How to Create a Relationship With a Reporter

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You have to find a balance between not sounding like some horrible robot being authentic and interesting such that more people want to talk to you. That having been said especially for early stage companies which do not have the luxury of being a Mark Zuckerberg or Neil on Musk where anybody will take any interview with them. You have to convey some value in talking to you. And so it's a really hard balance between being yourself and being willing to talk about different things, unguarded but not at the end of it wondering why you did the interview because you didn't talk about the thing you wanted to talk about.

Our guest today is Aaron Zamost.

After a comms career at Google, Aaron joined Square in 2011 to lead corporate communications. He went on to join the exec team, reporting directly to Jack Dorsey and leading the comms strategy for Square’s IPO in 2015. In an interesting move, he also took on leading the people organization as well, running both orgs up until he left in late 2020. In addition to lecturing at UC Berkeley's School of Law, Aaron now runs Background Partners, a communications consulting firm.

In today’s conversation, we dive deep into what founders need to know about both external and internal comms. Aaron shares more on:

Why comms deserves its own spot on the exec team and why most founders shouldn’t hire PR agencies.
The jobs-to-be-done of the comms function in the early days of a startup — and why it’s not a good customer acquisition strategy.
A 3-question framework for simplifying your company message early on.
How to prep for interviews and deal with difficult lines of questioning.
How to think about commenting on events in the news, or message layoffs to the team.

Given how much the media landscape has changed in recent years, and how many founders are grappling with internal comms issues these days, Aaron’s advice makes for a valuable listen.

We also recommend checking out his two excellent Medium posts:

-What’s Your Hour in ‘Silicon Valley Time’?

No, you don’t need to hire an agency

You can follow Aaron on Twitter at @zamosta. You can email us questions directly at review@firstround.com or follow us on Twitter @firstround and @brettberson.