This document provides advice for startups on getting media coverage for their stories. It recommends startups identify their story and tell it through others to get different perspectives. It suggests connecting with various media channels and following up respectfully. What works includes being authentic, credible, interesting and providing evidence. What doesn't work includes delays, arguments and abstraction. An example story is provided about an entrepreneur named Shiva who grew his company and expanded to the US and India. He advises entrepreneurs to identify the right co-founders and not outsource marketing.

1. How startups can get their
stories across to media
Startupidea

2. First, the why
•
•
•
•
•
•
You have a story to tell
Tell it through someone else
Independent
Different filters, lenses, perspectives
To get feedback
And share the link

3. Media
•
•
•
•
Channels
Verticals
Geographies
People

4. Connect
•
•
•
•
First move
Response
Track
Follow up

5. What works
•
•
•
•
•
•
Respect
Listening
Explaining
Plainspeak
Evidence
Accessibility
Business leaders need to be authentic, credible,
interesting, engaging, topical, and fresh, with
their inputs.

6. What doesn’t work
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Delay
Argument
Belittling
Ambiguity
Distraction
Demanding
Abstraction

7. Do you have a story to tell
•
•
•
•
•
internalised
New
Different
Inspiring
Authentic

8. Smart world
A smart world is out there, cutting across
generations and geographies, horizontals and
verticals, driven by technology, willing to
connect and listen, see and study, the work of
domain experts and entrepreneurs.
It is also open to be inspired and join hands.

9. Example

11. Story - Shiva

12. Story begins
• Even while advising budding entrepreneurs to focus
on identifying the right mix of skill-set in their cofounders, Shiva cautions them about some of the
common pitfalls, in this brief interaction
withYourStory.
• Read on the Q&A with S. Shivakumar, CEO, iSource
Solutions, in which he also narrates his
entrepreneurial journey, and talks about his recent
expansion in the US and India.

13. Q: First, your story, Shiva, as an
entrepreneur.
• I attribute my entrepreneurial adventure to
my father, a small-time grocery store
merchant, and my unfortunate (injury) sports
career. From childhood he involved us in all his
trading endeavours. My attempt to become a
professional sportsperson and play basketball
taught me leadership traits and the never-saydie attitude.

14. Story of growth
• Before iSource, I tried my hands with several
IT, dotcom, HR consultancy and related
businesses. iSource was born during the early
stages of the BPO boom in India, in 2004. We
have grown to 200-plus people with 4 offices
in India and 2 offices in the US.

15. Q: About the recent expansion in the US,
and India.
• We realised the importance of the US local partner
and worked diligently to win the trust of potential
partners. We partnered with a leading healthcare
accounting and advisory firm, and incorporated a
joint venture company in Florida with local sales and
support staff. It worked like magic, and we bagged $1
million worth of contracts in a short span of 2
months, and are working on a $5 million goal before
the end of this year.

16. US, India
• We are looking to repeat this success in the Midwest
through similar partnership ventures with
established local partners in Chicago and Missouri.
• In India, we have expanded our operations in
Thiruvananthapuram Technopark to attract the
talent pool in Kerala. Our Coimbatore and Madurai
branches are training a large pool of talent which will
be inducted into our workforce soon.

17. Q: On the women workforce.
• Empowering women is the need of the hour.
We have been employing an increasing
number of women in our offices. We provide
free training (on the US healthcare revenue
cycle management) at our branch offices
located in the Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities.

18. Q: Your advice to entrepreneurs.
• Budding entrepreneurs should focus on identifying
the right mix of skill-set in their co-founders.
• Marketing cannot be outsourced. Don’t try to ignore
this.
• Raising funds cannot be done simply by hiring the socalled consultants and paying them. Avoid hiring
consultants to raise funds. Do the right PR exercise to
attract investors and make money chase you, not the
other way.

19. Telephonic interview

20. Comments
Ashvin Bhatt · Software Engineer at Persistent
Systems
• Overall nicely tied up. Heading of the article
does not support article.
Adhithya Vignesh · Technical
Consultant at Tamil economic conference
• Thanks for the motivation and knowledgeable
insights.

21. Shares
•
•
•
•
FB – 82
Twitter – 23
LinkedIn – 14
Google Plus – 3

22. To Do
•
•
•
•
•
•
Discover your story
Narrate it
Get feedback
Refine the narrative
Go LIVE
Face comments, respond, GROW

23. A few links
• https://soundcloud.com/your-story
• http://www.youtube.com/user/yourstorytv/vi
deos
• http://yourstory.in/author/murali-d/
• http://yspages.com/edit/createnew
• http://news.yourstory.in/
• http://techsparks2013.yourstory.in/

24. A 30-second exercise
• Activate your phone recorder
• Speak into your phone for 30 seconds about
your work, startup, successes, takeaways,
plans
• Share it with someone who can give you
feedback
• Feel free to mail the audio clip (or, a rerecorded clip for a minute, later) to me

25. Another exercise
•
•
•
•
•
•
Think in tweet length
Assemble thoughts into sentences
Put sentences together in paragraphs
Gather paras into a page
Use visual guides, graphic relief
Put yourself in the shoes of the
reader, listener

26. Johari window - of
Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham

27. Once upon a time…
• Identify stories about your work that can be
told again and again, with different pegs, to a
variety of audience, at varied lengths, suiting
the mood, taste, culture.
• Borrow stories and acknowledge them, retell
stories and relate them.

28. Thank You
D. Murali
Managing Editor, YourStory
+919444907996 @dmuraliYS
murali@yourstory.in
http://www.linkedin.com/in/muralide