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DON DODGE: Hi.
Welcome to the Root Access show on
Google Developers Live.
I'm Don Dodge, your host for today.
The Root Access show is a show for startups where we discuss
issues and problems that are typical to any company that's
trying to grow and become a big business.
Today we're going to talk about how to get the attention
of influential bloggers and tech press.
And my guest today is Louis Grey, one of the first
bloggers that I ever knew.
LOUIS GRAY: Thanks for having me on, Don.
It's good to see you here at Google.
DON DODGE: Well, thank you.
So Louis, I discovered you back in 2006.
You were one of the first bloggers that I ever read.
So tell us, how did you get started and what kinds of
things did you write about?
LOUIS GRAY: I appreciate that.
I started writing--
I could have picked the name a little better, but I started
writing at LouisGray.com.
Back in 2006, it was just a fun outlet for me.
I was working at a network storage company on the
enterprise space, but I really had a lot of passion for web
2.0 and what was happening with internet and social, and
some of these tech companies like Google
and Apple and LinkedIn.
And so what I found was a could kind of play that
enterprise role during the day, and come home and write
about consumer software.
And it was really exciting to see that the opinions I had
had some kind of resonance with
those who hit the stories.
I found that when I would write about LinkedIn, I would
have a very good hit rate of people coming in and saying,
you know what, that feature that you
wanted, we've added that.
Or I wrote an article called "10 Suggestions for Google
Reader," way back in 2007, and the next day, one of the
software engineers at Google said, those are some great
suggestions.
We came to the same conclusions you did in our
team offsite.
And so I started to really feel like I
could have an impact.
And then I branched off from talking about companies that
had already been around and well known to finding new
companies that no one had ever heard about.
And finding that role of being the first user, or one of the
first 10 users, and trying to foresee what
would happen with that.
I know often with your background, you talk about VC
investing and angel investing, but as a blogger, what I
wasn't doing was putting money into a company.
I was putting my time and my effort and my energy.
And I felt like a VC with no cash.
And so you could see I would pick my
winners and pick my favorites.
And 3,000 posts later, we had a lot of people paying
attention to what was happening, got a lot of great
companies to start with me, and take some of the feedback
that I was giving them to enhance their
products and get better.
DON DODGE: So you were one of the first bloggers, you and
Mike Arrington and Jason Calacanis and Fred Wilson.
There are maybe a dozen or so bloggers who became very well
known and were early in the space.
What kinds of things interest you now?
You've been doing this for six or seven years.
What kinds of stories capture your attention and do you like
to write about?
LOUIS GRAY: Well, when you mentioned those names, I
almost feel like I could sneak into the room and be the guy
in the background who no one talks to.
Those are some pretty good names you threw out there.
One of the things that I really took to heart when I
first started looking at blogging was finding a way for
people to communicate more quickly, to consume more
information more rapidly.
And not just more information, but the right information at
the right time.
I think, obviously, Google is a great
place to see that happening.
That was one of things that got me excited
about coming here.
You look at big trends and the way that people are going to
have the right information at the right time on their mobile
phones or any other devices.
You look at Project Glass and the things that are happening
there in terms of having that available.
I really like the movement to the cloud.
I've come to this point with Chrome OS, and I know it
sounds like a Google fan boy, but I really believe in what
they're doing.
I really look at the cloud operation of it, and being
able to get to any computer to get to my data
at any time of day.
It really doesn't matter which device I have, just that I can
log in and get my content.
And that makes sense to me.
I think when you look from a startup perspective, there are
a lot of people who are finding it easier for people
to share no matter what type of interests they have.
One of the things that you and I both kind of grew up with
with the web is that you found a kind of siloing around a
specific interest for a site.
So if you like motorcycles, you went to a motorcycle site.
If you were into fly fishing, you went to
a fly fishing site.
And what's happened is these more broad networks, be they
Pinterest, or Google+ with Communities, and Facebook
groups, they're having a horizontal foundation for any
kind of a community to prosper and flourish.
And for commerce to take place there, and for people to
communicate globally.
So that still gets me excited.
I think you look at the types of ways that people can
communicate instantly about everything, where you can be
in a shared conversation, be it through hash tags or
anything else, with anyone around the world to find
common interests.
It's really incredible.
DON DODGE: So if I'm to startup founder and I want you
to write about my company, how do you suggest
that I approach you?
What kinds of things should I say?
What preparation should I have.
LOUIS GRAY: As previously mentioned, if I'm playing that
role of the seed capital guy with no money, I want to be
part of that team that helps get the story right.
I want to make sure that when I'm committing my time to
write a post--
and usually I write too long.
So if I'm writing a lot of content, I want to make sure
that I've picked a company that I can stand behind.
I think a lot of times when you look at tech blogging, you
can get a view of having negative opinion.
Now, that guy, he always rips on companies I made a
conscious decision back in 2007 to not be that guy.
And if I was going to write about something, that it was
going to be worth my time and worth my readers' time, I
found that writing negatively against the company wasted my
time, wasted the readers' time, and wasted the
entrepreneurs' time.
And so, obviously, if I didn't write about you, that might be
a soft signal I wasn't a big fan.
So what I want to do is be a partner to the person who's
writing it.
The way that I get to find out about them
is a number of ways.
I'm a geek, and so I like to look at logs.
I used to look at my referral logs all the time to see who
was coming in to my website.
And that was the way I found a number of companies back in
2006 to 2008.
With launches like small companies like FeedBurner and
Link River and [? Tollou ?].
I looked at FriendFeed very early on and saw what those
guys were doing.
Was very excited about the potential for that site, that
eventually got acquired by Facebook.
And you look at finding out this new company that might or
might not even have launched yet, being one of the first 5
to 10 users, and say, what can I do to take you guys to the
next level?
You might know Edwin Khodabakchian, who came out of
Netscape and wrote the application Feedly.
I found out about Feedly from someone in his network who I'd
written about before.
And so you kind of get that reputation were, hey, this guy
knows what he's talking about.
So they referred me to Edwin, and his product Feedly was in
incubation maybe five or six months, where I sat on the
story, and didn't write about it, and
kept providing feedback.
Almost like informal QA.
And by the time he was ready to launch, I think my post was
like 3,000 words.
And so what I'm trying to say is a small email that's even
personalized to me isn't going to cut it.
It's going to be something where it's a long term
relationship where they're investing a piece of effort
with you, and you're willing to give that back.
Not only am I going to be an evangelist for your company,
not only am I going to want to tell people why your product
is better, but I'll be a user, too.
If I look at this product, and I say, yeah, I get it, it's
interesting, but I'm not a user, I know
it's a throwaway post.
And so, obviously, you flash forward a few years,
here I am at Google.
The ability for companies to pitch me and for me to blog
about it doesn't always make sense anymore, simply because
people perceiving that as being Google's words, or
people interpreting Google as either a
competitor or a partner.
And so I kind of played it safe.
I held back on a lot of those things.
But you can see from those applications which I use, and
those people who I engage with what it is I'm still a fan of
and really excited about.
DON DODGE: So as a startup founder, should I send emails
to every blogger, make a list and send it to
every blogger I know?
Or should I try to focus on the ones who maybe have
written about companies in my space before?
What's the strategy?
LOUIS GRAY: One of the buzz words we used to hear a lot
about was microtargeting.
And you look at some-- whether it's your sales force, CRM
service, or what have you, but the ability to find the right
message to the right person is critical.
You can easily know if I get a message that's off topic that
comes into my inbox, I don't want to be either a follower
of a post that happened two days ago on a well known site,
which I know I saw and you didn't trick me when
you sent it to me.
And I certainly don't want to be the 10th
person in a BCC line.
Like, dear tech press.
When you see that, you just know like, hey, that's going
to go on somewhere else.
And maybe tomorrow someone else will write it.
But it's critical to find out, in your industry, who's
passionate about what it is that you know you do well.
And then you personalize that note.
You say, hey, I really see that you like aggregation.
Let's talk about that.
I really see that you're a big fan of electric vehicles.
Whatever that is that's your niche.
And say, I want to give you access to my product before
anybody else.
I want to give you a unique code that you can offer your
readers, so that if I have 500 invites, I can see how fast
they get given away.
It's really exciting to be part of that ability to get
people to get their word out.
I remember specifically there was a story about a company
called Lazy Feed.
And Lazy Feed was a fun way to find your interests and follow
those along from RSS feeds that you didn't even follow.
But the entrepreneur gave me 500 invite codes, which I put
up in a Google spreadsheet, put the link out on Twitter
and FriendFeed, and just watched them get used up.
And within a day, all the invites were gone.
And so for me that looked like a spot where the guy knew,
even if I wasn't the big name like all those gentlemen that
you mentioned, be they Jason or Fred or Michael--
I even have to use their first names with you--
he knew that I could make the impact.
Because I was so focused on that industry, and so spot on
with the information consumption world, and being
able to distribute that and have an impact.
DON DODGE: As a startup, should I be a blogger myself?
Should I try to get the story out that way?
Is it helpful?
LOUIS GRAY: Absolutely.
There's no question in my mind.
I even say this for anyone.
When it comes to even hiring an employee, I'll ask
somebody, do you have a blog?
And when they say no, you go, uh-oh.
Why not?
Why are you not so excited about your industry that you
can't write about it every day?
What is it that shows to me that you don't have the
intellectual curiosity to take a stand and make an effort?
So what happens with a company, be it their blog, or
their Facebook, G+ stream, their Pinterest page these
days, whatever it is that gives them an outlet to shape
their own story, to interact with people.
You look recently at Elon Musk having a direct interaction
with a New York Times reporter who came out with a report of
his car that he didn't particularly like and didn't
think was accurate.
If he didn't have a blog, and didn't have a mouthpiece to be
able to respond and have a kind of interchange with
people, starting it that day would not have worked.
And I've seen companies do that, where they have some
kind of PR crisis, and then that day they open their
Twitter account.
It's too late.
The day to start that is the day that you're ready to be
public and have people be aware of your ideas.
And I think that goes for anybody who wants to make an
impact, be you a new startup or someone who has views on
the industry.
A blog is an incredible tool for that.
DON DODGE: How about public relations firms?
There are PR agencies out there who say that they will
get my startup story in front of influential bloggers or
tech press.
Does that work?
Is that a good investment for a startup to spend
money on a PR agency?
LOUIS GRAY: Well, I've got about 15 years in the valley
at this point.
I've hired PR firms, I've played the role of PR for
different companies.
And so I can see a place where if you lack the marketing and
public relations and communications background
within your startup, you don't have that ability to shape a
story, and to know where those targets are, you absolutely
need someone who can play that role.
Whether they're the founder who can do that, or the VP of
marketing can do that, or even if you need an outside agency.
Obviously, it would be very simple to say, no, I don't
want to hear from the PR firm, I'd rather
hear from the founder.
But to be honest, I'd rather have the founder writing code.
And so while I like having that one to one direct
conversation with the startup founder,
that's not always possible.
And so you can have, going back to what we mentioned
before in terms of a targeted approach, you can have a good
relationship with a PR firm or a PR individual if they,
again, abide by the same rules, which is hey, we know
you're really interested in wireless speakers.
And so we're going to keep you updated about Sonos, right?
Or we know that you're really somebody who gets next
generation communication platforms.
I'm the person representing TweetDeck, and I want to talk
to you about how that works.
And so that's OK.
It's kind of like the B+ approach.
You still need to do that, but most the time, if I only have
a seed round of funding, I'm not going to burn that money
on a PR firm.
I'm going to find a way to have a personal relationship
with the handful of bloggers or social media influencers
who can have a real impact.
DON DODGE: So you made an excellent point.
PR agencies are not only about making introductions to
bloggers and tech press, they're about helping you
shape the story, and tell the story in an interesting way.
So a lot of startup people probably aren't
that good at that.
Are there PR agencies that are particularly good, or do you
look for agencies that have experience in your domain, or
how would you select a PR agency?
LOUIS GRAY: That's a great question.
As I mentioned before, having come from that enterprise
technology space, there's a certain group that know
networking especially well.
And so they'll have a great relationship with publications
like "Computerworld" and "InformationWeek" and
"InfoWorld," and the online equivalents, like "Search
Storage" or "Byte and Switch."
If you look over at a consumer level, you'll have people
answering in a different way.
I have a great relationship with "TechCrunch" or
"Mashable" or "Engadget," or what have you.
And you want to find out those types of relationships.
You want to have a proven track record of having seen
them work with startups like you.
Not necessarily your competitors, but startups who
are at the same stage that you are.
People who have dealt with the seed round, the A rounds, the
B rounds, et cetera.
Those who have looked at lifestyle startups or
startups for women.
Whatever that is that you believe is your niche.
Have they gotten experience in that way?
Have they got a proven track record of delivering positive,
consumer and customer friendly press in the place?
And so if you can do that, and you can see that they do it,
go ahead and pull those.
It just takes them being able to pitch you well.
And if they can't pitch you well, how the heck are they
going to pitch Mike Arrington?
DON DODGE: So say a little bit about how you should use
Twitter or Google+ or blogs or video?
How does that mix work, and how do you use each of them
differently?
LOUIS GRAY: As a human.
That's my first answer.
And the reason I say that is because you can be wordsmithed
to death, to the point where content that goes out on your
blog, or your Twitter account, or your Facebook just doesn't
sound right.
It doesn't sound like a human said it.
When you look at somebody like Elon Musk, when he's tweeting,
you know he's the guy writing it because it's
got a lot of energy.
When you want to do that, you want to make each one of these
channels a representative of you and the company.
You have to put some thought into it.
You have to have a mental filter of what
shouldn't be there.
But it has to reflect your company well.
There's a big difference between having a social
channel that reflects the company and it being a
marketing wind tunnel.
Right?
And there's room for that.
I think that if you look at a output stream from a company,
it's OK if like 20% to 40% of it is
marketing or sales related.
But the rest of it should be engaging with the industry.
And you can see there's humans behind it who are thinking
about the industry, engaging with reporters, engaging with
competition if it makes sense, talking directly to customers,
using a support forum.
There's so many things.
I mean, it's funny you ask this question, because I bet
in 5 and 10 years, we shouldn't
be asking this question.
It's just going to be so commonplace.
It's like back in 2006, 2007, you would have entire
conventions around being a blogger, or
being a Twitter user.
And that's so foreign now, thank goodness.
Because that becomes part of the background, and part of
what everyone expects you to do as an individual who has
employment, or has a startup idea.
That if you are on the web and you have a presence, you
should have a social presence in each of these places.
DON DODGE: So to summarize then, the things I should do
as a startup founder--
be a blogger, use Twitter, use Google+.
And I think you mentioned having a PR agency to help you
shape the story if you haven't already done it yourself.
LOUIS GRAY: But obviously, your startup should have a
story to begin with, or else you're in trouble.
Nobody's going to give you--
very few people are going to give you a seed
round with no ideas.
So if you have an idea, you have to take it to the next
level of it being a story.
Where does your story fit?
At what level is your product?
Is it ready to go out now?
Is this something that you're ready to launch in three
months, or in six months?
Is there a reason that you're here?
Why is it that you're better?
Why is it that I'm going to switch my time using one
application to yours?
Because what you haven't yet invented is the ability for
more hours in the day.
Or everyone wishes we had teleportation.
You could reduce traffic and all these great things.
But because you have a limited set of amount of time, and a
limited amount of time for people to consume information
and use this, you need to find that story.
If you don't think you can communicate that story, find
someone who can help you.
And that could be your spouse, it could be you PR firm, it
could be your VP of marketing.
Someone who can really make that difference to get that
story across.
One of the greatest things I can say as someone who has
broken the story on those companies like TweetDeck, as I
mentioned, is I had a one to one relationship with somebody
like Iain Dodsworth.
Iain was the founder of TweetDeck.
And what he would do is when he would have
an iterative update--
if he's going from 1.2 to 1.3--
he would email the day before and say, hey, Louis, I've got
this update at TweetDeck coming.
These are the features it's going to have.
You can go ahead and write the post today, and everyone else
can cover it tomorrow.
Now, that was fun.
I would have an exclusive story for a little bit.
I would have the extra time to really get the story right.
And one thing--
and not to derail your conversation, but one thing
that I got to have as an independent blogger for a long
time, was to have the face to face relationships at big
companies like Google.
And once you've established some level of credibility with
one team, they'll introduce you to others.
And a lot of the success I had with breaking news stories and
getting relationships came through
people at larger firms.
And so I would first meet with the blogger team at Google,
and then I'd go across campus and meet with the Google
Reader team, and then talk with the FeedBurner team.
And they'd have friends who had recently left, and I'd
talk to the Zooglers.
And that's where it all starts.
Once you've cultivated a good relationship where they can
rely on you for interesting insight, and the ability to
write well and get them to the next level on their product,
you've really made something.
DON DODGE: Excellent.
Well, Louis, thank you very much for
joining us on Root Access.
And watch the Google Developers Live schedule for
the next instance of Root Access.
Until next time, thank you very much.