Who writes the headlines of your startup story?

Photo credit: Pexels

I started up in 2008, and like most startups, I was keen to be heard and known in the big wide world. And what better way to achieve that than to have the media write about me. After all, any coverage was sure shot way to tell people, “Hey, here I am, and you can reach out to me.” Alas, nobody did. And I was most upset – the irony was that nobody was willing to listen.

I had left a successful corporate job to start up on my own and do something cool (or so I thought). Shouldn’t the media tell my story? Maybe mention something about my unique venture? To be honest, I really wanted my ex-company, CNBC TV18, feature me in their high-profile Young Turks show. No such luck.

I was keen to tell my startup story – the irony was that nobody was willing to listen.

In fact, traditional media kept me at an arm’s length (and I have much to thank them for one of the best things that didn’t happen to me). I remember a few years back when three people were given an award by an industry body (yours truly being one of the three). The other two got half a page worth of coverage in India’s most widely read business daily (again, from a company I had worked with), but I was left out.

I remember going through the paper over and over: maybe I’d missed seeing it, maybe it was hidden and buried inside as an after thought, a tiny piece, just a line maybe. I was keen, well, marginally obsessed, to see YourStory get mentioned (you know when you have no money to promote yourself, a mention matters a lot). Nope, it wasn’t there.

Over the last few years, however, I’ve made my peace with the fact that it was just not going to happen for me on mainstream media. Sure, there is an occasional mention, and I’m grateful. But overall, this indifference is just one more additional spark I need to make YourStory the most happening place for entrepreneurs. Anyone out there should be able to get a space to tell his or her story here. So far, nearly 30,000 have done that on YourStory. And yes, yes, we do miss out on many such stories despite the relentless pace we maintain.

So, as an entrepreneur, I totally understand why we need to be out there sharing our story with media.

Photo credit: Pixabay

In fact,I remember when I was in between CNBC and YourStory, an early employee (now a friend) at Flipkart had called me to help get coverage in Young Turks, saying, “This will help us in hiring as we are unknown when we go to premium colleges for recruitment.”

We all have our reasons to get media coverage; the reason may change from time to time, but if you’re in business, you need to communicate, and the media is the ideal vehicle to do so.

The Indian media has evolved significantly from 2008 when YourStory was set up. Eight years down the line, almost every newspaper, magazine and news website in the country is hungry to tell the stories of startups.

The big daddies of the media world perhaps realized a couple of years back that startups were worth covering and writing about. The wave is probably fuelled by the big money pouring into ecommerce, finally making startups headline-worthy.

Everyday startup news is a headline, and mostly led by funding news. Who is getting into the billion-dollar club? Who is the new poster boy? Who is investing big bucks? Yes, even a cheerleader platform like YS has occasionally given to headline pressure, because we know that in online media, page views matter.

It’s time we take control of our narrative – at least to the extent possible.