Most founders treat comms as a checklist: when you have something new to say draft a story, get press coverage, issue releases, share it on linkedin and x, etc. Maybe do a podcast tour. Some of the savvier ones skip intermediaries entirely. Both approaches made sense in different eras. Neither works anymore to drive an advantage for founders…
The traditional approach was built for a world that was 1. high friction and 2. The media was the gatekeeper. In a high friction world, proof mattered. Decisions were hard to reverse, people were rewarded for not being wrong. What you communicated and when was an output of making legible progress. And the media was highly trusted. Journalists and media brands had immense credibility that they could transfer to you.
Going direct was a natural and smart reaction. Skip the middlemen who have less value and their own incentives. Make sure the story gets out right. Build your audience and own your channels. This wasn’t wrong but there are some core problems:
The noise exploded. Anyone can go direct, which means rising above it gets harder everyday.
No one really wants to hear it from you. Of course you are going to say great things about your vision. It’s expected and discounted.
Distribution isn’t belief. You can have a million followers and still not change how they think. You’re still broadcasting facts in a world saturated with them.
We now live in a world that is low friction. People can afford to believe and be wrong. Switching is cheap, and the upside to early belief now dominates the cost of being mistaken.
Beliefs outrun facts. Waiting for facts means you will be late. The market will have formed a view. Customers have moved. Capital has moved. Conviction will start being formed before the results are in.
People need to believe before proof arrives.
Being heard and being believed are completely different problems. They were more closely related at a time, but not anymore. Companies that figure out how to make their beliefs legible before they have proof have a massive advantage.
Most founders are still optimizing for the wrong surface area entirely.
The thing to figure out is where beliefs get formed and how to intervene there… And the answer isn’t PR or marketing as you know it.