Securing Funding Coverage With Tomio Geron

0:07 Politely Pushy. Welcome to Politely Pushy, folks. I’m your host, as always, Eric Chemi. Today, we’re talking with

0:12 my colleague Tomio here at Bospar. Funding news. So many startups, they want coverage for their seed round or

0:19 their series A or their D or whatever it is, right? There’s so much money at stake for them, but from the media’s

0:26 point of view, it’s often not big enough to matter, right? the story matters more than the money in a lot of cases, but

0:32 for every company that’s their big moment, right? It may not be the media’s big moment, but it’s their big moment.

0:37 So, so Tomio is going to be here to talk about how do we make that happen? How do we get that kind of coverage? And Tomio,

0:45 I guess I’m so excited. I’m losing my voice here today. So excited to talk about funding news. So, so I’m going to

0:51 let you do all the talking today so uh so we can hear all your insights because

0:56 I mean we we hear it all the time, right? there’ll be some company, hey, we raised $8 million. I want to get on the Wall Street Journal for that, right? Or

1:02 I want to get, you know, I want to get in Fortune or Forbes or whatever it is. And you’ve worked at places like that and and you know, it’s, you know, that

1:10 that it’s going to be a lottery ticket kind of thing to be able to get that coverage, right? Yeah. I mean, 5-10 years ago, it

1:18 was a little easier. you could you could count on certain coverage from a lot of

1:23 outlets, TechCrunch and and others. If you if you had funding of any legit kind, uh you could you could count on

1:30 it. But today, it’s the media has changed obviously. Um there’s less reporters, there’s less um bandwidth and

1:38 um just more focus on what does what does that story actually mean as opposed

1:44 to just the funding. Um, so yeah, it’s it’s on the one hand funding is really

1:50 important and it’s really meaningful and often some of the biggest news a company will will put out. Um, but on the other

1:58 hand, like you said, it’s um there may be 10 companies that day

2:04 putting out $8 million funding news. So, um, which of those 10 am I going to write about? I can only do one today.

2:11 Um, so that that’s often the dilemma. Why can’t you work harder as a journalist? Why can’t you write about all of them? Why can you only do just

2:18 one? Well, I’m a reporter and I want to write a really good story. I want to write a

2:24 750 to, 1200 word story that’s really great about this company for the

2:30 company’s sake and for my sake because I want it to be a really good story. Um, and I just don’t have the time to write

2:35 three stories. It’s pretty long. Yeah, these are not little short one paragraph. Oh, you

2:40 know, Tomio.com just raised $8 million. Here was the investor. You want to actually do a much bigger thoughtful

2:46 piece, right? I mean, you could get a listing in Axios or Wall Street Journal Newsletter

2:53 of, hey, I raised funding. It’s one line, but it’s not a story. Um, but but right, we’re talking about an

2:59 actual in-depth story about what’s the history of the company, what do they actually do, why is it meaningful,

3:04 what’s it, how’s it going to change the world, all those things. Do you do you feel like there’s a size

3:11 number that okay, if you’re above X, you’re you’re more than likely going to

3:17 get coverage? Is there some sort of like scale of number of millions equals this percentage that you’re that you’re going

3:23 to get on? I assume if you raise a billion dollars, 100% you’re going to get coverage, right? There’s some scale

3:28 from 1 million to a billion that that’s going to get you. Yeah, there’s a scale. I mean, you you go on Twitter, you’ll see certain

3:34 reporters say, “If it’s less than 100 million, don’t bother.” Um, that’s from a, you know, a Bloomberg.

3:40 Less than 100 million raised or less than 100 million valuation? Raised, raised.

3:45 Okay. Um, and then a billion valuation also is is a pretty good, you know, a reporter

3:53 will say, “Oh, I have I have to at least talk to this company and probably we’ll have to cover it if it’s under 100

4:00 million or less than a billion.” Um, it’s possible, but like I said, it’s then you’re then you’re in the realm of

4:06 is this a good story and is this a good story to me as a

4:12 reporter? And then how do you balance, hey, you should try to get an article with a reporter versus just do a press release

4:19 because no one’s going to pick it up or or do both or do the article, wait for that, then do the press release or or

4:25 try to time it. Like how do you balance their owned owned content versus their earned content?

4:31 Right. Right. Well, that’s that’s where you get into the exclusive versus embargo or exclusive versus press

4:37 release. That whole discussion which is a which is a lot of the discussion you have with funding news and and and any

4:44 news. Um, a lot of a lot of startups want Wall

4:49 Street Journal, Bloomberg, um, TechCrunch to cover, but a lot of

4:54 those outlets will only cover if it’s exclusive. So, um, so

5:01 if you really if if you as a company really have to have it in Wall Street Journal or have to have it in Bloomberg,

5:08 um, then a lot of times we’ll we’ll talk about doing an exclusive with

5:13 that reporter um that you’re targeting. Um, and it doesn’t mean other outlets

5:20 won’t cover it, but you just want to ensure that you get that that one hit and you get that in-depth story from

5:25 that outlet. Um, but there’s also other cases where you

5:32 don’t necessarily have to have that one outlet. So, you may want to just do a press release or may just do an embargo

5:38 and have everyone come out at the same time. um you may not get as in-depth a story um because the reporter will feel

5:46 like well I’m going to do this story but someone else is going to do the same thing so why should I put as much time

5:51 into it. Um so that that’s the that’s the tradeoff you get. Um

5:56 I my feeling is reporters will cover it won’t won’t care if someone else is

6:02 covering it if the story is either a big enough um it’s a 100 million I feel like

6:08 I have to cover it or or it’s the company is big enough say it’s open AI or it’s anthropic I have to cover that

6:14 funding there’s no question there’s no there’s no debate or it’s a topic that’s say it’s Agentic AI and I feel like I have to

6:21 cover that because that’s the But there’s so many companies there’s so many companies that are doing Agentic

6:27 AI, right? Like so many companies that they’re tiny, right? You know, it’s one thing you have your anthropic open AI,

6:32 fine, but this is the, you know, Tomio’s Agentic AI company and we just raised we

6:37 raised 23 million, we’re now worth 150. Is that getting coverage? You know,

6:43 well, does it does it relate to something I just wrote about in the last month? U maybe I’m writing about Agentic

6:49 but only in medical records or you know or insurance or whatever the topic may

6:55 be. Um so it’s got to be targeted to me as a reporter or it’s something that’s

7:00 really not just like you said not just Agentic but something totally different in Agentic that’s we haven’t seen

7:08 before. Do you ever do you ever advise people on you ever do you ever advise

7:13 clients? Say, “Hey, look, I was that reporter, right? I was that reporter you’re trying to reach, I would never

7:19 write about this. No one’s going to write about this, but here’s another tactic.” Or do you find that, hey,

7:25 there’s always going to be a way there’s some way we can get that story in earned media? Um

7:32 there that’s yeah there is there is a lot of times there is a way to get coverage but sometimes it’s not the

7:38 funding. Say it’s a $5 million funding round series A or even 10 million. Um

7:46 and the it also depends on the investor. Um if it’s Andres or Sequoia that’s

7:52 different from maybe a smaller right VC who I’ve never heard of. That doesn’t mean anything to me. Um but so say it’s

7:59 not a top-name investor and it’s not it’s 5 to 10 million then you have to

8:04 say okay well what’s the larger trend that this story plays into um you know

8:10 maybe it’s not about you thought it was about Agentic but actually it’s about

8:15 tariffs or actually it’s about um health care for women you know or something you

8:23 know some other topic that’s more timely. Um, so that’s that’s where you have to figure out what’s the context of

8:30 the story, why does this matter, uh, what what’s really pressing about it.

8:36 Um, and this this funding could be deemphasized, and you could throw that in there and say, “Hey, we’ll also give

8:41 you this funding news, but um, the real what’s really important is X.” Um, that’s that’s a lot of times what

8:48 happens. What about the the different stages?

8:55 Right? Sometimes we’ll say, “Hey, we’re coming out of stealth, right? We’ve been working on this. We’re coming out of

9:01 stealth. We want to announce some things, but but we had already raised the money before, but now we want to

9:08 talk about it because now we’re out there, but we didn’t actually raise it right now.” You know, you get you get a

9:13 lot of those kind of weird nuances. What do you say to those people? Yeah. So that’s that’s a really common

9:22 thing and it’s for a lot of reporters that’s great because you want to see

9:28 um write about a company that’s never been written about before. It’s totally new. It’s totally interesting. Maybe the

9:33 founders are are um really interesting or this the topic is been hasn’t been

9:40 done before. So that’s that’s often a good strategy. Um

9:46 sometimes you can take that too far and say um you know try to keep things too

9:53 be you know close to the vest. So um some cases you may just want to be a

9:59 little more open and say you have something that maybe have some news that’s that’s ready to go out. You might

10:06 some cases you might just want to do that instead of waiting six months to you know come out of stealth. But um a

10:13 lot of times the stealth is good and that’s a so you’re offering maybe the seed funding or the series A funding

10:19 plus they’re coming out of stealth. So that’s seen as an additional thing that’s not only is it funding but it’s

10:25 no one’s ever written about this before. It’s totally new. That’s kind of the the offer. Um um one thing to be aware of

10:33 with with that but also any funding is the filings with the SEC. Um, a lot of

10:39 times the lawyers will have to file um and then they want and then the company will want to announce the news three

10:45 months later, maybe six months later. Um, but if the filing hits um the SEC

10:51 Edgar website um and the reporter sees that um and someone maybe someone wrote

10:57 about it already, just a paragraph um even if it’s just a paragraph and then three months later you offer that and

11:04 the the the New York Times will say, “Hey, sorry, someone already wrote about that. that’s not exclusive for me anymore. So that that’s we have to be

11:11 careful about that and talk to your lawyers. You what’s your advice about that whole filing thing? Not everybody has to file.

11:18 I guess it’s like certain number of shareholders or size or something. What what is the rules on that and and and

11:24 how do you advise companies to say well don’t don’t sort of burn your opportunity to announce yourself because

11:31 you wasted it showed up in a filing and then now it’s over. there. My

11:36 understanding and the rules are a little as my as I understand it, the rules are a little squishy on this. Um, but my

11:44 understanding is you don’t necessarily have to file in all cases.

11:50 Um, but there are some cases where you do have to. Um, but even if you do, the

11:56 timing is squishy also. So, say all the deal is is finalized. You don’t necessarily have to file with the SEC on

12:05 that day. Um, some companies feel like they have to, but others will wait until

12:11 they’re ready. So, there there’s ways you can slow down the actual SEC filing

12:16 even if the deal is completed. That’s how I understand it. So, my advice is to

12:22 try to do that if um if you are going to go this stealth exclusive route. What do

12:28 you think is the biggest mistake that companies do in in trying to get

12:33 coverage for themselves? Is it is it you know putting a filing out there for example? Is it expecting too much? Is it

12:39 withholding too much information? Like like I think about companies say oh we want to announce our our funding but we

12:47 don’t want to give any information. We don’t want to give any numbers. We don’t want to give you we just want to say that you know Andre and Sequoia and

12:55 Kleiner invested and like that’s it. I don’t want to say anything else. You’re like, okay, well, how big or small is it? What’s the valuation? All this

13:00 stuff, right? But what what are the most common big mistakes you see companies make? Um, one basic one is just the timing.

13:09 Um, some some sometimes it’s we really want to have it out before our product

13:16 launch or or or we want to wait until this product launch. Um, but then if you

13:21 want it sometimes, you want to get it out really fast. And then there’s other reasons why

13:26 that’s a problem. Either because there’s maybe there’s an Apple launch on that day or um or maybe it’s right the

13:34 Tuesday after Labor Day and you know or or the Tuesday before Labor Day and no

13:39 one’s around or you know those kinds of things. Um, and

13:45 so that that’s that’s one. Um, just basic, does the day of the week stuff matter? Because you know, you hear people talk

13:50 about like, oh, don’t do Mondays, but Tuesday is the new Monday now, so it’s got to only be on Wednesdays, but Friday

13:57 in the summer. And you’re like, well, there’s no good day. What am I supposed to do? Like, what what do you

14:03 Yeah, I I don’t think there is. I I don’t adhere to that too much. Most people like Tuesday or Wednesday um

14:11 because they think Monday is too busy with with uh public company news or M&A.

14:16 Um I I tend to not agree. I I basically just say don’t do it on Friday. Um

14:23 so you say Thursday is fine. Just avoid Friday. That’s my personal feeling. I don’t

14:29 think the reporters are not there or because they’re already busy or catching up with other stuff or

14:35 Yeah. Uh yeah, it’s it’s it’s not just that. It’s also that the the kind of

14:41 long tale like if if say you put out the release on Friday, um it’s fine. You may

14:47 get one story, but then by Monday when everyone’s back, then people may have

14:52 forgotten about it. Whereas, if you put the release out on Monday and then someone who wasn’t able to do it Monday

14:57 can do it Tuesday or Wednesday and it won’t feel that old, but if you do it Friday to Monday, that feels old. But

15:04 does anybody still do stuff a day or two later or is it like I was always in a world where oh you don’t get it on the

15:10 first day it’s over? Um actually there there will be some yeah there will be some because because

15:17 say maybe it’s um in you know biotech today and I I really cover biotech only

15:24 and I saw oh there’s 20 million bio 105 $5 million biotech but I that’s what I

15:29 cover so I I have to cover that so I’ll do that on Wednesday. um you know because that’s my beat. If it’s you know

15:36 if it’s not your beat then forget it. But those are cases where I see you know. Yeah.

15:42 What other mistakes do you see companies make? Um I think

15:48 making just the messaging. Um making sure you’re really good on the messaging. A lot of times when you’re

15:55 coming out of stealth or seed or series A uh you have a you have a good product.

16:01 you sometimes you haven’t have a good business and there’s maybe there’s product market fit and you’re starting

16:07 to grow but you never really done messaging because you never had to. You just got customers and you you know you

16:12 started to grow really fast. You had a growth marketing team or whatever it was. Um but you never really did

16:19 messaging because you didn’t have to. And so how do you talk about what you actually do, you know? So making sure

16:25 that aligns with the news messaging. um

16:30 maybe some industry um what’s happening in the industry context. So there’s

16:36 several different things you want to think about to make sure everything’s aligned and then also make sure that aligns with your sales and marketing

16:42 messaging uh which you’re which you’re developing. Um so that’s sometimes the

16:48 want to put the cart before the horse and just put this out next week but we’ve but we’ve never talked to the media before. We never did messaging so

16:54 then you know we don’t know what we’re saying. Yeah, we we do see a lot of companies

17:00 where we have to help them figure out, okay, well, what are you doing? How do you describe it differently from what’s

17:05 already out there, let’s say, especially in in AI, it’s a lot of AI startups right now, right? Like, okay, you can’t

17:11 just say I’m an AI startup. What is that? What am I going to do with that, right? It doesn’t that doesn’t help for

17:16 at least understanding of what they’re going to write about. Yeah. And and sometimes that’s both the

17:23 technical explanation to the reporter like so are you saying you simply just use ChatGPT in the office or is there

17:30 is there something deeper there right um how what is that do you mean and then there’s also the messaging like how does

17:35 this tie into the larger narratives of well what’s happening with open AI with um their latest model or you know what’s

17:43 happening with deep or you know open source or various different things that are happening um in the industry

17:50 So, how does this relate to those larger um trends um in addition to what what

17:56 does your product do and that kind of thing? What about the advice on

18:02 financial disclosures, right? A lot of people don’t want to give away anything in terms of numbers. So, how do

18:08 you how do you advise them on Well, the more you give away, the more coverage you’re going to get. The less you give away, then no one’s going to talk to

18:15 you. So, do you want the coverage or do you want to just be secret? Yeah. Yeah, I mean as a reporter

18:21 obviously you want to know more. You want to know the valuation. You want to know the revenue. You want to know the

18:27 growth rate. Um maybe the um you know are you profitable? Um net

18:34 net profitable. Um so companies often don’t want to release any of this. Um

18:40 which you know fair. Um, but like you said, the more you can give, the more

18:47 this is more just general, not even just financials, but transparent, the more I feel like the more transparent you can

18:53 be, the more coverage you get, the more interest you’ll get. Um, and the more you’ll feel like the reporter will feel

19:00 like you don’t have something to hide. If it’s sort of like, well, we can’t say anything about our growth. We’re like, how do we know you’re growing? you know,

19:07 so um a lot of times they’ll say, “Well, we grew, you know, 75% this year.” Like,

19:12 “Okay, that’s great, but from what, you know, from where?” We had we had four customers and now we have seven. We had three more grew 75%.

19:20 What am I going to do with that? Yeah. Right. Um but you can I mean I sometimes

19:25 will suggest well can you at least give like what’s your customer acquisition

19:31 rate or what’s your you know margins or you know can you give something that’s

19:36 maybe not as you don’t think is the crown jewel but at least explains

19:42 something about your business. Um so that kind of explains what’s actually happening. Um the other thing is you

19:48 know sometimes companies don’t want to give the valuation in particular because they’re worried like oh will we be seen

19:54 as lower than our competitor or maybe the next round it won’t be seen as growing enough or you know there’s a lot

20:00 of those you know reasons they don’t want to but if you get big enough it’s

20:06 you know if you’re open AI or if you’re Anthropic or if you get big enough the valuation is going to be out there you

20:12 know eventually so I kind of feel like at some point you should just put it out there Because if your if your company is

20:18 good enough and you’re big enough and you’re confident enough, you should just, you know, do that. Um the

20:24 employees are going to know they’re, you know, internally because they they ask. So

20:30 there’s a lot of ifs there if your company’s not big enough and if you’re not confident and you’re not sure you’re

20:36 growing. So then maybe there’s good reason to be like maybe we shouldn’t say anything because we’re just kind of stringing this along.

20:43 Yeah. But then what what what’s the point, right? like I don’t know. Yeah.

20:48 Um do you find there I’m going I’m going under the understanding that you are you know a

20:56 great company so why why not talk about it? Do you, do you find there’s different

21:02 strategies as you move up the ladder? Series A, B, C, D, and so forth. Like do you find that you need to do something

21:08 different in terms of how you’re working with the media or what you’re trying to present? The seed and series A is a lot often

21:15 time a little more of the vision and

21:21 goals of changing, you know, disrupting this industry, this market. Um, a lot of times you can talk about the founders,

21:28 um, and why they’re really, um, interesting, where they came from, how

21:34 they met, the origin story. Whereas series B and C are a little more about the proof points and the growth and

21:42 um, the customers and um, how they’re leading in that industry. So, it’s a

21:49 little different. Um, and then the types of coverage. The good the good thing is for series B and C

21:55 tends to be a little easier to get the reporter to say they’re interested because they’ve probably heard of you

22:01 already. Um, you’ve gotten to a certain size where they feel like, oh, this is something we we we have to cover. Um, so

22:08 it tends to be a little easier in some sense when you’re at that a little bit

22:14 later stage um to get coverage and you expect a little a lot of companies will

22:20 expect more coverage. Um, we don’t need to, you know, they already know that. So,

22:29 do you you mentioned earlier a lot of reporters like to be the first

22:34 to talk about a company, right? Oh, you’re coming out of stealth. Like, no one’s heard about you before. All this kind of stuff. But I also saw a lot of

22:40 times the opposite. Oh, I don’t trust you. I don’t know who you are. I don’t want to be the person getting burned as

22:45 a reporter because it turns out you’re the next Theronos or, you know, FTX. They were a lot bigger, but like I don’t

22:51 want to be some small little scammy company. I I don’t want to be first. I want you to get some other coverage and

22:56 then I can at least show my boss I already got coverage. How do you find those different kinds of personalities

23:02 in terms of reporters that some are actively looking for the first and others are actively avoiding the

23:08 first? Yeah. Or they’re looking for the Theronos or FDX. There was one called

23:16 IRL. I don’t know if you saw recently that was recently uh the CEO was indicted. Um, so

23:24 you know, sometimes PE reporters like to write about companies that they think are, you know, somehow a scam.

23:32 I was first. I was first. I knew something was fishy with those guys. Yeah. Yeah. The person who uncovered their

23:37 notes, obviously he um is is famous now, but um any case. Yeah. So there’s

23:44 there’s different there’s different um the the a lot of reporter that’s that’s just to

23:51 back up that’s why reporters will ask for those proof points because you say well I got you know 10 million users and

23:58 I say well how do I know that um because IRL said turned out they had 95% of their users were fake so but um so

24:08 that’s why how does a company prove that how does it like if they say hey we have 10 million users prove it I want to share

24:14 like how do you advise a company to prove something to get that reporter on board?

24:20 Um there’s analysts um if it’s B2B a lot of times analysts can speak to that

24:26 because they’ve actually uh looked at the product and they know that it’s legit. Um for for a consumer

24:34 product a lot of times there there are proof points already. um whether it’s being used at a certain maybe it’s being

24:40 used at a hospital or maybe it’s on social media. So that in that case consumer products I think are a little

24:47 easier. Um not you know not to get the exact number but a little there’s a little proof. Um yeah for enterprise B2B

24:57 um a lot of times it’s customers um and case studies. So, um, you’ll see that

25:04 often also results in great stories if you have a customer who can who’s willing to to talk about it, um, and

25:12 talk about the benefits of that product. So, that’s that’s to me to me that’s great, especially for the later stage.

25:18 That’s that’s a real a real winner. So, you probably need to present the

25:23 reporter with some of these all these different data points on a platter ready to go. Hey, I’m pitching you this idea.

25:30 Here’s an analyst ready to go. Here’s a customer ready to go. Here’s some proof points. It’s not just they said they

25:36 have a great product. They said they’ve got a million users. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, and then one one the big

25:42 one I I didn’t mention is is the is the investor. So, um the lead investor for

25:49 um Kleiner or Sequoia and they’re here they’re willing to talk to you and tell

25:55 tell you what what they’ve seen. They’ve gone through the whole company. they they’ve talked to customers themselves

26:00 personally. They put their money behind it. um they’re you know so that to me if

26:07 even if I don’t haven’t seen the exact numbers themselves I say like well at

26:12 least you know so and so from founders fund told me that they that this is legit doesn’t mean it can’t be um faked

26:19 but at least you know I have some I believe them because they’ve done their due diligence more than me obviously so

26:26 I trust them or or it may it would be even better if I know that investor then and sometimes companies will do this

26:32 they’ll ask their VC to write the intro to to write the pitch or to send the

26:37 pitch um because the reporter knows that investor, right? And then that’s a much different

26:43 kind of pitch coming from the investor than let’s say coming from you or coming from the PR or coming from the marketing

26:49 person or or the startup CEO, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. And some some investors will

26:55 do that. um not not all, but especially investors that are um they know how this

27:01 works and they’re they’re they’re hustling and they’re trying to help their companies, they’ll they’ll do that if you know um to help them out.

27:08 Yeah, I was going to say what does the investor get out of it, right? What does the investor get out of that coverage

27:14 and what does the company get out of the coverage? Like what’s fundamentally the goal here? It’s like, okay, this transaction’s already happened.

27:20 Yeah. So what? So what that we talk about it? What? So what? That some non customer

27:26 that reads about this, what are they going to do? Okay, Tomio’s Agentic AI got 20 million bucks from Eric’s

27:32 investment firm. So person C reads that. What do they care? Yeah, there’s there’s different reasons

27:39 um that the the company first of all, the CEO and the leadership want it. Um

27:45 some cases uh they’ll want customers. Um so that

27:50 they sometimes they see it as direct you know acquisition customer acquisition if

27:56 it’s in you know CRM today and they’re you know they they see that as drawing

28:02 traffic and uh customers um some cases it’s um

28:08 hiring you know we we just raised 10 million we need to hire

28:14 new engineers um they want they want recruits to see that they were in the

28:20 Wall Street Journal um or TechCrunch or something. Um and then there are cases I

28:27 I know personally that there’s been cases where they want to raise

28:32 the next round. So, say they raise the seed and then sometimes they’ll hold it for 6 months until they’re ready to

28:40 raise the A and then they’ll release it and then start use that news to say um

28:45 because a lot of times investors will see that and say, “Oh, that looks like a hot company. I I’ll email the CEO right

28:51 now.” So, they know that that inbound’s going to come when that TechCrunch story hits. So, they’ll use that as a

28:57 fundraising um kickoff a lot of times. So, there’s a lot of different reasons. Um and sometimes it’s just for uh

29:06 internal morale and ego for the company, you know, but um but yeah, it’s a lot of

29:11 times it it is a I guess the big thing is it’s a definite it’s seen as

29:18 uh the one surefire news hook for a company. Even if it’s

29:24 like we said, even if it’s not, that’s one of the best chances you have to get coverage. So if you don’t get it with

29:30 that, then you’re, you know, you have to wait another year or two and then, you know, who knows? Then you actually do something

29:36 interesting, which is a lot harder. Yeah. And then for the VCs, oh yeah, I was just going to add for the VCs, um,

29:41 for them it’s it’s yeah, it’s inbound for them, too. They want people to know, hey, we’re we’re investing in a Agentic.

29:49 Yeah, I see. Yeah. Then, you know, we’re we’re the lead on this this hot the hottest Agentic

29:55 in medical or something. And so they can also send that to put that on on X or

30:02 wherever so that founders will see that and be like, “Oh, I should go talk to that VC instead of the other one.” Um,

30:07 so they they see that as as leads a lot of times and and also just helping their their their companies like they want to

30:14 be seen as founder friendly helping their portfolio companies.

30:20 What about other kinds of fundraising, right? Like we saw the spaxs, you know,

30:26 safes, like all this other stuff like does the advice change for things like that?

30:32 Um, yes and no. Um there there there are different especially

30:40 when there’s the market’s hot and there’s a bubble. There can be creative

30:46 financial engineering as as you know um whether that’s crypto, whether that’s

30:51 Spaxs, we saw the Spaxs craze um which may be coming back again. Um and safes are

30:59 are not are just a different flavor of uh sort of bridge bridge funding. But um

31:07 to me I I think and companies sometimes may disagree. I think that you should

31:12 try to be clear about what exactly the funding is. Like you shouldn’t say that

31:19 a safe is a series A if it’s not. Um or you shouldn’t say that a bridge round is a

31:26 series B if it’s not because they will find out later and that will be bad. Um

31:32 so um Spaxs and and other types of um sort of those types of creative later

31:39 stage deals which also include secondary deals. Sometimes you do a secondary

31:44 instead of um going into the company it’ll it’ll cash out found um employees.

31:50 I I think those can be stories and and reporters will be interested. You just have to kind of take some extra care to

31:57 explain what’s what’s actually happening and not try to kind of like gloss over

32:03 them. Um and and that kind of thing. Um so that that’s my over like I said

32:09 before my thing is transparency. So just try to be as transparent as you can.

32:16 What’s what’s your ideal dream type of story that when when you were still on the news desk? What would what would

32:22 have been most exciting for you to write about? Um well actually that reminds me the the

32:29 this this does happen in the what is it reverse would you say where um I’m a

32:36 reporter um I’m talking to people and I hear that

32:41 Coinbase or Anthropic or whoever is raising a a big new round. Um,

32:48 I call around and I confirm that, you know, because I’m a real reporter and I I have at least two sources. Um, and and

32:56 then I call the company. A little bit of a dig there, who are you digging at with that? Some tweeting. Um, no, no, it’s just,

33:04 you know, that’s that’s that’s the that’s the way you do it at a at a news

33:10 organization supposedly. Um, so then you then you then you call the company and

33:16 say, “Hey, I I’m I heard you’re raising 30 million. Um, and the lead investor is

33:24 is X venture capital. Um, I’m planning to write about it tomorrow. You know, do

33:29 you want do you have a comment or can you confirm or not?” And then you as the company are in a position of, you know,

33:36 deciding, you know, do I confirm? Do I talk to them? Do I say nothing? Do I put

33:42 out a blog? You know, do I try to front run them? The stories come to them. They didn’t even pitch it.

33:48 Yeah. Right. So, if you’re if you’re a hot company, that’s a in some ways that’s a good thing because that means

33:53 everyone wants to write about you. Um it’s a good problem to have in some ways even though you’re not happy.

34:01 Most companies by definition quantitatively are not that hot company, right? Most companies are fighting to

34:08 get that kinds of coverage, right? They they would love if Tomio from the journal is calling them up, right?

34:14 Mostly it’s like Tomio, can you please write about us? Please look at us, right? So So their their playbook’s very

34:19 different. They they would love anyone to write about them, right? Yeah, for sure. But once you get

34:24 to a if you have big investors, um even if you’re the series A level, it

34:31 can happen because um you know, I I hey, I heard Andres is leading your this

34:36 round. Even if it’s series A, I that’s a company I may I may want to write about. Is there some value then for a startup

34:43 to take on the bigger brand VC backer just so it increases their likelihood of

34:49 getting coverage? Um I’m I think that’s probably one

34:55 consideration that they think about. probably not the the top one, but it’s definitely, you know, I think is is a is

35:02 a reason that people use because it’s a it’s it’s some it’s something that people recognize.

35:08 Cuz what about let’s say, you know, and there’s a lot of people we know, hey, I’m I started

35:13 this company. I really believe in it. It could change the world, but my background doesn’t have big brand names

35:19 behind it. My venture capital firms don’t have big brand names behind it. I only raised a certain amount of money,

35:25 five million, eight million because I don’t want to take on too much because I don’t want to dilute myself and our growth prospects are really good. I

35:31 don’t want to over like over have investment, right? So, yeah, that’s all bad from a media story point

35:38 of view, but they firmly believe like I’m going to change the world with this. Please write about me, but this is all I

35:44 can offer you. This is all I have to offer. What do you help? How do you help them? What do you do with them? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I I I definitely I

35:52 think that’s a very good rationale and a lot a lot of great companies do that and

35:58 you don’t have to be with the big the most uh popular firms to do that and

36:05 have a great company. So, um so I guess the one thing is you’re building a great

36:11 company and a great product. That’s foundational, right? If you have that,

36:17 then you’re in a good shape whether someone’s writing about you or not. Um, and then then it’s just figuring out how

36:24 can we get good coverage. Um, which which you know we can still do with you

36:30 have good investors even if they’re not necessarily the hottest or the most famous. You can still do all these

36:36 things with those great investors. And even if it’s smaller round, you just have to show that growth and show that

36:44 vision of why you’re, you know, totally upending this this industry. So, it’s

36:50 it’s those two things. It’s the growth and then this is why this is totally, you know, transformative.

36:56 I knew some companies that they said, “We’re profitable. We don’t need to raise any money because we make money

37:02 and so we feel like we don’t get the media coverage that these other guys get because they’re raising tons of money, but they’re raising it because they lose

37:08 money.” So, what are we supposed to do? Like, we’re not going to raise money. We don’t need it, but we’re doing great, but no one writes about us.

37:14 Yeah. Yeah, that is that does happen. Um, and

37:21 you know, um, the you can still get coverage obviously if you’re if you’re

37:26 growing and you have those proof points and you know, people will write about you. The VCs are proof points to the

37:35 reporter. So that’s one one um thing that’s more challenging, but not you

37:41 know, you don’t have to have a VC to to have good coverage. Um so it’s it’s definitely still possible. Um

37:49 and you know VC funding is like one filter that someone a reporter will use

37:56 as you know, hey, I see they got funding, so I I I’ll at least look at it. I may not necessarily write about

38:01 it, but I’ll at least consider it. Um there may be other filters of hey I really want to cover this one sector or

38:09 this one trend. Um and so if you’re in that area then then they’ll they’ll want

38:14 to talk to you. Tomio, this is fascinating. There’s so much Yeah. So much going on. It’s like

38:21 hand-to-hand combat, right? People trying to get their word out there, get their attention, trying to get in front of

38:27 media outlets to say, “Hey, talk about us. Look what we’re doing. We’re doing a lot of great stuff.” So, um, thanks so much for the time today.

38:34 Yeah, thanks. Thanks for doing this, Eric. Thank you to my guest and thanks for listening. Subscribe to get the latest

38:41 episodes each week and we’ll see you next time.