Most founders think PR starts when you have news. Greg Kirby thinks that's already too late.
Greg Kirby is a CDH and Startmate mentor, former journalist, and founder of Signala. Greg has reported from some of the UK’s biggest newsrooms, including the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail, as well as newswire services such as PA Media and SWNS. Now he helps founders get the coverage their startup deserves through Signala, his AI-assisted PR platform, currently onboarding pilot partners with upcoming company announcements.
At our latest Lunch and Learn, he spent an hour telling founders why their pitches often fall flat, and what to do to boost your chances.
Here's what we took away.
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PR is not about blasting generic press releases to as many journalists as you can find
It's about what people think when they hear your name. That's the frame Greg opened with, and it resets everything else.
Before you do anything, know who you're actually trying to reach and why. Investors need credibility and social proof. Customers need trust. Potential staff want to see somewhere worth joining. Each audience needs a different approach. One generic press release doesn't serve any of them well.
Start before you have something to announce
The founders who get consistent coverage aren't the ones with the biggest news. They're the ones who built relationships before they needed them.
If you wait until you have an announcement to start pitching journalists, you have no relationships, no track record, and no one knows who you are. By then you're starting from zero. Start engaging with relevant journalists right away. You should know the journalists and publications that will cover your company by name. Even just reading those publications puts you ahead of most founders.
There's no rigid rule that says you need a Series A to land a national. Pre-seed founders do get into Tier 1 papers, if the story is right. And Series A raises often fall flat too if the news hook is buried.
Signs of traction help. A funding round, a recognisable customer, a credible investor, all of it justifies a story and gives it legs. But traction on its own isn't enough. There needs to be a stronger story sitting behind it.
That story can take a lot of shapes. A founder journey, like someone who launched their company while still at school. A product innovation that opens up something genuinely new, like Death Tech, or AI bots helping butchers run their deliveries. A broader trend your announcement encapsulates, proves, or contradicts. A gap in what journalists are currently covering that you happen to fill.
The raise amount matters more for some publications than others. The AFR weights financial scale heavily, especially when it comes to company valuations. The Age and The Australian care less about the dollar figure and more about whether the story stands up on its own, and has a strong Australian merit.
The honest test isn't "what stage am I at?". It's "would a the intended audience care about this story even if they didn't care about my company?" If yes, you're in the conversation. Figuring out which angle clears that bar, and which publication it fits, is what Signala exists to do.
A product launch is not a story
This is where most pitches die. "We launched a product" gets deleted. "We launched a product that's already saved 200 nurses three hours a day" gets read.
The hook is almost never the product. It's the outcome, the human behind it, the problem it solves in a way people can feel. And most founders bury that hook in paragraph four.
The things that reliably work: a market nobody else has tackled, a personal founder story directly tied to the problem, something technically new that eliminates a recognisable frustration, a trend your company proves or disproves, taking on a well-known rival, landing a recognisable partner or customer, or being first in your category.
Signala uses a structured newsworthiness model to assess whether a story is ready for a journalist. It looks at multiple dimensions, including the strength of the hook, the human story, the trend it speaks to, the numbers behind it, and the gap it fills in what's currently being covered. A published story almost always scores highly on more than one measure.
Different publications want completely different things
Greg broke this down clearly. The AFR wants financial scale and external validation. SMH and The Age want a story a non-founder would retell at dinner. Forbes Australia wants a founder worth profiling, the company is almost secondary. TechCrunch wants a defensible technical claim and a reason it's happening now. SmartCompany covers relatable founder wins where narrative matters more than scale. Capital Brief wants deal mechanics and market context, often requiring little or no founder story.
And regional news or trade publications? They're screaming out for content, easier to land, and national journalists pick up local stories too. Don't overlook them.
You don't need a big announcement to build a media presence
LinkedIn is the highest-return channel most founders aren't using properly, especially if you harness video properly. You don't need a big following. You need one post the right person sees.
Opinion pieces in trade publications can be quick wins and build real credibility in your sector. When a major story breaks that relates to your company, pitch yourself as a source, journalists are actively looking for comment when a trend is in the news cycle.
Build relationships with journalists before you need them. Follow their work. Comment genuinely. Offer yourself as a source, not a story. Who knows, you might become the story?
On pitching over email
Keep it short, five sentences maximum. Personalise every single pitch, but be genuine. One line showing you've engaged with their work is enough. If your story is a strong fit for multiple publications, offer one journalist an exclusive rather than blasting the same pitch to everyone.
And one more thing Greg stressed: the funding raise is not the story. It's the credibility signal that makes the story worth running now. The actual news hook is something else.
Found this helpful? Greg and Signala can help you craft a story that lands.
This is what mentorship looks like at CDH
Greg didn't gate this behind a course or a consulting retainer. He walked into a room of founders, shared what he knows, and made everyone in it sharper for it.
That's the Lunch and Learn format. One expert practitioner, one topic, one hour. Real knowledge from someone who's lived it — shared freely with founders who need it.
We run these regularly at Cremorne Digital Hub, and we're always looking for founders and operators who have something worth sharing. Whether it's fundraising, hiring, product, sales, legal, or — clearly — PR.
If you've got hard-won expertise that could save another founder six months of trial and error, we'd love to hear from you.
