The Founder's
Media Playbook

A note before you start.

If you bought a course, hired three publicists, and still can't crack a major outlet, this is for you.

I've spent the last decade getting people their first Forbes feature, their first national TV segment, their first press hit that actually changes their business. Some were already known. Most were not. The pattern that separates the ones who break through from the ones who don't has very little to do with how much they pay an agency, and almost everything to do with whether they understand the game they're playing.

Most founders treat press like a vending machine. Insert money, receive coverage. When that doesn't work, they conclude the machine is broken, hire a different agency, and run the same play. It still doesn't work. The truth is press has never been a vending machine. It's a relationship business pretending to be a service business, and once you understand the difference, the whole thing starts to click.

This playbook is the framework we've used at The Divine PR with hundreds of clients. The same framework that landed founders into Forbes, People, Access Hollywood, Page Six, Inc. Magazine, Entrepreneur, and Life & Style. It's not a secret. It's not magic. It's a way of thinking about press that most people never get taught because the people who know it are too busy using it to write it down.

You'll get more out of this if you read it once start to finish, then come back and use the worksheets and templates as you actually pitch. The temptation will be to skip ahead to the templates. Don't. The templates only work because of the framework underneath them.

Let's begin.

Three lies founders believe about press.

Before we get to what works, we have to clear away what doesn't. These three beliefs will sabotage every pitch you send if you don't unlearn them first.

Lie one: "My product is so great the press will come find me."

They won't. The most decorated journalist at any major outlet gets between 50 and 500 pitches a day. They aren't out there scouting unknown founders, they're triaging an inbox. If you wait for them to find you, your story stays untold while a worse company with a better pitcher gets the feature you deserved.

Lie two: "Press equals sales."

It doesn't. Not directly, anyway. A Forbes feature won't move product the way a TikTok video can. What it does is build an asset that compounds over years. Your future investors will Google you. Your future clients will Google you. Your future hires will Google you. Press is the wallpaper of legitimacy, not the closing argument of a sale. Founders who measure press by next week's revenue almost always quit before they see the real return.

Lie three: "I just need to get into one big outlet and the rest will follow."

Sort of, but not the way you think. One Forbes feature does open doors, but only if you do something with it. Most founders get a tier one placement, post it on LinkedIn, and then go quiet for nine months. The compounding only happens if you immediately use the first hit to pitch the second one. We'll cover exactly how in chapter seven.

If you can let go of these three beliefs before you read another page, the rest of this playbook becomes useful. If you can't, the framework will feel wrong, and you'll be tempted to ignore it. That's fine. But the founders who break through almost always start by accepting an uncomfortable truth: press isn't fair, isn't fast, and isn't free. It's just learnable.

The four step story framework.

Before you write a single pitch, you need a story. Not a press release. Not an "exciting announcement." A story. Here's how to find yours.

A journalist's job is to tell their reader something the reader didn't already know, in a way the reader can't stop reading. Your pitch lands when it gives them the raw material to do that job. A pitch fails when it gives them homework instead.

This four step framework is how we find a story for every client we take on. Run your business through it and you'll find at least three angles you can pitch this quarter.

Most founders skip three of these four. They lead with their product (which the journalist doesn't care about) instead of with the story (which they do). Reverse it. Lead with the story. Mention the product in passing. You'll get four times the response rate.

The nine mistakes that kill 80% of pitches.

After reading roughly 40,000 pitches over my career and writing a few thousand of them, I can tell you almost every failed pitch dies for one of these nine reasons.

Fix these nine and you'll move from a 1-2% response rate to 15-20%. That alone is the difference between most founders and the ones who get featured everywhere.

Templates that get answered.

Before the scripts, the most important lesson in this entire playbook. The templates only work if you understand why most pitches don't.

Cold pitching is dead. Relationships aren't.

Most founders treat journalists like a list. They scrape an email, paste in a press release, hit send to fifty inboxes, and wonder why nothing comes back. That's not pitching. That's spam with a fancier subject line. Journalists can smell it in three seconds and delete it in two.

The journalists who actually write about you are the ones who already know who you are when your email lands. That doesn't happen by accident. It happens because you put in the work to build the relationship long before you ever ask for anything. Every pitch I send for a client lands in an inbox where my name has been seen before. That's the whole game.

Here's how to build that recognition the right way.

Read their work before you write a single word.

Pick five journalists who cover your beat. Read every article they've published in the last 90 days. Subscribe to their newsletter if they have one. Follow them on LinkedIn and X. Notice the angles they're drawn to, the sources they rely on, the topics they keep returning to. After two weeks of doing this, you'll know each of them well enough to pitch them as if you'd had coffee.

This sounds like a lot of work. It is. It's also why most founders never crack the press, and why the ones who do are everywhere. Reading is the cheat code.

Engage before you ask.

Once you know their work, start engaging with it publicly. Not with spam comments. With substance. Quote their article in a LinkedIn post and add your own take. Reply to their thread with a real insight, not "great piece!" Send them a thoughtful note about a specific paragraph that resonated, with no ask attached. Do this three or four times over a month before you ever pitch them anything. By the time your pitch arrives, your name is familiar.

Make it human.

Journalists are people. They have birthdays, they get married, they have kids, they win awards, they survive layoffs, they switch beats. If you've been paying attention to their work, you know when these moments happen. Acknowledge them. Not in a creepy stalker way, but in the way one human notices another. A sentence at the top of a pitch that says "Saw congrats are in order on your new role at the Times. Quick story idea below if you have a sec." That sentence makes you a person, not a pitch.

The most successful pitches I've ever sent had one thing in common. They opened with something that proved I was paying attention. The story was almost secondary.

The four templates that actually work.

Now that you understand the foundation, here are four scripts you can adapt. Each one assumes you've done the relationship work above. Words in orange are placeholders. Replace with your specifics. Never send any of these without changes to a journalist you haven't engaged with first.

Notice what all four have in common. They're sent to journalists you already know. They open about the journalist or their reader, never about you. They lead with a specific detail. They make a clear ask. They offer something in return. They end with a credibility marker. And the personal note template, the one most founders never bother writing, is the one that gets the highest response rate by far.

The outlet hierarchy.

Not all press is created equal. Pitching the wrong outlet first will close the doors of the right ones. Here's the order that actually works.

Tier three first: trade and niche.

Industry specific publications. The ones your customers actually read. Coverage here is faster to get, the journalists are hungrier for stories, and the placement carries genuine weight with people who know your space. Most founders skip this tier because it isn't sexy. That's a mistake. Tier three press is the fuel for tier one press.

Tier two next: category leaders.

Inc. Magazine, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Business Insider. Bigger reach than trades, more competitive than they used to be, but still very pitchable if you have a real story. Once you have two or three tier three placements, you're a credible source for tier two outlets.

Tier one last: household names.

Forbes, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, network television. These outlets need you to already be a known quantity. Your tier three and tier two placements are the proof. Pitching tier one cold without that foundation is what turns most founders bitter about press. They don't need you. They need someone the rest of the press has already validated.

Lifestyle and entertainment: different ladder entirely.

People, Page Six, Access Hollywood, Life & Style. These run on different rules. They want story arcs, personalities, drama. If you're a founder pitching this side, lead with the human story, not the company. The most successful founders we place into entertainment outlets do so because their personal narrative is interesting independent of their business.

Climb the ladder one rung at a time. Most founders try to leap from "no press" to "Forbes feature" and burn out. The ones who break through stack five trade press wins, then three Inc. level features, then suddenly Forbes is calling them.

What to do when you actually get coverage.

Most founders waste their press. The first 72 hours after a feature drops are worth more than the next 12 months combined. Here's how to use them.

You finally landed a feature. The Forbes piece is live, your name is in the headline, and your phone is buzzing. Most founders post it on LinkedIn, screenshot it for the website, and then go quiet. That's a wasted asset. The article you just earned is the most powerful pitch tool you'll have for the next year, and it has a very short window where it's at peak power.

Here's the 72-hour playbook we run with every client.

• Hour 1. Email every journalist you've pitched in the last 90 days who hasn't responded. Subject line: "[Outlet name] just covered this, wanted you to see." Forward the link with one new sentence about why your story still matters.
• Hour 4. Update your email signature, LinkedIn headline, and homepage with "As featured in [outlet]." This is now the first thing every cold prospect sees.
• Day 1. Pitch three more outlets at the same tier or one tier higher. The fact that another outlet validated you makes the next pitch 10x easier.
• Day 2. Reach out to anyone in your network who has worked with the outlet that featured you. Ask for an intro to two other journalists at the same publication. They'll often help.
• Day 3. Repurpose the article. A LinkedIn post quoting it. A short video reaction. A newsletter mention. Everywhere your audience lives.
• Week 2. Use the article in cold outreach to investors, partners, and high value prospects. Subject line: "[Outlet] just covered our work, quick question."

The goal is to compound the placement into three more placements within 30 days. The momentum is real but it's also brief. Founders who ride it land features in clusters. Founders who don't get one piece every 14 months.

When to hire a publicist and when not to.

An honest take from someone who runs an agency. Not every founder needs one. Here's how to tell which group you're in.

You probably don't need a publicist if:

• You have under three real news hooks per year. A publicist can't manufacture stories that aren't there.
• You have time, taste, and the patience to learn. Most of what we do is learnable. You'll pay in calendar months instead of dollars, but you can absolutely DIY this.

You probably do need one if:

• You have real news happening monthly and you're missing the windows because you're running the company.
• You're approaching a moment that matters, like a launch, a raise, or a category defining play, and you can only run that play once.
• You want talent relations, crisis management, partnerships, or TV bookings on top of press. Most of those require relationships you can't shortcut.

If you're in the first group, this playbook is the agency you need. Take it, run with it, come back in a year. If you're in the second group, that's what we do at The Divine PR. Whether you book a call with us or someone else, the framework in here is the same. The difference is execution.