How to pitch journalists as a solo founder (with a press release template)

Journalists do not cover products. They cover stories, and a product is sometimes the evidence in one. Once you accept that, pitching gets simpler: you stop sending "I launched an app" emails that nobody answers and start sending the two things reporters actually want, a story and a source.

This is the process for a founder with no agency, no budget and no press contacts. It takes an afternoon to set up and an hour a week to run.

Step 1: find the news in what you did

A launch is not news. These are:

• A number with a story behind it. "400 dentists signed up in a month after I posted in one Facebook group" is a story about a market. "We processed 1 million images" is a story about scale.
• A trend you are an example of. "Non-technical founders shipping real apps with Lovable and Cursor" is a story a business reporter wants to write, and they need three founders to quote. Be one of them.
• A contrarian result. You tried the thing everyone recommends and it failed, with data.
• Something local. Regional papers and city business journals cover local founders because they exist. This is the easiest press there is, and it gives you a "featured in" logo and a backlink.
• Timing. A new law, a big company's outage, a viral complaint about your category. If you can offer a reporter a source the day the story breaks, you are in.

Write down one sentence for each angle you have. If you have none, do not pitch yet. Go get a number first.

Step 2: find the right reporter, not the publication

Emails to a publication's generic address are read by an intern, if at all. The exception is TechCrunch, which asks for pitches and press releases at [email protected] and lists it on its "How to tip TechCrunch" page. Everywhere else, pitch a person.

How to find them, for free:

1. Search Google News for your category and the last three months. Note who wrote the three most relevant pieces.
2. Read two of each reporter's recent articles. You need to know what they cover and how, because your pitch will reference it.
3. Find their email. Many reporters put it in their X or Bluesky bio, or on their publication profile. If not, the publication's email format is usually guessable (first.last@) and Hunter.io will show the pattern for free.
4. Build a list of ten. Not a hundred. Ten reporters you have actually read.

Trade publications beat national ones for most founders. If you sell to restaurants, a piece in Restaurant Business reaches more buyers than a mention in Forbes, and the editor answers email.

Step 3: the pitch email

Three short paragraphs. No attachments. No tracking pixels: reporters notice and it reads as surveillance.

Subject: [The news in eight words, e.g. "Solo founder hits 400 dentist sign-ups from one Facebook post"]

Hi [First name],

Your piece on [their recent article] covered [the specific point]. I have a related story.

I built [product] in [time] using [tool]. [One sentence of what it does for whom.] In the last [period], [the number, the trend, or the result]. [One sentence on why that is interesting beyond you.]

Happy to share the numbers, screenshots, or a customer you can talk to. If it is not for you, no need to reply.

[Name]
[Product URL] · [phone]

Send it Tuesday to Thursday, morning in the reporter's time zone. Follow up once, four or five days later, by replying to the same email with one line. Then stop. If a reporter answers, reply within the hour with whatever they asked for; their deadline is today, not next week.

Step 4: be a source, not just a story

Reporters need quotes every day, and they post requests for them. Answering those requests is the most reliable way for an unknown founder to get named in a publication.

HARO, the service everyone used for this, was rebranded Connectively and shut down in December 2024. A revived HARO reappeared in 2025 under the old name, but the volume and quality of requests is not what it was. The services that replaced it:

• Source of Sources (sourceofsources.com), started by HARO's original founder Peter Shankman. Free, email-based, several digests a day.
• Qwoted. Journalists post requests, sources are verified. Has a free tier with limits.
• Featured (formerly Terkel). Answer questions; selected answers are published with your name and link. Free tier, paid tiers for priority.
• Help a B2B Writer. Requests from B2B content writers, useful if your customers are businesses.
• #journorequest on X and Bluesky. Search the hashtag daily. Fast and unfiltered; reporters on a same-day deadline post here.

Rules for answering: reply within an hour, answer the exact question in under 150 words, give one specific example or number, state your name, title and company in one line, and do not pitch your product unless the question is about your category. Reporters keep the sources who make their job easy and never open a second email from the ones who did not.

Step 5: the press release, when you need one

You do not need a press release to pitch. You need one when a reporter says "send me the details", when you want a page you can link to, or when a local paper will run it nearly verbatim (many do). Wire services like PR Newswire and Business Wire charge for distribution and mostly buy you a backlink; skip them until you have something big.

Put the release on your own site at a URL like /press/[date]-[slug]. Copy this:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

[Headline: what happened, in plain words, under 12 words]
[Subhead: one sentence with the number or the why]

[CITY], [Month Day, Year] — [Company], [one-line description of what it does
for whom], today announced [the news]. [One sentence on why it matters to
the reader of the publication, not to you.]

[Second paragraph: the detail. What the product does, who it is for, the
number, the timeline. Two or three sentences.]

"[A quote from you that says something a person would say, with an opinion
in it. Not 'we are thrilled'.]" said [Name], founder of [Company].

[Third paragraph: context. The trend, the market, the problem, with one
named source if you cite a figure.]

[Optional: a customer quote with their name and company, with permission.]

[Product] is available at [URL]. [Pricing in one line, or "free during beta".]

About [Company]
[Two sentences. Founded when, by whom, what it does. Where it is based.]

Media contact
[Name]
[email]
[phone]
[Link to a folder with logo, screenshots and a founder photo]

Keep it under 400 words. Write the headline last. Every claim in it should be true today, not planned; reporters check, and a release that says "launching soon" is a release about nothing.

What to have ready before anyone replies

When a reporter says yes, they want everything in the next hour. Prepare a public folder (Google Drive or Dropbox) with:

• Logo as PNG and SVG
• Three product screenshots at 1600px or wider, with no personal data in them
• A founder photo that is not a selfie
• A one-paragraph company description and a one-paragraph founder bio
• The numbers you are willing to share, written down so you quote them the same way every time
• One customer who has agreed to talk to press

The weekly hour

After setup, press is an hour a week: fifteen minutes scanning source requests and answering one or two, twenty minutes reading what your ten reporters wrote this week, twenty minutes on one pitch if you have news, and five minutes updating the list. Keep a spreadsheet: reporter, outlet, what they cover, last contact, result.

Most pitches get no reply, including good ones. That is normal, not a verdict. A solo founder who sends one well-aimed pitch a week and answers source requests daily will be quoted somewhere within a couple of months, and the second mention is easier than the first because you can point to it.

AutoTraction, which is on a waitlist for a September 2026 launch, is being built to do the watching and drafting part of this for you: finding the reporters, spotting the source requests, writing the pitch and the release. The sending stays with you, because a reporter replying to a founder wants the founder.