Jan 2, 2019 · 42m · a16z
a16z Podcast | The Why, How, and When of PR
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of the a16z Podcast, host Sonal Chokshi speaks with Andreessen Horowitz partners Margit Wennmachers and Kim Milosevic about how early-stage startups can build, execute, and measure an effective PR strategy. The panel covers key decisions regarding stealth mode, agency selection, founder time commitment, and aligning PR directly with executive leadership.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. The host holds 14.1% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The host as informed peer 3.3 Guest teaching 4.4 Guest disagreement 1.3 The host pushing back 3.0
speaking balance: gold is the host, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 8:42 Dismissing competition concerns as excuses
Margit forcefully rejects the common founder rationale of delaying PR to avoid tipping off competitors, calling it a weak excuse for avoiding PR entirely.
Hardest push from the host ▶ 13:03 Challenging agency intermediariesSonal explicitly interrupts to push back against agency usage, citing arguments that middle-layer PR reps hinder direct founder-journalist relationships.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 29:04 Deconstructing spreadsheet ROI metricsMargit and Kim systematically dismantle the technical founder mindset of measuring PR success through quantitative spreadsheets, explaining how qualitative sentiment drives outcomes.
The host holds their own ▶ 9:38 Applying local market nuances to software trendsSonal demonstrates sharp market intuition by challenging generic national PR advice with hyper-local startup expansion strategies.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The host as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The host pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stealth Mode vs. Public Visibility Strategies | 3 | 4 | 1 | 3 | Sonal leads a collaborative discussion on stealth strategies, probing whether companies should engage in PR prior to launching a product. Margit and Kim clarify how enterprise sales cycles and category evangelism justify early PR even without a finalized product. | |
| PR Strategy in Competitive and Local Markets | 4 | 4 | 2 | 3 | Margit bluntly dismisses the fear of tipping off competitors as an excuse for not knowing PR. Sonal connects the discussion to hyper-local startup market dynamics, prompting Kim and Margit to analyze the unit economics and ROI of local media campaigns. | |
| Press Releases vs. Direct Owned Media | 5 | 5 | 2 | 6 | Sonal directly pushes back on using PR agencies as middle layers, citing industry views that founders should manage press relationships directly. Kim and Margit reframe the premise, arguing that direct management doesn't scale alongside running a company. | |
| PR Agency Retainers and Compensation Models | 2 | 5 | 1 | 2 | The guests break down agency compensation models, explaining how flat retainers can misalign incentives while hourly billing forces accountability. Sonal asks clarifying questions regarding startup budget constraints. | |
| Evaluating, Vetting, and Choosing a PR Agency | 3 | 4 | 1 | 3 | Margit surprises Sonal by recommending founders conduct reference checks on PR agencies directly with beat reporters. Sonal questions whether requesting a 3-month strategy pitch amounts to asking for free labor, which Margit normalizes within agency sales. | |
| Measuring PR Impact and ROI Beyond Spreadsheets | 3 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Margit and Kim address the difficulty engineering-minded founders face when measuring PR, cautioning against expecting spreadsheet-driven ROI metrics. Sonal guides the conversation into pragmatic tracking methods like competitive clip reports. | |
| Founder Involvement and Time Commitment in PR | 3 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Kim dispels the misconception that hiring a PR firm frees up founder time, explaining that effective PR requires increased CEO availability. Margit emphasizes that PR must report near the CEO to attract top talent and maintain brand alignment. |
Statements from this episode (22)
Wennmachers: PR forces startup CEOs to articulate their company story
“PR is a good forcing function for the CEO and the rest of the team to really figure out what is your story. And your story is very, very important because the story is the company and it doesn't just help you get the article in TechCrunch or The New Yorker, bo…”
Milosevic: Early startups must maximize rare funding and launch announcements
“You have very few moments especially in your early life as a company where you have news. And so when you're dealing with like a funding announcement, a company launch, a product launch, a big customer announcement, those are the announcements that you really …”
Milosevic: Public blog posts are effective internal communication tools for founders
“Using Medium as a vehicle to talk about what they're doing As a company, wasn't just useful for them to get it out there to the public, but was also a really useful vehicle for them to reinforce all this stuff internally. It's like, it's funny, it's all the sa…”
Wennmachers: Overpromising before delivering product destroys startup credibility
“The delta between where you are today and what vision you highlight and how much you put yourself out there shouldn't be too big, because then you're just a hype machine and you lose credibility, right?”
Milosevic: Startups facing strong incumbents should delay PR until establishing traction
“I see that happen more often when a small company is in a very, very competitive space with big incumbents who are innovating and could very quickly squash them if they wanted to. So it makes sense for some of those folks to really build the base, get the vira…”
Wennmachers: Avoiding PR leaves your company's narrative to competitors
“One potential big downside of not doing any PR, regardless of what market you're in, is that You don't define you, but then someone else does. Either the competition, or someone who just doesn't know your story, or your version of the story. And that, I think,…”
Wennmachers: Avoiding PR to hide from competitors is just an excuse
“I think a lot of people sort of say like, I don't want to PR yet because I don't want to tip off my competition. I think that's sort of excuse for, I don't know how to do PR. It also is not that convincing because if your shit isn't three times as good or 10 t…”
Wennmachers: Local PR offers a poor ROI for startups
“I sort of think local PR is what you get out of it for what you have to put into it is a tough equation in a lot of cases.”
Wennmachers: Press releases are a waste of time and money
“They're a waste of money, waste of time. No one reads them.”
Wennmachers: PR operates like enterprise sales rather than transactional projects
“PR is not a transactional thing. It is a long-term thing. It's much more like enterprise sales rather than anything else. So it's really hard to do as a project.”
Wennmachers: Complex tech startups need internal PR hires sooner
“The more complicated the story or the technology, the higher the need to have an internal person in there sooner.”
Wennmachers: Enterprise startups should launch PR before product release
“If this consumer app, it's just a different thing. You are not going to announce it until the thing is in the app store and people can actually use it. If you are in an enterprise sales cycle, you're going to want to start talking about it, you know, and not o…”
Milosevic: $10,000 PR Retainers Do Not Make Sense for Seed Startups
“They want, you know, a minimum budget of, let's say, 10,000 dollars a month, which is tough for a very early stage company. And for a seed stage company, that probably doesn't make sense.”
Wennmachers: Flat PR Retainers Cause Misaligned Incentives for Agencies
“The flat retainer sounds great because you know what you're doing, but there's no incentive on the agency's part to actually earn that retainer every month. It's kind of misaligned.”
Wennmachers: PR agencies should be benchmarked on network, not domain knowledge
“Well, the whole fricking point is that they can help translate this very wonky thing that you do to an audience that will then write it down, have to write it down in plain English to an even broader audience, right? So you don't want to benchmark them on how …”
Wennmachers: PR success cannot be measured in spreadsheets
“If you are trying to see the success of it in a spreadsheet, don't bother because you will never, ever be happy.”
Wennmachers: Good PR leads say 'not now' rather than 'no'
“A good agency or a good internal person, they don't say no. They say not now, and here's why, and here's what it would take.”
Milosevic: An effective PR firm requires more founder time, not less
“The reality is just because you're hiring a PR firm or consultant doesn't mean that it's going to be less time. If you have a good PR firm, a good consultant, it should be more of your time.”
Milosevic: Startup PR agencies should deliver reporter meetings within month one
“I think it's a warning sign if an agency puts together a plan and two months of that plan is just prep and getting up to speed and onboarding. It's like in those first, definitely within the first month, you should have at least a couple of meetings set up.”
Wennmachers: Off-the-record reporter chats teach startups more than internal meetings
“You just take a reporter who really gets the space already, and like, have an off-the-record conversation. You'll learn a lot in those three to five interviews that, you know, in a conference room, just, you will never come together in the same way.”