27 May 2011
My latest company KAYWEB Angels - a New York-based angel investment company - has been attracting serious media attention since launching two months ago.
My board and I knew we had a clear point of difference and felt it was newsworthy.
The point of difference is that our angel investment company provides development services and mentoring in exchange for equity in web and mobile startups. A traditional angel investor provides cash, but we felt that stats were compelling that most U.S. states, especially New York, had many more ideas people than tech people, and KAYWEB Angels would be a way some of these ideas could get off the ground and take New York by storm.
Our newsworthiness hunch graduated to reality when we were covered by the San Francisco Chronicle, ABC7 Online, Mashable, Venture Beat, Social Times, Yahoo Asia, and other smaller magazines and publications, with more to come.
I personally was also featured in an interview on YoungEntrepreneur.com and a video piece by internet media giant AOL.
The importance of being 'disruptive' with your startup idea has been proven by the publicity we have received. As a former journalist, I can assert with some authority that if you give them a story, they will write about it.
And the importance of PR is huge. It is usually free, as it has been for KAYWEB Angels, and usually converts better than any form of paid advertising one can do. We have received hundreds of registrants on our website (www.kaywebangels.com) since media coverage began, and plenty of worthy applications to our fund.