From Coverage to Customers: The Post-Seed PR Pivot
Fundraising announcements can be a powerful tool for an emerging company. They bring new visibility to your work, create instant FOMO among those on the outside and raise the stakes for your future success. But beyond this initial milestone, the expectations change. Investors don’t want buzz, they want proof — and customers are the ultimate proof point. For startups serving B2B markets, that requires an important pivot in your communications strategy, away from Silicon Valley headlines and instead in the direction of the industry sources and conversations your buyers actually consume and trust.
This isn’t to invalidate the importance of this early coverage, as the venture capital audience is critical for initial fundraising efforts and ongoing relationship building. This is where you most need outlets like Tech Crunch, VentureBeat and other Silicon Valley staples. And there is no shortage of skilled, effective communications partners for whom the Silicon Valley crowd is their bread and butter. They’ll get you the early coverage that will help you break through at this specific moment.
But ask any investor what factors drive their funding decisions beyond seed and Series A, and they’ll tell you they’re no longer interested in buzz – they're interested in results. “Nearly every entrepreneur has heard the refrain, ‘Get back to me when you have some traction,’ when seeking funding,” says John Greathouse, Partner at Rincon Venture Partners. “When uttered by most Venture Capitalists, it conveys their desire to obtain validation of your venture’s value proposition from dispassionate, objective third parties.” There is no party as objective as the customer, who alone can prove or disprove a company’s value proposition.
Of course, it’s impossible to gain customers when they don’t know your product or company exists. And here’s the tough news for startups, including those in automation, robotics and advanced manufacturing: all those hits in VentureBeat? The decisionmaker whose buy-in you’re seeking never saw that coverage. The head of manufacturing at a Fortune 500 warehouse and logistics company isn't reading TechCrunch, either – they're reading Modern Materials Handling, Supply Chain Management Review and other trade publications that may not be as flashy or have millions of monthly views, but speaks directly to them, their needs and their vision.
This is the juncture at which we’ve seen many early-stage growth companies lose momentum, fail to gain critical traction with customers, and lose focus. The communications agencies that know Silicon Valley and tech innovation like the back of their hand don’t, unfortunately, typically know the trade landscape nearly as well. They don’t have longstanding relationships with the publishers and editors who cover warehouse automation, or with the analysts who influence biotech manufacturing. They may be fantastic at generating noise in generalist tech media, but less so at positioning your company as a credible player within the industries you need to make it to Series B and beyond.
At this point, a communications partner with extensive expertise in the markets you serve becomes a must. You need a partner that can tell your traction narrative through customer stories, data-driven updates and participation in trending industry conversations – a partner who can translate. It means translating your story from “we raised money” to “we are solving problems that matter in manufacturing, logistics, and biotech, and we can prove it.”
Funding announcements get you on the map. But it’s industry credibility that keeps you there, building trust with the customers who validate your solution and the investors who fund your next round. The startups that recognize this pivot early, and invest in communications partners who understand both the industries they serve and the publications those industries trust, are the ones that keep momentum, build durable reputations and earn the attention of investors.