29 ways to generate free press for your startup

Jeff Weisbein -

We all want free press for our startups and products. I mean, who wouldn’t? It’s a great way to get publicity as well as get feedback from potential customers. There’s this notion that it’s really difficult to get press, and sometimes that is true, even if you have great connections and know people who could possibly write about your startup and product. But usually if that’s happening, you need to rethink some things about your product and try again once you’ve made improvements.

That being said, I’ve compiled a list of 29 links/sites where you can either find contacts at a particular publication, find a place to submit your startup for coverage, or find people who can help you with your product in one way or another.

The most important thing to keep in mind about this list is that it will never ever been 100% complete. I’ll work to update it occasionally with new links and information. It’s also important to remember that if you email someone, please be respectful to that reporter/writer/editor. Lastly, don’t mass email an entire publication, find the people who cover a beat that your startup/product falls into and contact them.

And with that said, let’s get on to the list.

  • http://www.producthunt.com — A great community of people who love technology, podcasts, games, and books. Getting featured on Product Hunt can be super helpful from a publicity point of view but also from a feedback perspective.
  • https://news.ycombinator.com/news — Hacker News is a place to share interesting tech links, but they also have something called “Show HN” where you can share what you’ve been working on with the HN community. Simply start your post title with Show HN:.
  • http://techcrunch.com/ — TechCrunch is kind enough to provide a list of email addresses for its editors and writers.
  • http://venturebeat.com/ — VentureBeat also provides the contact emails for all of its writers (and also tells you what their beat is).
  • http://www.reddit.com/r/startups — The reddit startup community is great, I’ve posted in it before and received some great feedback.
  • http://www.reddit.com/r/sideproject — A subreddit to share your side projects with the world!
  • http://www.reddit.com/r/shamelessplug — A subreddit for well, shameless plugs.
  • http://www.reddit.com/r/design_critiques — If you’re a product designer, this subreddit is for you. Whether you’re looking for a portfolio critique or some feedback on your new website, it can be helpful.
  • http://www.reddit.com/r/AlphaAndBetaUsers — If you’ve built a new app or web service and need some people to test it, this subreddit can help you find the right people to take it for a spin.
  • http://reddit.com/r/entrepreneur — Great community with fellow entrepreneurs (and not just tech ones). Good place to share tips, advice, and bounce ideas off of.
  • http://www.crunchbase.com/ — If you’re a startup company you need to have a Crunchbase profile.
  • http://betalist.com/ — BetaList is a community where makers showcase their startup and get feedback from early adopters.
  • http://www.geekopedia.me/ — Geekopedia covers a wide range of startups on its site, you can also submit your own to be written about.
  • http://www.new-startups.com/ — New-Startups is an aggregated gallery and expert peer review platform for startups. And yes, you can submit your own.
  • http://www.nextbigwhat.com/ — Focuses on Indian startups and the tech scene in India.
  • http://www.stackshare.io/ — Discover and share the best services and tools for startups to be using. You can even submit your own tool.
  • http://www.launchingnext.com/ — Launching Next lets startups submit their product to be featured on the site for free. Submissions are reviewed daily.
  • http://www.thestartuppitch.com/ — The Startup Pitch gives startups the ability to answer some questions about their product and have it turned into a pitch.
  • http://www.feedmyapp.com/ — Features all different kinds of apps every day, offers a free to use submission form as well.
  • http://www.netted.net/ — Run by the Webby Awards, this site covers all different kinds of B2C startups.
  • http://www.rudebaguette.com/ — France’s first English-language news site covering startups, tech, and innovation.
  • http://theheureka.com/ — HEUREKA is an online magazine for startup news, events, profiles, and jobs in Germany.
  • http://en.webrazzi.com/ — Focuses on startups, investments, technological developments and events in Europe, Middle East, and Africa.
  • http://firespotting.com/ — Hacker News clone that is mostly “Show HN” type posts.
  • http://startuptabs.com/ — Startup discovery engine.
  • http://submit.co/ — List of more places to get press coverage for your startup.
  • http://betapage.co — Similar to Product Hunt, let’s you browse, discover, and submit startups and new ideas.
  • http://medium.com — A blogging platform with an excellent community, if you fancy yourself a good writer, consider writing a post on Medium and sharing it across your social channels.
  • http://www.besttechie.com — Here of course! I’d love to learn about your startup.

Thanks to Github user mmccaff for compiling the original list.