Press, events, consultations: How F1V сomms team helps startups with PR

By Elina Kochenko, external communications manager at F1V

Fact No. 1: Early-stage startups rarely can afford a PR specialist from day one.

Fact No. 2: Good communicators achieve more.

These two statements contradict each other. But if your startup is in the F1V portfolio, we try to help you with PR until you can handle your comms independently. Sometimes, we work with external companies.

Just want to be frank with you: We’re great at PR.

In 4 years, F1V has landed over 1,000 publications with media like TechCrunch, Sifted, VentureBeat, Insider, and Entrepreneur. We’ve spoken at 20+ international events. Our partners are two-time Forbes 30 Under 30 winners. And our team is led by an ex-Forbes editor.

Along the way, we have made mistakes and built expertise. Now, we use it to help others.

Funding announcements

Relationships between a new portfolio company and our PR team usually start with a funding announcement.

While most VC firms only offer hands-off help to startups, such as guides and tips, F1V can be fully hands-on and handle 99% of the work to announce new funding: press kits, founder interviews, press releases, and media pitches.

After we proofread a press release with a startup, it typically takes 3-4 weeks to get it published. Below are some of our announcements published in tier-1 and tier-2 media.

TechCrunch: AllRight, Filmustage, Peech, and VOCHI.

Insider: Accel Club.

Forbes: RedTrack.

Crunchbase News: Liki24.com.

Silicon Canals: AiSDR and Deskree.

Tech.eu: Awesomic.

LinkedIn blogging

F1V knows a lot about LinkedIn, and we help our founders with blogging on this social media platform.

Depending on our agreement with a founder, we offer either a hands-off approach (generating ideas and consulting) or a hands-on approach (from ideas to posts).

In either scenario, we start with an audit of personal and corporate accounts. Based on this audit, we may offer suggestions on how to enhance them, create a content style guide, and even craft "about” sections. Everything.

When we're hands-on, we write two posts a week using already published stories or from interviews we do separately. We check comments and coverage, then keep writing posts for an agreed time.

After trying out both corporate and personal executive accounts, we know how to do LinkedIn blogging well.

We don’t do posts with the same old entrepreneur advice that everyone's heard before. Instead, we help bring out unique ideas and present them in a clear, engaging, and short way.

Also, we welcome contributions to our LinkedIn newsletter, which has almost 3,000 readers. Our stories get decent views, about 1k each on average. We work with founders to come up with ideas and do interviews for stories, and we can also edit pieces that are already written.

In our newsletter, we do content for founders and VCs: cases, stories, tips, opinions, and studies.

1:1 consultations

Our portfolio startups can book a personalized session with one of our PR specialists, depending on the request.

For some companies we work with, we have calls every month or every two weeks. We consult on:

PR strategy for startups.
Crisis communication.
Setting OKRs for PR.
Media coverage (Europe, North America).
Speaking at European tech conferences.

We have opinions about but aren’t specialized in link building, hosting offline events, narrow-geographic PR in a specific local language, TV appearances, and relationships with influencers.

We also have a wide network of international PR professionals and 80+ portfolio companies in different industries, each with its own PR footprint and contacts. We organize experience exchanges that extend far beyond our internal PR team.

Helping onboard, support first PR hire

We are happy to talk about the necessity of hiring a PR person, building a communications team, and understanding how to set OKRs for them.

Our portfolio startups can send us test assignments for their PR candidates and request feedback. We can help conduct job interviews. Once the person is onboarded, we are more than happy to stay in touch, share contacts, and pass on relevant inquiries.

We are also ready to jump in and help with urgent and crisis situations.

Long-term PR support

PR works best long-term. That’s why we started offering our services to startups for an extended period. This is the most well-thought-out approach as we have time to conduct a proper PR audit, set goals, and prepare a roadmap.

It's a full-cycle PR.

Analysis and planning. We analyze the current style of communication and interview founders to determine what should be changed. Based on interviews with founders, we set goals for our future PR efforts.

Audit of the current online presence. We examine all publications, social media, and websites, checking for red flags and inconsistencies. We help sync everything. We create crisis communication guides.

Hands-on writing and editing. Wherever text needs attention, we're there. From op-eds to website “about” sections and LinkedIn blog posts. Our team is led and mentored by an ex-Forbes, ex-Kyiv Post, and ex-Kyiv Independent editor. We think like journalists.

Media relations. We value our contacts with journalists from TechCrunch, Insider, Tech.eu, Emerging Europe, Sifted, Silicon Canals, EU Startups, and more. When pitching, we aim to provide them with value while ensuring that all publications contribute to our PR goals.

Speaking at conferences. We've placed F1V employees in speaking, moderating, or judging roles at Web Summit, TechChill, Pirate Summit, Infoshare, Podim, Startup Fair, South Summit, and How to Web. We assist founders in becoming speakers by helping with topics, pitches, and preparation.

Lists and awards. Two F1V partners are both 2x Forbes 30 Under 30 winners (Europe and Ukraine). We help startup founders identify and apply for awards like this, craft compelling bios, and submit applications.

We provide long-term PR support to startups on a case-by-case basis, ensuring that the request aligns with our capabilities. We only take on a few cases at a time to maintain focus and deliver results. Since we plan ahead, we recommend contacting us about six months in advance.

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The reason to team up with us — whether for the long-term or short-term — might be to enhance reputation before fundraising, prepare a source base to create a Wikipedia page, initiate a series of publications to obtain a talent visa, and more. Anything reputation-related.

Timing and outcomes vary on an individual basis. We always provide a straightforward prediction and try to manage expectations.

From what we know about PR, there’s no magic pill for instant success and publications. It takes time. Months, even years. But it’s always good to start with a solid foundation and know where you're headed.

If you have any questions, talk to Denys Krasnikov (denys.krasnikov@flyerone.vc) or Elina Kochenko (elina.kochenko@flyerone.vc).

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