comfortably handle so getting even more would only complicate things. (Something we're working on.)
No reason to sweat bullets by the way hehe. For us this is just a quick side project. BetaList remains the primary focus.
@marckohlbrugge Wow, that's an exercise from which all startups could benefit. I'm going to try it with the team tomorrow. Great mindset, Marc.
I noticed there were a lot of blank fields. Is this a dynamic list you'll be updating? Thanks for the helpful share!
@v4violetta I've removed Gigaom. Thanks for noticing! As for scrolling down I'm not sure what's happening. Have you tried again? What browser and OS are you on?
@marckohlbrugge thanks man! Works now. Great stuff by the way!
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I applaud the convenience and comprehensiveness of submit.co @Marckohlbrugge. The product categorically answers the questions, "How and where do I publicize my tech?" More important for most founders is "Why?" Without context a list of emails, and even submission guidelines doesn't help startups communicate effectively with reporters. Four years since leaving my staff post at VentureBeat I still get 20-odd media pitches per week, because I was added to a journalist database.
@chikodi Yep. Relevance is key. We still have a long way to go with Submit.co, but the guiding principle is definitely relevance of quantity.
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Hunter
Just saw @Marckohlbrugge tweeting about this and immediately saw the potential value of an online overview where to get press coverage for your startup. Marc has already proven his value for startups over and over again, for example with his other business Betali.st. Keep it up!
A big supporter of betalist, and great service it provides for the beta products! and also good 6 points mentioned by @marckohlbrugge . For point 1, 2, 3, 4 we started http://www.producthunt.com/posts... which helps to pitch your startup to publishers and also submit your startup details to top startup directories, so both services under one umbrella, saves you tons of time.
here is the link to the curated list of publisher and submission sites you should pitch/submit to (feel free to use it) - http://pitchmantra.com/publisher...
Also, one of the most important part is to ensure that the directory is updated on regular basis, as @v4violetta correctly mentioned, Gigaom is shutdown now.
@ranjita_rs I've removed Gigaom. Thanks for mentioning it! Best of luck with Pitchmantra. Anything that helps early-stage startups is 👍
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@marckohlbrugge@ranjita_rs - Thanks for the cheers :),
As a first time entrepreneur we are doing our best and keep experimenting to ensure we are providing value to the users!
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My thought on regarding the bulk vs. individual contact to publisher - Agree that most effective method is to contact journalist directly to get their startup published, However there are two things need to take note of.
1. Not all founders are seasoned founders and not aware of or have enough contact to reach to the journalists or correct journalist who covers respective product (e.g. some journalists only cover iOS, whereas other android, and so on)
2. Journalist themselves are very busy covering a lot of startup they get through various touch points, so it is always good idea to cover the entire long loop by sending to their official email id they mentioned to receive the pitches, so their colleagues also can take a look to cover your product if it fits what they are looking for.
One can do both simultaneously by reach out to journalist who potentially cover the product as well as cover the long list highlighting your product, any milestone etc to get maximum exposure.
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