Is Founder-Led DIY PR Actually Effective?

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."
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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. ​​