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Meservey applies the "crazy hot" matrix to early startup communications

Lulu Cheng Meservey · Lulu Cheng Meservey on Founder Mode, Attention as Currency, and Building the Future. · Mar 25, 2025 · at 15:53

Communications strategist Lulu Cheng Meservey discusses why early-stage startups have a lower margin of error for public relations missteps than established companies.

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“There's like a company crazy hot chart where if you're really hot as a company, there's a lot that you can get away with. But if you're new and people don't know a lot about you, then every single thing you do is say is like disproportionately affecting how they think of you. And so if you have a 10 year history of just like wins and bangers, and you have one thing that is kind of weird or flop or a little bit cringy, You can kind of get away with it. It gets absorbed a little bit better, but if your company is launching for the first time and the one thing people see is 100% of the data points that they have about you can't really afford that. So I'm not saying don't take risks. I'm saying that the importance of taste goes up like even, even more when you're new and there's not a lot of data points about you.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

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