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The OG Inspiration
Very early on after segmenting towards plant and intimate wellness — aka if you were not a sex and cannabis brand, I would not work with you — I had friends from entrepreneurial circles across real estate, service providers, entertainment, coaching, even fellow journalists who, while profitable, didn't have the resources for the PR agencies they were being quoted. They weren't really in dire need of public relations either. It was more that PR could really catapult them to the next step, so they wanted some PR — they just didn't want to throw $10,000 a month at that endeavor. So very informally, I just gave them a step-by-step of what I would do if I was personally their publicist, for them to do themselves. And these were usually conversations at parties, at conventions, in between keynotes. This was not me sitting down with them while they had a pen and paper handy. And weeks later they would be buying me drinks to thank me for the advice that led to their latest and greatest to date media placement. What was more incredible was, then they repeated it again and again — becoming industry names and thought leaders. Not because they trial-and-errored PR, but because they took the small efforts I advised them to and ended up with really great results. Blogging to save my Breath Over the first eight years of running my agency, I would constantly be answering the same questions over and over — whether it was for my clients, for people curious about PR, or for entrepreneurs trying to execute their own PR themselves. I also noticed that if I updated my blog one or two times a month, I would never have to do new business endeavors, because that was really all I needed to do to keep my website in the top results when you Googled "sexual wellness PR." It's a very, very, very niche industry. So I would solve two birds with one stone by keeping a list in my notes of future blog articles — questions that I got asked all the time. I'd literally be at a party, someone would ask me a question, and I'd say "hold my drink" — literally — so I could type the question up, and then I'd tell them, "Listen, I'm going to write about this coming up. Check my blog. Because this is a question I get a lot." After about eight years of that, one day I was doing exactly that — updating my blog — and I start looking and go, wow, I've been updating this for like eight years. That's really impressive. And I'm looking at all the different titles and I realize: somewhere within this blog, there's a very, very, very rough draft of a book for how entrepreneurs can do this themselves. But having publicized my fair share of books, I knew we needed some concrete case studies from entrepreneurs doing it themselves. And so my mentor's words were deep in my mind — how he advised me very early on that my strategy in placing unpublishable brands in top-tier media was something other entrepreneurs would benefit from, especially those that are successful but not quite ready for an agency retainer. A Naming in Progress I mention the blogging-to-book pipeline because when I originally started the blogs that became the book, I was calling them "PR Yourself" — and that was originally going to be the name of the coaching program too. Because I knew nothing about coaching programs at the time. Then I did a little more research and realized — oops, nope. It's a very commonly used name for PR solutions, so let's not set ourselves up for any consumer confusion in the future. So just as a placeholder, I went with BYOPR — because I am a self-proclaimed wino and wine connoisseur. When my dear friend and well-known coach — he hates when I use the word mentor, but I call him my mentor — came to visit, he asked me what the name was of my coaching program. I replied, "Oh no, I'm nervous to tell you. You're going to hate it." More gently, he said, "No, tell me. What is it called?" Sheepishly I replied: "...BYOPR. Do you hate it?" Immediately he responded: "Yeah. I hate it." But we've been brainstorming together since we were in college — which I guess for founders and entrepreneurs is like being in diapers — and so by the end of his visit, we brainstormed a much better name that both encompassed the strategy, my own personality (and be sure to opt in here to learn more about the program), and the founders we serve. So Why "Four Emails"? In 2025, I set out to build a suite of digital products ranging from templates to instructional videos that turn my 8-week onboarding PR strategy into a series of DIY videos that founders can follow in the space that it takes them to write four emails per week. Publicists are no different than founders in that we have very limited timeframes some weeks. The idea that we're going to be able to pitch for 40 hours a week — even with five clients — is incredibly unrealistic and doesn't account for the many, many things that can go into running client PR accounts. But when you strip all that down to just the work that brings in headlines — if you're not running an agency, if you're not being a publicist, if you're not running client events, if you're not doing client onboarding, client management, employee management, etc. — the actual work of media relations that brings in the headlines, that turns readers into customers, is often just a few emails per week. That's what the Four Email PR System is built on: the reality that the work that actually moves the needle in PR — the pitching, the follow-ups, the relationship-building — doesn't take 40 hours a week. It takes four well-crafted emails. Everything else is agency overhead that founders don't need to worry about. So if you've been telling yourself you don't have time for PR, but you have time for an email: that's all it takes to start turning media coverage into your most powerful growth channel. To learn more about the Four Email PR System created by MAVPR, read the announcement blog here.
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You hear about startup unicorns dominating headlines without a publicist in sight — until you ask their founders about their background. "Oh, I was a journalist." "Oh, I worked in PR for 20 years."
But here's what's interesting: just about all of my PR agency clients came to me after doing their own PR successfully for years, even without formal PR training. It's very easy for founders to do their own PR. No one knows your story better than you. And because it cuts out the middleman, journalists actually prefer to speak directly with a founder who doesn't have a publicist breathing down every quote they give. It makes their jobs easier. It makes the process more seamless. And it can turn into a genuinely beneficial relationship between a founder and a journalist for years to come. When DIY PR Works DIY PR works — but only under the right conditions. DIY PR works when you understand the language of media. If you're approaching a journalist the same way you approach a customer to make a sale, you're not going to have a lot of success. DIY PR works when you actually have something to publicize. If you're trying to get press for an idea, your efforts are better spent turning that idea into something worth publicizing. DIY PR works when you have a fantastic story, a product or service that transforms lives or businesses, and the availability for media interviews. DIY PR works when you have everything you need for PR except a budget for a monthly retainer. DIY PR works when you speak the language of media and understand what journalists are looking to publish — not just what you want to publicize. Why Most Founders Fail at DIY PR Most founders fail at DIY PR because they don't understand that it's not about what they want to publish. It's about what the media is currently talking about, what the social conversation currently is, and aligning your message to those conversations. Not just emailing a journalist to say, "My product is the best in the world, you should write about it." Why should they write about it? Why is it important to their readers? It's totally understandable — after you've spent all that time, money, and effort building an incredible product, of course that's what you want to talk about. But "my product is incredible" is not a pitch. It's a statement. And most founders don't have any type of structure, plan, or strategy in mind when they're executing their PR efforts. In fact, most of the time they're looking for a shortcut. Maybe they reached out to a journalist or two, it took too long, and then social media picked up on what they were googling. So they get served an ad for a press release newswire that says, "We'll put your news on 100 top-tier sites for only $500." $500 for multiple top-tier placements? If I didn't know better, I personally — as a publicist — would take that deal. The problem is that these newswires usually just feed sites that automatically pick up filler articles, and most people don't read them. When I worked at the first agency I ever worked at, we used to send press release wire reports to our clients — and we'd delete the column about how many people actually read the release. Because we'd show a report that said, "This got posted on 118 different sites," but we'd only have 108 clicks. It was pretty clear that on some of those sites, no one even read it. So then maybe these founders see another ad — this time for a direct connection platform. "Sign up, pay our monthly fee, and you'll have access to journalist requests." And you do. You might even get featured, interviewed, or have your product reviewed. But these platforms exist to help journalists, not to help you tell the story that's going to attract your key audience as potential customers. You're helping the journalist. You're helping the platform. But no one's really helping you. By the time founders have exhausted all these options, they're convinced public relations doesn't work for them. But they didn't even really do public relations. They used a tool or two. They never executed an actual PR strategy. What Happens When Founders Follow a Publicist-Led Strategy The founders who succeed the most at doing their own PR are the ones taking the advice and direction of an actual publicist — whether it's their friend, their sister, their college roommate, or a PR coach. Because like I said, it's not difficult for founders to do their own PR. In fact, I used to hate when founders were doing their own PR, because it was so much easier for them to email a journalist and say, "Hey, I can talk to you about XYZ," than it was for me to convince that same journalist to fall in love with a person, company, and product they'd never seen, touched, or experienced. And that is exactly why I built the Four Email PR System. Because founders can absolutely do their own PR. Not just once. Not just one or two articles. Not just one or two podcast interviews. I'm talking about consistently bringing in top-tier headlines that transform your growth trajectory — in just four emails per week. The Four Email PR System offers digital solutions from templates and worksheets to a video library that takes everything I do to take a client from unknown to household name and breaks it into step-by-step videos. When you follow along, you walk away with a publicist-led strategy installed in your existing team — even if you're a solo founder. This is not random pitching. This is a strategy designed by a publicist who has gotten the hardest-to-cover and most censored brands into every major media outlet over the last decade. The Four Email PR System teaches founders media relations in four emails per week, and how to turn those four emails into two to eight top-tier headlines every single month. When you're guessing and checking and trial-and-erroring your way through PR, you might land one or two placements here and there. But overall, you're left with a feeling of, "DIY PR is not sustainable and I am not capable of doing it." But when you have a publicist-led strategy, the only thing you're thinking about is, "I cannot wait until my next media interview" — which is probably already scheduled for this week. To learn more about the Four Email PR System created by MAVPR, read the announcement blog here. Over the course of my career, I cannot tell you how many founders have come to me seeking PR services. Not because they understand what media relations is or even what the role of a publicist is, but because they've seen so many successful brands with active PR teams promoting their story, offering, and competitive advantage, and they assume that the reason for their success is the publicist. (Which does probably have a huge role to play in it.)
Why Many Founders Assume They Do A quote that is widely credited to Bill Gates is "If I was down to my last dollar, I would spend it on PR," and there's absolutely some truth to that. I can't tell you how many times I've seen brands who thought they wouldn't be able to invest in certain marketing or growth endeavors until they got a top-tier headline about their brand, and suddenly so many more doors were opened for them, the least being the increase in sales that funded their next few months. In fact, many of the brands over the last 10 years that have gone from idea to household name have invested in PR very early on. When Founders Don't Need a Publicist However, just as many founders think that PR is going to turn them from unsuccessful to unicorn. Sometimes they only have an idea, or they have a concept but the delivery of that concept consistently and scalably leaves a lot to be wanted, and they're hoping that media coverage is going to open the doors that they need to remedy the issues. While a publicist usually works miracles in turning words into top-tier headlines and turning those words into sales, a publicist can't fix a broken system. Without customer success stories, a brand is just an idea, and ideas can't be sustainably published in a PR campaign. Investing in PR before you've ironed out all the kinks of your company is like putting a Band-Aid on a train wreck. And it can come with some serious consequences. Media relations is so popular because you can reach so many eyeballs, millions of potential customers, partners, and investors, without spending advertising budget. The reason why PR has more value than advertising is because journalists are ethically* bound to the truth. When an editor says "this is the best lipstick I've ever used," that lipstick brand will experience way more sales than when they publish four times as much advertising that says "the best lipstick I've ever used." Because editors are often sent these products, they often experience a higher volume for media consideration than most consumers. So if they've tested a hundred of these products and say this is the best, that carries a lot of weight. And so they cannot say "this company is so amazing and has helped so many people and is life-changing" if it's not true, because that will ruin their credibility. They might not be able to get future jobs. And the outcome on this is usually more embarrassing and damaging to a company's lifetime success than not having media coverage in the early days. If you're a founder who is still working on consistent deliverability and customer satisfaction, at this point, your resources are better invested in other areas rather than PR. When Founders Might Need a Publicist However, if you have incredible customer reviews, the logistics of scalability and growth already mapped out, and an interesting founding story (and before you say "I don't know if I have an interesting founder story": I used to represent cannabis companies who are essentially finance bros who used their inheritance to start a cannabis company, which now is like one of the most basic stories ever told, but that is the baseline for an interesting founder story. So don't tell me you don't have an interesting founder story. I promise you, you do) and you're ready to start streamlining your other marketing endeavors, you may be in need of PR. Public relations, while coming with a hefty price tag, is deservedly so because of all the lift it gives to the other areas of your growth. Quality PR helps with reputation management, helps with leadership visibility, helps with team communication, in addition to providing lifts to SEO, email marketing, social media marketing, even investor relations. And all you really need to start PR is a website and some good imagery. And the final thing is: you might need a publicist if you have the budget to invest in multiple months of PR before you start seeing PR traction, because PR is not instantaneous. If you can't invest in at least 6 months of PR, you're basically just throwing money down the drain because stop-and-start PR just does not yield nearly enough to justify investing for just 3 months and then coming back when you make a little more money. Save your resources. Another sign you might need PR or a publicist is if you just cannot manage on your own or within your own established team. The incoming requests from journalists, the buzz, the reviews on the brand. At a certain point, CEOs have to delegate everything, including the brand voice. And publicists are very good options to start offloading any of the relations between the brand and stakeholders. What to Do When Budget Gets in the Way of PR For many founders, they are ready for PR in every way except for having the budget to consistently invest for 6 months. Another publicist and I were talking the other day, and we agreed that the state of PR right now is a race to the bottom. So many PR firms that have notoriously high rates like $15,000, $30,000, or $50,000 retainer minimums are all now offering $5K-a-month retainers. Which, for a new founder, even $5,000 a month is a huge amount of money. And so founders are going to publicists thinking $5,000 is a lot of money, and these publicists at these big firms are thinking this is their discount rate and they're going to offer services that match that, whereas the founder is thinking this is a lot of money so they're getting their premium service. That dissonance is what gives a lot of PR a bad name: founders are expecting $15,000-a-month results for a fraction of the investment. And I mention this because in this market currently, if you barely have the money to invest in a monthly public relations retainer where you could probably do it, but there's a good chance you might have to skip a month of payment, or you're not going to be able to pay the full amount every month, or you're going to have to go very bare bones, there are more strategic ways to approach media relations with your resources than hiring a publicist. Journalists actually love hearing from founders themselves if they can speak the language of media. Because oftentimes founders don't really understand how PR works, and so they're sending their sales deck and their sales information to a journalist who is trying to tell stories for their readers. But I've seen many founders who were former journalists or former marketers and have some understanding of what journalists are looking for, and they ran their early PR campaigns for 2 or 3 years before they were able to hire a publicist consistently. Now, many publicists get up in arms about this. I can't tell you how many publicists I have commenting on my ads for a $47 PR solution saying that you can never replace a publicist. And they're not wrong, because if you are a CEO talking with investors, shareholders, stakeholders, revenue reports, doing media interviews also, managing your own public relations is probably going to be impossible unless you just don't have any work-life balance. And at a certain point in a brand's growth, you do want the experience of a publicist at the table saying "Oh no! That's not a good idea for XYZ reason." But in the early days of a company, when you can barely scrounge together one monthly retainer let alone six to be able to start seeing the traction of PR, founders can offload the early media relations on their existing team, even if they are a solo founder and solo operator at that point. Journalists love working with founders directly, especially when they speak the language of media, because it cuts out the middle person. They can call you up when they need a quote. They don't need to schedule it through your publicist. That means when they're on deadline, you're a preferred source over someone who might have more experience than you in the topic that they're looking for a quote on but has to go through a four-person PR team to get an interview approved. No, no. They want to call you. And so just because you don't have a budget for a publicist does not mean you're not available for incredible PR and incredible headlines. And unfortunately, until I built the Four Email PR System, most DIY PR solutions for founders are designed to put you on a hamster wheel. Direct connection platforms where you can supposedly connect to journalists directly are really aimed at helping journalists, not so much founders. So you might get all this incredible media coverage, but it's in a lens for an audience who is not your ideal customer. And so that feature, that link in the article, even that product placement is kind of lost on the reader. Where you spent the time, you had to first sign up for the platform, search for the request, schedule the interview, get them all this information. At least 1 to 3 hours of work total, and there's still no sales or change in your growth trajectory. Another popular DIY outlet for founders is press release wires, which usually just end up on the back page of a syndicated site. So you might get placements on 118 different sites, but then you look at the view count and only a hundred people have viewed it. So there are sites where people didn't even read the article. And so while press release wires are often used in a publicist-run campaign, they are not the one-stop solution that they are advertised to founders as. What Actually Gets Journalists to Say Yes? If founders know the roadmap to media coverage and how to speak the language of journalists, it is very easy for founders to do their own PR. It's how the Four Email PR System was born. Very early on in my career, when I had segmented to just plant and intimate wellness brands, I had a number of my friends coming to me. Lawyers, doctors, real estate developers, therapists, coaches, who just couldn't afford to pay the retainer of a PR firm. And I told them, listen, if you're not doing a big launch right now, if you're not publicizing this massive initiative launch, etc., you're much better just doing your own PR. They would use my formula for getting top tier media attention. And founder-led PR was often more successful than publicist PR because the journalist can fall directly in love with the founder. Not so much having to be convinced to find someone awesome through someone else. And so if you're curious about how to speak the language of media, how to get journalists to respond, how to multiply every media interview, how to place 8 to 12 top-tier headlines per month on a founder's schedule, discover the Four Email PR System. To learn more about the Four Email PR System created by MAVPR, read the announcement blog here. *With the rise of conservative media, "ethically bound to the truth" has become "ethically bound to their truth." |
MAVPRA public relations agency specializing in brands and startups across plant and intimate wellness Archives
February 2026
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