How Founders Can Use PR to Explode Early-Stage Growth (Without a PR Agency)

How Founders Can Use PR to Explode Early-Stage Growth (Without a PR Agency) :root { --cream: #fff8f1; --pink: #ffe8f0; --lilac: #eee9ff; --mint: #e8fff5; --peach: #ffe9dc; --ink: #272238; --muted: #695f79; --card: rgba(255,255,255,0.82); --border: rgba(60, 45, 90, 0.12); --accent: #8c62ff; --accent-dark: #5c36c8; } * { box-sizing: border-box; } html { scroll-behavior: smooth; } body { margin: 0; font-family: Inter, ui-sans-serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", sans-serif; background: radial-gradient(circle at top left, var(--pink), transparent 35%), radial-gradient(circle at top right, var(--lilac), transparent 35%), linear-gradient(180deg, var(--cream), #ffffff 42%, #fff8fb); color: var(--ink); line-height: 1.75; } a { color: var(--accent-dark); text-decoration: none; } a:hover { text-decoration: underline; } .page-wrap { max-width: 1180px; margin: 0 auto; padding: 28px 20px 70px; } .hero { display: grid; grid-template-columns: 1.1fr 0.9fr; gap: 34px; align-items: center; 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} .article-image img { height: 240px; } } Founder-led PR without agency prices How Founders Can Use PR to Explode Early-Stage Growth (Without a PR Agency) PR for Founders: A Practical Guide to Getting Press Without an Agency Learn how to use journalist requests, podcasts, founder storytelling and evergreen PR to build trust, traffic, SEO value and visibility without paying thousands for a PR agency. Start your 7-day free trial Watch Fortuna on YouTube Table of Contents TL;DR – How Founders Can Actually Win at PR in 2026 Part 1: Why PR Is the Most Misunderstood Growth Lever for Early-Stage Founders From One Founder to Another Why Most Founders Get PR Completely Wrong The Attention Problem No One Talks About Why PR Beats Paid Ads in the Early Days PR Is Not About Ego. It’s About Distribution Learning the Hard Way: Trial, Error, and Clarity Standing Out Is About Precision, Not Volume Why I Built ContactJournalists.com What This Guide Is and Isn’t Part 2: What Actually Works in Early-Stage PR and What Doesn’t The Hard Truth About Journalists The Question Every Pitch Must Answer Why Timing Beats Brilliance What Journalists Actually Want From Founders The Myth of the Perfect Pitch Relevance Is Narrower Than You Think Why “We’re Launching” Is a Weak Angle Opinion Beats Features Speed Is a Hidden Advantage for Solopreneurs When Not to Pitch The Difference Between Attention and Traction The System Most Founders Are Missing Part 3: How Founders Can Get Press Without a PR Agency Why PR Agencies Often Don’t Make Sense at This Stage Your Lived Experience Is the Asset Stop Pitching Cold. Start Responding Instead. PR as a Habit, Not a Hustle Part 4: Evergreen PR: How Press Coverage Drives Traffic for Years Evergreen PR vs Everything Else Why Lived Experience Ages Better Than Announcements When Friction Becomes the Blueprint PR as a Compounding Business Asset PR for Founders: Common Questions Do founders need a PR agency? How do startups get press coverage? Is PR worth it for early-stage businesses? How long does PR take to work? How PR Drives SEO and Why Most Founders Miss This Final Thoughts: The Real Startup PR Strategy for Founders in 2026 In Summing Up, What’s the Best Way to Contact Journalists? TL;DR – How Founders Can Actually Win at PR in 2026 If you’re a founder doing everything yourself, PR can feel like just another thing on an already overloaded list. But the truth is, the founders who win at PR aren’t the ones with the biggest budgets. They are the ones who respond quickly to real journalist requests, share useful insights instead of generic promotion, build visibility consistently, and treat PR as a long-term SEO and credibility play. That’s exactly where tools like ContactJournalists.com come in. Instead of cold emailing or guessing who to contact, you can access live requests from journalists actively looking for quotes, get featured on podcasts looking for guests, use AI to shape your pitch quickly, and track opportunities and submissions in one place. ContactJournalists.com is designed for founders who don’t have time to figure PR out from scratch. It’s affordable, there is a 7-day free trial, and prices start from £14 per month, so it is worth taking a proper look if you want founder-led PR without agency prices. Part 1: Why PR Is the Most Misunderstood Growth Lever for Early-Stage Founders Hello, I’m Fortuna, the founder of ContactJournalists.com. Before building ContactJournalists, back in 2015 I founded a hair supplement brand called ItReallyWorksVitamins.com. I didn’t raise money. I didn’t have a big team. I didn’t have a PR agency on retainer. I built it myself, slowly, through trial and error, for seven years. In the early days, I ran that business as a true solopreneur. Later, as it grew, I worked with a small team of freelancers. But for a long time, it was just me doing literally everything. Marketing. PR. Emails. Social media. Liaising with suppliers. Packaging decisions. Brand palette and visual direction. Managing freelancers. Customer support. Logistics. Strategy. Firefighting at least once per week. All of it. If you’re reading this and nodding, it’s probably because this sounds like your life too. I sold ItReallyWorksVitamins.com in 2022, after seven years of building it. By the end of those seven years I was completely obliterated from constantly running on adrenaline, not sleeping enough, trying to grow a brand, get publicity, manage people, and still think clearly about the future. Yet even during that chaos, one thing became obvious to me. PR, when done properly, was one of the few things that genuinely moved the needle. Not in a flashy, overnight way, but in a compounding, credibility-building, doors-opening way. From One Founder to Another If you’re a founder or solopreneur reading this, I know exactly what you’re dealing with. You’re learning as you go, making decisions without perfect information, testing things, scrapping things, trying again, and doing your best to build something real while also thinking deeply about how you’re supposed to stand out. The reality is brutal. There are hundreds of other brands in almost every space, all doing their absolute best to get publicity too. Everyone wants attention. Everyone wants coverage. Everyone is pitching. When you’re running everything yourself, PR can start to feel like another impossible task, another thing you should be doing better, and another channel draining already limited energy. Why Most Founders Get PR Completely Wrong When founders think about PR, one of three things usually happens. They assume PR is only for massive brands with enormous budgets, they try it once badly and get ignored, or they hand it off to an agency and feel disconnected from the process. I did all three. Early on, I thought PR was something you unlocked later, something reserved for companies with funding rounds and gigantic press budgets. Then I tried pitching journalists myself with no real strategy, just hope and lots of enthusiasm. This did not work. At one point, I convinced myself that if I explained my business well enough, someone would see the potential. That’s a trap. Journalists don’t exist to validate our ideas. They exist to serve their readers. PR doesn’t reward effort. It rewards relevance. The Attention Problem No One Talks About One of the hardest parts of building a business today isn’t building the product. It’s getting attention in an insanely crowded market. You’re not just competing with other startups. You’re competing with established brands, venture-backed companies, influencers, creators publishing daily, and journalists’ overflowing inboxes. From the journalist’s side, most pitches blur into noise. Generic angles. Feature requests with no hook. Long explanations instead of stories. PR only works when you understand how to cut through that noise without shouting louder. Why PR Beats Paid Ads in the Early Days Ads can work. I’m not anti-ads. But for early-stage founders, ads often create a false sense of progress. You’re paying for attention, not earning trust. The moment you stop spending, everything disappears. PR works differently. One good press mention can borrow trust from the publication, increase conversion rates across your entire site, bring inbound leads you didn’t chase, and create assets you can reuse for months or years. PR compounds. Ads reset. If you’re time-poor, budget-conscious, and playing the long game, that difference matters. PR Is Not About Ego. It’s About Distribution A lot of founders secretly want PR because it feels validating. I understand that. Seeing your business mentioned somewhere reputable feels good. But if that’s your motivation, PR will frustrate you. The founders who succeed with PR see it differently. They treat PR as a distribution channel, a credibility engine, and a way to get in front of the right people. When I stopped chasing big names and started focusing on relevance, response rates went up dramatically. A smaller publication with the right audience will outperform a big name with the wrong one every time. Learning the Hard Way: Trial, Error, and Clarity I learned PR through trial, error, tears, burnout and utter misery. I replied to journalist requests that weren’t really a fit. I stretched angles because I wanted them to work. I wasted time trying to justify relevance instead of accepting when it wasn’t there. Eventually, one realisation changed everything. If you’re stretching to explain why you’re relevant, then you probably aren’t, so just don’t bother. That single insight saves founders months of wasted effort. PR became simpler when I stopped forcing it. Want to save yourself a lot of stress? Try ContactJournalists.com with a 7-day free trial and let us help you find the right opportunities faster. Standing Out Is About Precision, Not Volume The instinct when PR isn’t working is to do more. Pitch more journalists. Send more emails. Be everywhere. But volume without precision is just noise. Standing out in PR is about clarity. Who your product is for. What problem it solves. Why this story matters now. Which journalists actually cover that space. When founders slow down and get intentional, PR stops feeling random and starts feeling strategic. As a solopreneur, this is actually your advantage. You can move fast, tailor responses, and act on opportunities immediately. You just need a system. Why I Built ContactJournalists.com ContactJournalists.com exists because I needed it myself. I didn’t want outdated media lists. I didn’t want PR theory. I didn’t want agency fluff. I wanted a practical way to see real journalist requests from people actively looking for stories, find journalists, bloggers, podcasters, and newsletter owners who were actually relevant, and respond quickly with context instead of guessing. Most founders don’t fail at PR because they’re bad storytellers. They fail because they don’t have access, timing, or clarity. Solve those three things, and PR becomes one of the most powerful growth levers available to an early-stage business. Start your 7-day free trial now. Ready to make PR easier? Start your 7-day free trial of ContactJournalists.com. Plans start from £14 per month. Try ContactJournalists.com What This Guide Is and Isn’t This isn’t written from the perspective of a PR agency. It’s written from one founder to another. Everything here is shaped by building a real business, burning out, learning PR the hard way, and needing leverage instead of theory. If you’ve ever thought that your product is good but no one knows about it yet, that you don’t have time to mess this up, or that you need credibility without burning cash, this guide is for you. Part 2: What Actually Works in Early-Stage PR and What Doesn’t If Part 1 was about mindset, this is where things get practical. This is the part most founders wish someone had explained earlier, before wasting time, energy, and confidence on PR that goes nowhere. Early-stage PR does work, but only if you understand how journalists actually think. The Hard Truth About Journalists Journalists are not waiting to discover you. They are on tight deadlines, working on multiple stories at once, measured on output, and flooded with emails every single day. Your pitch is not being opened with excitement. It’s being skimmed, filtered, and judged in seconds. That doesn’t mean journalists are rude or dismissive. It means they are human and under pressure. Once you accept that, PR becomes much easier. The Question Every Pitch Must Answer Every journalist, consciously or not, is asking one question when they read your pitch. Why should my audience care about this right now? Not why is this product impressive, why did this founder work hard, or why is this brand growing. The real questions are why now, why this audience, and why this angle. If you can’t answer that clearly and quickly, the pitch dies. This is where most founders go wrong. They pitch their business instead of pitching a story. If you want visibility but don’t want to pay agency retainers, it’s worth exploring ContactJournalists.com. You can try it and plans start from around £14 per month. Why Timing Beats Brilliance One of the biggest misconceptions about PR is that you need a big story. You don’t. You need the right story at the right moment. A simple, relevant angle that lands at exactly the right time will always outperform a more impressive story that’s mistimed. Journalists aren’t sitting around waiting for the most brilliant idea. They’re working on what’s relevant today. Timing is what turns an ordinary insight into something publishable. Good timing can look like a trend journalists are already covering, a seasonal hook, a current event your experience genuinely connects to, a noticeable shift in customer behaviour, or a problem lots of people are suddenly talking about. This is where early-stage founders often underestimate themselves. They assume they’re too small for PR. In reality, they’re often much closer to what’s happening on the ground than big brands are. You hear customer objections in real time. You spot patterns early. You feel changes before they show up in reports. That proximity is a genuine advantage, if you know how to use it. What Journalists Actually Want From Founders Journalists value clear opinions, real-world experience, specific insights, fast responses, and no fluff. Founders who do well in PR don’t sound like marketing departments. They sound like humans who know their space deeply. When I stopped trying to sound professional and started being genuinely useful, response rates improved immediately. The Myth of the Perfect Pitch Founders often overthink pitches. They draft and redraft. They add context. They explain the product. They include background. They try to anticipate objections. Meanwhile, journalists are scanning emails on their phone between meetings. A strong early-stage pitch is short, clear, relevant, and easy to say yes to. You’re not writing an essay. You’re opening a door. Relevance Is Narrower Than You Think One of the most important lessons I learned is this. Most pitches fail because they’re sent to the wrong person, not because the idea is bad. Founders often pitch publications they personally admire, journalists with big followings, or outlets that feel impressive, instead of journalists who actually cover their niche, their audience, and their stage of business. A smaller, more relevant journalist will always outperform a big, mismatched one. This is where founders waste the most time and confidence. Silence feels personal when it’s actually just misalignment. Why “We’re Launching” Is a Weak Angle Another common mistake is assuming that launching is news. It usually isn’t, unless you’re solving a very timely problem, tapping into a wider trend, or have data, insight, or commentary that goes beyond your product. “We’re launching” matters to you. It rarely matters to a journalist. A better question to ask is what conversation this launch is entering. If the answer is none, rethink the angle. Opinion Beats Features Early-stage founders are uniquely positioned to comment on their space. You’re close to customers. You hear objections. You see patterns. You feel pain points in real time. That makes you valuable. Instead of pitching features, announcements, or company updates, try pitching a contrarian take, a pattern you’re seeing, a mistake you see brands making, a shift customers are demanding, or lessons learned the hard way. Journalists love perspectives that help them explain the world. They’re not looking for marketing copy or polished brand statements. They want clear thinking, real-world experience, and quotes that make sense of what’s happening right now. This is also where AI can help without removing your voice. Inside ContactJournalists.com, our AI responder drafts a smart, relevant response based on the journalist’s request. You simply review it, tweak it if you want, and approve. The platform then sends a clear, well-structured reply on your behalf. Ready to make PR easier? Start your 7-day free trial of ContactJournalists.com. Plans start from £14 per month. Try ContactJournalists.com Speed Is a Hidden Advantage for Solopreneurs Big brands move really slowly. PR agencies have to wait for approvals. Messaging gets watered down. Responses take days. As a solopreneur or small team, you can respond immediately, and that matters more than you think. Journalists often go with the first strong response, the clearest quote, or the most helpful source. Not the biggest brand. If you can reply quickly and clearly, you’re already ahead. When Not to Pitch One of the most valuable PR skills a founder can learn is knowing when not to pitch. If you’re stretching relevance, don’t send it. If you’re forcing an angle, don’t send it. If you have to explain why you might fit, you probably don’t. This is where reading the tone of the journalist’s request really matters. Some requests are serious and technical. Others are light, playful, or clearly not meant to be taken too seriously. Matching that tone can be just as important as matching the topic. I’ve seen this work first-hand. A journalist once put out a light-hearted request asking to review a mountain bike and promising that he’d guard it with his life. It was clearly jokey. I responded in the same spirit, introducing It Really Works Vitamins, rather than forcing a polished brand pitch. Six months later, we were featured in Forbes. That wouldn’t have worked in a serious request. PR isn’t just about subject relevance. It’s about context and tone. If a journalist is playful, you can be playful. If they’re formal, be formal. And if you can’t see a natural way to fit without bending the story, skip it. The Difference Between Attention and Traction Not all press is good press. A mention that brings no traffic, converts no users, and reaches the wrong audience is just noise. Early-stage PR should be measured by quality of audience, relevance to your buyer, long-term credibility, and inbound effects, not vanity metrics. One thoughtful feature in a niche publication can outperform ten generic mentions. The System Most Founders Are Missing By this point, a pattern should be clear. PR works when you have the right opportunities, the right journalists, the right timing, a clear angle, and the ability to act fast. What makes PR feel impossible is trying to do all of this manually while also running a business. That’s the gap ContactJournalists.com was built to fill. Not to replace thinking. Not to automate relationships. But to remove friction. Part 3: How Founders Can Get Press Without a PR Agency This is usually the point where founders say they understand PR now, but still don’t see how they are meant to do it without hiring an agency. I felt exactly the same way. When I was building ItReallyWorksVitamins.com, PR wasn’t a nice-to-have. It felt essential. I wanted people to understand why the product existed and why it actually worked. The brand came directly from my own lived experience. I wanted thicker, fuller hair. I tried product after product. I read ingredient lists. I researched what actually made a difference. Through trial and error, I found a combination that genuinely helped, not just for me, but for other people too. That personal frustration, and that discovery, became the foundation of the business. This is where founders underestimate themselves. Your business didn’t come out of nowhere. It came from a real problem you experienced, something you were personally trying to fix, or a gap you couldn’t ignore. That lived experience is not background noise. It is the story. Why PR Agencies Often Don’t Make Sense at This Stage When I was growing the brand, I explored PR agencies. One of them quoted me £2,000 per month for a retainer. No guarantees. No clear idea of what coverage they could actually land. Just vague promises about building relationships and PR taking time. I was already running everything, marketing, PR, managing freelancers, dealing with suppliers, shaping the brand, and trying not to completely burn out. Spending thousands a month without any certainty simply didn’t make sense. That was a turning point. Early-stage founders don’t need glossy retainers or vague assurances. We need access, timing, and leverage. PR works best when it stays close to the founder, especially early on. Your Lived Experience Is the Asset You don’t need to invent a story for PR. You need to articulate the one you already lived. In my case, it was wanting thicker, fuller hair myself, being disappointed by what was available, discovering something that genuinely helped, building a product around that solution, and seeing customers reorder and share their own results. That’s not marketing fluff. That’s real-world experience. Journalists don’t just want launches or announcements. They want to understand why something exists, who it helps, and what changed as a result. Founders who have lived the problem are always more compelling than brands that simply spotted a market opportunity. I’m also documenting everything I’m building and learning over on YouTube. If you’re a solo founder trying to figure out growth, PR, SEO, or how to get seen without burning out, you’ll probably find it useful: https://www.youtube.com/@ContactJournalists Stop Pitching Cold. Start Responding Instead. One of the biggest mindset shifts founders need to make with PR is this. Stop pitching cold. Start responding to real demand. Journalists are already telling you what they want. They put out requests because they’re on deadline, writing specific stories, and actively looking for sources. When you respond to those requests, you’re not interrupting anyone. You’re helping them do their job. That’s why responding works so much better than pitching. The problem for most founders isn’t insight. It’s visibility. They don’t have an easy way to see those opportunities when they appear. This is exactly the gap ContactJournalists.com is built to solve. Instead of guessing who to contact or sending cold emails into the void, you see live journalist requests from people actively looking for stories. Those requests are delivered straight to your inbox, filtered by your chosen niche, so relevance is immediately obvious. PR as a Habit, Not a Hustle When PR finally clicked for me, it stopped feeling chaotic. It became a regular check-in, not a scramble. A relevance filter, not a volume game. A habit that compounded over time. This is how PR fits into real founder life. You don’t need to be everywhere. You just need to show up when it matters. If you’re a founder with real experience, a real story, and a product that genuinely improves people’s lives, you already have what journalists are looking for. You just need a way to access the right opportunities at the right time. Ready to make PR easier? Start your 7-day free trial of ContactJournalists.com. Plans start from £14 per month. Try ContactJournalists.com Part 4: Evergreen PR: How Press Coverage Drives Traffic for Years One of the biggest misunderstandings founders have about PR is thinking it’s a short-term spike. An article goes live. Traffic jumps. Then everything drops off. That’s not how good PR actually behaves. When PR is done properly, it becomes evergreen. It keeps working quietly in the background, long after the original coverage was published. To this day, PR work done years ago still brings consistent traffic to ItReallyWorksVitamins.com. Not because it went viral for a week, but because the coverage was rooted in a real problem, a genuine solution, and a story that didn’t expire. That’s the difference between noise and assets. Evergreen PR vs Everything Else Most growth channels reset. Paid ads stop the moment you stop spending. Social posts disappear within hours. Algorithms change. Reach drops. PR doesn’t work like that. A single strong piece of coverage can rank in Google for years, be discovered months later by people actively searching, be referenced by other journalists writing similar stories, send steady high-intent traffic, and build trust before someone even lands on your site. That’s why PR is so powerful for founders thinking beyond the next month. You’re not renting attention. You’re building something that lasts. Why Lived Experience Ages Better Than Announcements The reason evergreen PR works is simple. Trends change. Human problems don’t. Coverage built around a frustration someone genuinely experienced, a solution discovered through trial and error, or a product that meaningfully improves people’s lives will always outperform launch announcements, feature updates, and “we’re excited to share” news. That’s why articles written years ago can still outperform brand-new content today. Journalists don’t just write for the moment. They write to help people understand the world. Stories grounded in lived experience continue to do that long after publication. When Friction Becomes the Blueprint A lot of founder-built tools don’t come from inspiration. They come from frustration. The frustration of trying to do PR while running everything else, being quoted thousands per month with no guaranteed outcomes, guessing who to contact and when, sending pitches that went nowhere, and feeling like visibility was always just out of reach. Those problems don’t disappear as a business grows. They compound. That friction is what eventually led to ContactJournalists.com, not as a shiny PR tool, but as a practical system built around how PR actually works. PR as a Compounding Business Asset Once you start seeing PR this way, your mindset shifts. You stop chasing short spikes, vanity mentions, and logos for the sake of it. You start building authority, search visibility, trust, inbound interest, and long-term momentum. PR becomes part of the foundations of the business, not another marketing task fighting for your attention. PR for Founders: Common Questions Below are some of the questions founders usually ask when they are trying to decide whether PR is worth their time, especially if they are early-stage, bootstrapped, or doing everything themselves. Do founders need a PR agency? No, especially not in the early stages. PR agencies are usually built for larger companies with budgets, fixed positioning, and time to build relationships. Most early-stage founders are time-poor, bootstrapped, and still refining their message. At this stage, PR works best when it stays close to the founder. You understand the product, the customer pain points, and the story far better than an external agency ever will. That lived experience is exactly what journalists want. Many founders waste money on retainers without guaranteed placements, when what they actually need is access to the right opportunities and the ability to respond quickly and clearly. Founder-led PR is not only cheaper, it’s often more effective. How do startups get press coverage? The most reliable way startups get press coverage is by responding to journalist requests, not by cold pitching. Journalists regularly ask for founder perspectives, real-world examples, expert commentary, case studies, and opinions on trends. When you respond to a request, the journalist already wants the story, timing is built in, the angle is clear, and you’re helping rather than interrupting. This is far more effective than emailing dozens of journalists hoping one replies. Tools like ContactJournalists.com exist specifically to surface these live requests so founders can act while the opportunity is still relevant. Is PR worth it for early-stage businesses? Yes, when it’s done properly. PR is one of the few growth channels that builds trust immediately, improves conversion rates across your site, creates long-term SEO value, and brings inbound leads you didn’t chase. Unlike ads or social media, PR doesn’t disappear when you stop spending time or money on it. A good piece of coverage can send traffic and credibility for years. For early-stage businesses that need leverage and long-term visibility, PR is often far more effective than short-term paid tactics. How long does PR take to work? It depends on how you’re doing PR. Traditional PR, including cold pitching, agencies, and long lead times, can take months with no guarantees. Founder-led PR, especially responding to live journalist requests, can work much faster. Some founders see coverage within days or weeks because the journalist is already actively writing the piece. That said, the real power of PR is cumulative. One article leads to another. Coverage builds trust. Trust compounds into traffic, backlinks, and inbound opportunities over time. PR is both a short-term win and a long-term asset. How PR Drives SEO and Why Most Founders Miss This This is where you can win long-term evergreen traffic. When you get featured in articles, blogs, and media, you earn high-authority backlinks, your brand gets mentioned across trusted domains, Google starts to associate your name with your niche, and you increase your chances of being surfaced in AI search results. PR isn’t just exposure. It’s infrastructure for growth. Most founders think PR is about getting featured once. The smart ones realise it compounds. Final Thoughts: The Real Startup PR Strategy for Founders in 2026 PR is one of those things that sounds simple until you actually try to do it as a founder. You sit there writing a pitch, overthinking every sentence, trying to get the tone right, wondering if it sounds credible enough, interesting enough, worth someone’s time. Then you send it and hear nothing back, and because you are the business, it feels far more personal than it should. When I was building my supplement brand, there was no separation between me and the brand. I was doing everything, from marketing to customer service to operations, and PR just became another thing sitting on a very long list. I knew it mattered. I knew it could change the trajectory of the business. But I didn’t have a system, and that’s the part no one really explains. What I eventually realised, and what I wish I understood earlier, is that PR is not about trying to get someone’s attention out of nowhere. It is about stepping into conversations that are already happening. Journalists already need quotes. Articles are already being written. Podcasts are already looking for guests. The opportunity is there whether you show up or not. The founders who get results are not necessarily the most connected or the most polished. They are the ones who respond quickly, say something genuinely useful, and do it consistently enough that it compounds over time. That is where PR starts to become less of a one-off win and more of a growth channel that feeds into your SEO, your credibility, and how visible your brand becomes across the internet. That is exactly the problem I built ContactJournalists.com to solve. Instead of guessing who to contact or sending cold emails into the void, you can see live requests from journalists who are actively looking for input and simply respond. It turns PR from something vague and frustrating into something structured and repeatable, which is what most founders actually need. It is also designed to be accessible. There is a 7-day free trial, and pricing starts from around £14 per month, which makes it something you can test properly without committing to the kind of retainers agencies typically charge. At this stage, it is less about making a big bet and more about giving yourself a real chance to see what works. I am also sharing everything I am building and learning in real time over on YouTube, including what is working, what is not, and how I am thinking about growth as a solo founder. If you are figuring this out yourself, you will probably find something useful in there: https://www.youtube.com/@ContactJournalists The main shift is this. PR is not a closed world that you need permission to enter. It is a system that rewards relevance, timing, and consistency. If you can put yourself in the right place, respond with something worth publishing, and keep doing it, you are already operating differently to most founders. In Summing Up, What’s the Best Way to Contact Journalists? The best way to contact journalists is when they’ve already asked to be contacted. That’s what ContactJournalists.com is here for. Start your 7-day free trial now. Cold emailing journalists you don’t know, with no context, is the hardest and least effective route. A far better approach is to respond to journalist requests, match the topic and tone of the request, be concise, helpful and human, and reply quickly. This is why platforms that surface live journalist requests are so effective. You’re responding to real demand, at the right time, with relevance already established. PR becomes dramatically easier when you stop guessing and start responding. See you on the inside of ContactJournalists.com. We can’t wait to help you. Ready to make PR easier? Start your 7-day free trial of ContactJournalists.com. Plans start from £14 per month. Try ContactJournalists.com