If you're <$1M ARR and paying for PR, wake up
Somewhere along the way, people forgot what a “company” actually is. The primary objective is simple: generate revenue. Yet so many founders seem more interested in polishing their “Founder image” on LinkedIn than building a scrappy MVP and spending months actually figuring out distribution.
It’s honestly become funny how often I see these PR stunts from companies that are barely staying alive. Even worse, I’ve heard founders proudly say stuff like “Our product can only be distributed through PR.”
At that point, I already know how their story ends, probably 2 years before they run out of money from investors.
Somewhere along the way, people forgot what a “company” actually is. The primary objective is simple: generate revenue. Yet so many founders seem more interested in polishing their “Founder image” on LinkedIn than building a scrappy MVP, spending months actually figuring out distribution, and eventually delivering real value to customers at scale.
What’s your goal? Value or image?
It’s worth reverse-engineering your own mindset. Start with one question:
“What is my actual goal?”
A) Build a sustainable, profitable company with a great team
B) Look impressive to my peers on LinkedIn
Sadly, B is more common than people admit. Even founders who claim they want A clearly behave like B is the real priority.
If revenue is your next biggest goal, and it absolutely should be if you’re under $1M ARR, there is no universe where PR is a good use of time or money. This isn’t about opinions or brand preference. It’s just growth maths. Once you understand it, it’s impossible to argue against. PR Companies will try, but have they built a SaaS before? Ask them :-)
So be honest.
If your goal is A, cool, keep going.
If it’s B, then you’ve got a mindset problem (fixable, but still a problem).
If you’re unwilling to fix it, you may as well stop reading.
Unit economics simply don’t make sense
If PR appears as an expense in your pitch deck, you might as well stop sending the deck out. Paying for this type of “advertising” is basically untraceable. You can’t attribute it, you can’t scale it, and you’re buying impressions from people miles away from your ICP.
Your CAC will almost always creep above your LTV.
Translation: you’re burning money like a seed-stage startup with its priorities upside down
The core problems:
A) Attribution is impossible or wildly inaccurate
B) PR isn’t scalable — if a campaign brings 10 customers, you’ll never 100× that
C) You’re buying attention from people who will never convert = terrible ROI
Fake success stories
The worst part is the impact on beginners. They see shiny PR stories everywhere and assume those founders are crushing it. In reality, many of these “successful” founders and companies have declining revenue, weak products, or are borderline bankrupt.
Real builders don’t chase PR.
They’re too busy shipping, iterating, and improving retention.
If you ever want to do a reality check on a company you’ve seen online, run a quick test:
- Check their ARR and recent traction
- Look at their Meta/Google ad libraries
- Check their SEO visibility
- See whether their product is actually live
You’ll spot the BS instantly.
Enough, here’s what to actually do
Founders who want to do this properly are rare, and I love seeing them win. So here are some genuinely useful, high-leverage distribution channels — the stuff that actually moves the needle.
Distribution differs for B2B vs B2C, so I’ve split it out a bit.
SEO (B2B, B2C)
Slow, but once it works, you’ll print cash forever.
PPC Ads
Meta (B2C): If your product is good and your creative hits, this can scale like crazy — but you need the right operator.
Google (B2B): Lower pace, higher intent, stable. Again — get someone who knows what they’re doing.
Short-form (B2C)
Hard to scale solo, great at the start when you have no budget. Goal should be to build a creator army from sites like https://sideshift.app/.
Sales-led Outreach (B2B) (Emails / Cold Calling / LinkedIn)
Still one of the most reliable channels out there. Ignore the guy who “sent 5,000 emails and got nothing”. It’s a volume + quality game.
Product-led growth (B2C, B2B)
Difficult for beginners. If you know what you’re doing, viral loops and product mechanics can drive insane distribution.
Integrations (B2B, B2C)
Build for platforms that already have distribution.
Shopify apps, iOS apps, Chrome extensions — marketplace ranking hacks + D3 retention can grow you quickly.
There are more channels, but these are the big, scalable ones.
Referrals and “community building” sound lovely in theory, but they’re brutally hard to scale.