Anyone who has worked with me knows that one of my favorite lines is "marketing is stupid." And – if you really know me – you know that I don’t actually mean "marketing is stupid", but I use it as a proxy for "most PR people suck, most marcom is done poorly, and most companies have no idea what they are trying to accomplish with all the money they waste on shitty marketing and PR."
Last week I got one of Jason Calacanis’ email missives from his new email list (post-blog). It’s been reblogged on the Silicon Alley Insider blog titled Jason Calacanis On How To Get PR For Your Startup: Fire Your PR Company. There are a few things I disagree with, but on the whole it’s one of the best long essays I’ve ever read on how to do PR for your startup.
While there are a few technology PR firms (or more specifically – people) that are just awesome and worth the money, the vast majority range from marginally useful but not worth the money to completely useless. If you are the CEO of a startup, I encourage you to read Jason’s post slowly, and then re-read it, and then think about what you are doing to get PR for your company.