"hi everyone welcome to the a 6 & Z podcast I am sonal we talk about everything from tech trends to company building on this podcast but one of the company building topics that surprisingly mystifying ..."

"conversation we have Margot when Walker's operating partner at Andreessen Horowitz who oversees a six and zeez marketing function which includes brand and communications among many other things before..."

"do that right so it all depends on the objective yeah and if it's early-stage PR can be very helpful because it makes everything else easier right so it makes hiring easier it makes fundraising easier..."

"outsourcing it to just not think about it in agencies ideally managed not by the founder because as a CEO you've lots of things to do right your growing company or probably managing engineering still ..."

"who is well suited to tell the story what kind of proof point do you need if any right some right tip number one right right you have to be willing to be in a relationship so there's a real dance I'm ..."

"head count which is much more of a fixed cost so a CFO actually a conversation with the CFO is typically Oh an agency sounds like the great model instead of hiring three people that may be very very h..."

"the internal team too gets a lot of g2 on other companies by talking to reporters directly to if shapes out the relationship some information about other companies I'm recommending the valley and Indu..."

"agency to come in at the very beginning and talk about the company's narrative and what are your value props what are your market fit and who are the people running this company super super valuable t..."

"get have your launch day be that that means you'd have to be on the road doing interviews then and then before that just kind of meet them where they are and try to strip out all the technical lingo o..."

"flavors of interpretation why so what would you would do is like you basically are taking them on the journey with you right if they say like I want the headline to be like we have the best search eng..."

"on the door and whatnot and you just want to be very efficient about it you probably have a relationship with a reporter and you I don't pick up the phone assign it to someone you do this one story an..."

"little that's right and that's the next inflection point I was going to say which is it's more incidental than inflection point but a crisis I would not leave it to a founder or management team to man..."

"if you're lying to me and I cannot help I cannot steer the ship right story wise if I don't know what to stay away from no information is privileged for a PR person that's right and by the way with my..."

"trench it's more time people this goes back to the whole notion of specialties which you both mentioned earlier so are there any other specialties on the PR I'm sure there's a million flavors there ar..."

"usually people based in New York who have the deep relationships with the producers at these shows for a consumer facing product that's the Nirvana is to have a tenacious lot right right still still e..."

"that kind of lead time yeah I mean like literally I've come across companies where they they call in November and I want to be in the holiday gift oh that's and now these the following here the magazi..."

"handle them strategically I'm so glad you brought this up I think a lot of people particularly when it's their first time out they're lucky they just this PR thing happens they have a nice product and..."

"do you mean by what's the vehicle sometimes you want to put a tweet out sometimes you actually want to just give it to a reporter exclusive right sometimes you want to write a press release do people ..."

"buzzword bingo so AOR agency of record and what does it mean why does it matter it means that you have a master agreement with an agency who's going to service your business for a certain amount of mo..."

"think they're the most effective things it comes down to oftentimes where like that agency has really good ideas the big thing I would add on RFP to is do not bring in the shiny object from DC or the ..."

"complacency problem when you do have an ongoing agency of record and you want to light a fire under them so I think Outcast was really good at this because we had clients like so Salesforce calm for e..."

"shop and I was like you know what I'll wear that badge with pride because I think it's important what does it mean to be a media shop actually don't know what that means that oh the only thing that yo..."

"besides the domains you guys have described like consumer enterprise some of these pieces of the pie or specialties like crisis local what are that your thoughts aren't the other competencies within a..."

"often give up the higher a bar for the globe for the coverage because I don't think it's true like nobody can tell me that there is an eight I have not seen an agency that is equally excellent in ever..."

"really valuable there's nothing that sort of is like picking up the phone going like hey it doesn't have to be I'm reporting back to you on what I promise it gave me I just had coffee with a reporter ..."

"control to allow the agency in sometimes this is a fraction of the questions I want to ask which is a founder CEO should be pretty not too involved and not uninvolved the thing with you know if you're..."

"relatively happy what if a problem is on your side as a company like what if the turnovers on your side and you're the reason the agency is not doing well like how do you sort of tease apart like the ..."

"executing on this and they consider you well you didn't give me a cue exactly you use that review to basically talk about what you as a company could be doing better and you're absolutely right it's u..."

"and it's making sure - you can't be assured that a CFO saw the big story in The Chronicle this morning you actually do need to do some promotion of the work that the agency and the team do PR attract ..."

"does that person report in to an investor relations function what if that doesn't exist yet it depends I've seen Investor Relations report into the CFO and the comms person reports sometimes to the CE..."

"that's all these pieces are okay it's telling right when they refuse when a CEO refuses to do that the caliber of talent they can get just drops 10 notches and it shows too that they may not value the..."