How to pitch journalists as a solo founder (with a press release template)
How a solo founder gets press without a PR agency: what counts as news, how to find the right reporter, the three-paragraph pitch email, the source-request services that replaced HARO, and a press release template you can copy.
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.
What counts as news when a solo founder pitches a journalist?
A launch is not news. Five things are: a number with a story behind it, a trend you are an example of, a contrarian result, something local, and good timing.
- 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. A founder with none of the five should not pitch yet. Go get a number first.
How do you find the right reporter to pitch?
Pitch a named reporter whose recent work you have read, not a 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 tips@techcrunch.com and lists it on its "How to tip TechCrunch" page.
How to find reporters, for free:
- Search Google News for your category and the last three months. Note who wrote the three most relevant pieces.
- Read two of each reporter's recent articles. You need to know what they cover and how, because your pitch will reference it.
- 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.
- 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.
What should a founder's pitch email to a journalist say?
A pitch email is three short paragraphs: a line proving you read the reporter's work, the story with its number in it, and an offer of what you can provide. No attachments. No tracking pixels: reporters notice, and a tracked email 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] ยท [phone]
Send the pitch 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.
How does a founder get quoted without having a story to pitch?
Answer the requests reporters post when they need a quote. That is the most reliable way for an unknown founder to get named in a publication, because it costs the reporter nothing to use you and they need a source today.
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. These are the services that replaced it:
| Service | What it is | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Source of Sources (sourceofsources.com) | Email digests of reporter requests, started by HARO's original founder Peter Shankman | Free |
| Qwoted | Journalists post requests; sources are verified | 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 | Free |
| #journorequest on X and Bluesky | Unfiltered hashtag where reporters on a same-day deadline post | Free |
Rules for answering a source request: 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. Scanning these requests is the five-minute outreach slot in the four-minute-a-day routine.
When does a solo founder actually need a press release?
A press release is not needed to pitch. A founder needs one in three situations: when a reporter says "send me the details", when you want a page you can link to, and when a local paper will run it nearly verbatim, which 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 a press release under 400 words and 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 should a founder have ready before a reporter replies?
Have a public press folder before the first pitch goes out, because a reporter who says yes wants everything in the next hour. Use Google Drive or Dropbox, and put these in it:
- 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
How much time does press take each week?
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 an October 2026 launch, is being built to do the watching and drafting part of this: finding the reporters, spotting the source requests, writing the pitch and the release. The sending stays with the founder, because a reporter replying to a founder wants the founder.