SBC is a global family of industry-focused programs. They support early-stage tech founders to rapidly scale their companies by providing direct access to an international network of the most relevant mentors, partners, and investors in their industry. By holding events in more than 100 cities each year they support the world’s most talented founders with hands-on mentorship and access to key industry connections.
Since 2010 they have accelerated over 1000 startups through 100 programs, with a portfolio valuation of over 2.5 billion euros.
In 2021 Startupbootcamp would be launching their new accelerator program focused on sustainability. Over three years, they would be de-risking and accelerating 30 startups, with the aim of working towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. To fund this venture, they created a unique IPO that allowed for smaller payments from investors. This would create more opportunities for people to support their sustainable goals.
In the lead up to the launch of their IPO, Startupbootcamp approached PRLab to spread the news of this exciting opportunity. They wanted coverage in the Dutch and English speaking markets in order to attract both investors and startups in time for the launch of their new program.
The first step was to ground the press release for Startupbootcamp in a wider story. With the IPO funding a program focused on sustainability, we decided that this would be a good context for a press release. We researched what was happening in the media regarding sustainability and startups in order to create a few different angles.
1. The unique nature of their IPO.
2. The need for more efforts to be made in meeting the UN’s SDGs.
3. The problem of greenwashing in business.
In addition to the sustainability angle, we researched how the unique model of their IPO would address some of the problems faced in the investment world. We found that investors suffer from a lack of trust when it comes to investments, an issue which Startupbootcamp resolved through their de-risking program and by scouting Startups with the assistance of AI.
We had the story, now we had to find the people to tell it. We had to research the journalists who would love nothing more than to cover a story about a unique IPO model, or how Startupbootcamp are an example of how businesses are working towards sustainable development goals.
We created lists of the relevant journalists for each of the angles, further dividing them into top tier priority targets, and second tier targets to be pitched to embargo.
With this list of journalists in mind, we created in total four different press releases, two for the UK market and two for the Dutch market. Each press release was focused on a different aspect of the story and context we had researched, focusing on the IPO angle for investment publications, and sustainability and greenwashing for publications more focused on this environmental and green business side of things.
The research we had found during our story creation was put into the relevant press releases, using data to give authority to each version. Journalists always appreciate data, particularly if it is telling of an undiscovered pain point and issue within their niche.
With the press releases ready, we sent them out to the relevant journalists. To ensure our success, we personalized our pitches for the top tier publications, crafting different angles for different journalists, researching their previous work to make sure our efforts are as concise as possible.
Because we’ve already researched extensively what outlets to pitch to, we wasted no time in this stage once the press releases have been approved by the client.
