Emilie Gerber
Founder and CEO, Six Eastern. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveoperatorLinkedIn ↗sixeastern.com ↗
Emilie Gerber leads Six Eastern, a boutique public relations agency specializing in communications for high-growth tech startups. Prior to launching the firm in 2019, she led business development communications at Uber and handled product communications at Box.
1shows
1appearances
32statements
0resolved
0supported
0contradicted
Everything Emilie Gerber said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Gerber: Well-executed cold outreach is as effective as PR relationships
“And so I think cold outreach done well is just as effective.”
Gerber: Personal relationships with journalists will not secure media coverage
“The only thing that a relationship will get you is, you know, an open and an answer. And so, you know, like any good reporters not going to be making their editorial decisions based on like who their friends are. Like, that's just not the nature. It shouldn't …”
Gerber: Perplexity spends zero on paid marketing and drives growth via PR
“So for instance, perplexity, they have invested essentially zero in any paid marketing. They don't have a marketing person even, but they do do PR. And so essentially after their most recent announcement, they saw, you know, a massive spike in growth, a massiv…”
Gerber: Startups Can Always Win Funding Press If Pitched Correctly
“I also think not all PR people are going to agree with this, but I do think funding rounds, you can always get a reporter to cover if you go about it the right way.”
Gerber: Tier-one media features require on-the-record valuation and revenue metrics
“There's a couple criteria that they're always going to want if it's to write a feature on your company. One is your valuation. So that needs to be something that you're sharing on the record. Two is your like hard business metrics, like usually revenue, someti…”
Gerber: Contrarian stances win media coverage when startups lack hard news
“Especially if you don't have hard news that you're pitching, having something like pretty controversial to say. So like we work with a lot of AI companies, if nine of them, you know, have one stance on, you know, something happening in the field and one has th…”
Gerber: Category creation pitches fail; startups must position against household incumbents
“So a lot of companies want to position themselves as category creators. And I actually hate that. It doesn't work. It doesn't land with press. And most of the time it's not totally true. And so instead it's actually really great when you can talk about how you…”
Gerber: PR podcast pitches do not require listening to multiple episodes
“I don't even think you necessarily need to listen to a whole bunch of episodes most of the time. Maybe occasionally you want to gut check something before you reach out, but yeah, you can tell a lot just by doing like a little bit of research.”
Gerber: Virtually no reporters monitor newswires for story ideas anymore
“Press releases came about because reporters would be checking news wires for ideas of what stories they want to write. No reporters do that anymore. Or a very small percentage. I don't know any reporters that do that anymore.”
Gerber: RFPs weed out the best PR agencies by demanding free work
“One thing I would say don't do is like an extensive RFP process. Like we actually, as an agency don't participate in RFPs. A lot of the two times I've done it, I kind of had regret it just because of the amount of work going in versus the value that's there. A…”
Gerber: PR validates early-stage B2B startups for buyers fearing vendor shutdown
“And that ties back to when you look like at a SAS company or something, and they're making decisions, having that validation, I think, and that credibility goes a really long way. Especially for a company that might be early stage, you know, they've raised a l…”
Gerber: Most Consumer Companies Pay Media Publications Affiliate Sales Commissions
“Affiliate is essentially when you work with a publication to give them a percentage of any sales that come from the piece of the article... And it's very common. I would say most consumer companies are doing this, but yes, there's like entire agencies that are…”
Gerber: Startups should never pitch Axios on product announcements
“Axios is really strong on the FinTech side, on the healthcare side. They have some really great like beat reporters. The one thing I will say about them is they are very deals focused. So a hundred percent would need to either have funding. If you're announcin…”
Gerber: Pitch role-matched executives rather than CEOs to vertical podcasts
“So let's say you have let's say you sell it into CFOs. Don't pitch your CEO for that podcast, pitch your, you know, get a CFO and then pitch your CFO for that podcast. I'm very for companies hiring. Folks are hiring for the roles that they sell into. It helps …”
Gerber: Ask podcast hosts if they accept ideas before sending pitches
“Like I'm a big fan of just reaching out on LinkedIn and saying, Hey, love the show. Are you open to guest ideas? I don't even. Mention what, like the client or anything, just like kind of opening the door. I just feel like that's so much more approachable and …”
Gerber: The most effective PR pitches are only three sentences long
“I would say my most successful pitches are three sentences and anytime it needs, sometimes it needs to be longer than that than that. And generally I feel like my pitch is weaker for that reason. You know, attention spans are short. And so the more concise you…”
Gerber: Pitching all details upfront destroys leverage for media exclusives
“And usually I'd either say the amount and the investors or the company name. If you give them both, you're kind of just giving them the story and they could run with it right away.”
Gerber: Product announcements rarely receive major feature media coverage
“Product News rarely gets, you know, big feature coverage, especially for something along the lines of a bill pay offering for B to B companies.”
Gerber: PR should anchor to broader issues rather than company metrics
“It's like identifying the piece of the story that's most interesting and then like doubling down on that. So we were able to get like a great fast company piece instead of pitching this like macro, like. Here are column taxes, latest growth metrics, and they'r…”
Gerber: Everything emailed to a journalist is automatically on the record
“And I guess one important note is everything you say to a reporter in an email is on the record. And so that's why I make the point on not sharing the entire story right off the bat.”
Gerber: Stagger pitches when offering exclusives to avoid retracting media offers
“I try to really stagger it because we're offering exclusives and I highly recommend offering exclusives. So the worst thing that can happen is two reporters reply and are both interested and you have to go back to one and say, nevermind.”
Gerber: Average early-to-mid-stage startups do not need press releases
“At a certain stage in your growth, like public companies, they do press releases for earnings. Makes a hundred percent sense. There are certain rules around when companies do need to issue press releases, so there's still a use case for them. I just think your…”
Gerber: Reporters do not include early-stage vanity percentage growth stats in stories
“Every company wants to do these percentage, like, growth stats when they just launched, and I've never seen reporters include that in their stories, and so there are ways to give signals of how fast you're growing without being that, kind of, like, disingenuou…”
Gerber: Pitching multi-company panels to conferences is far more successful than solo pitches
“If you have an idea for, you know, a conference session, put it reaching out to, you know, colleagues that you've worked with at other companies, peers, people that are building other things that maybe don't compete, but are in a similar space and packaging th…”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Emilie's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 LENNY'S PODCASTLEDGER | Founder and CEO, Six Eastern | 1 | 32 | — | full record on Lenny's Podcast → |