Like every internet entrepreneur my understanding of the web is rooted in my own experience. My beliefs on best practices for handling development, marketing, operations and branding are all informed by my experience at Glassbooth. And while I know that the idea of a set of "best practices" for the web is basically ridiculous, the experience of launching a successful site provided me with some insight into the process (Disclaimer: I'm not claiming these are interesting or original insights).

Now that that's out of the way, I want to weigh in on something: Startup PR.

You see, there has been a lot of discussion the past few days about an interesting article that was in the NYTimes this weekend focusing on "PR in Silicon Valley". Techcrunch weighed in on the article almost instantly and VentureBeat covered the article yesterday. And while I think that Michael and Matt both make good points in their pieces, they both fail to address what it's like running a PR campaign from inside a startup. I mean it's all well and good if you are funded to "just get a solid PR firm, and have them do the work" as Matt says, but lets face it... not a lot of startups have the funding to hire major PR firms to run their launch campaigns.

And while Mike compares Wordnik to Topsy, his example just isn't particularly insightful.  Comparing one startup that launched exclusively on Techcrunch to another that intentionally avoided tech blogs really gives founders very little direction about the right move to make.  I mean, Techcrunch admits that they get TONS of submissions from startups that want to launch and don't respond, so what's a founder supposed to do?  Here's my advice:

1. Focus on your product.  Before you do anything else, you need to focus on you.  It doesn't matter how sexy or amazing your PR team is if your product falls flat on launch.  Now "falls flat" certainly does not mean that your 1.0 should be perfect.  In fact, if it is you probably launched too late.  But you need to make sure that you have a solid understanding of your products goal and that you are effectively working toward accomplishing that goal.  This has to be your primary concern.

2. Know your demo.  It might sound silly, but if you are launching the next ClubPenguin you are probably safe avoiding a courtship with Jalopnik.  I can tell you personally that bloggers and journalists who have no interest in your product are going to get irritated when you shoot them your press release and try and pitch them.  At Glassbooth we made the mistake of believing that everyone would be interested in a tool that helped their user base make a more informed voting decision... In our defense, the 2008 Presidential election was the most important story of the year for EVERYONE in the US, so we assumed that everyone would be interested in our site.  Wrong.  I am just glad that I don't have that email from Cat Fancy magazine in my inbox anymore :).  Point being, if you are launching the most exciting SaaS company of the century identify your target market and then work on hitting the blogs and newspapers that they are going to read.  Don't know how to find these outlets? Try alltop.  Seriously though, in the end less is more.  Trust me.

3. Grindiiiiiiiing.  Just ask the Clipse, there is no substitute for the hustle.  If you are launching an internet website, mobile app, Firefox plug-in or spaceship pod, you need to BE ONLINE and be EVERYWHERE.  Is there a meetup in your city? Go.  Conference? Go.  Signed up for LinkedIn? 12Seconds? Flickr? Tumblr? Do it.  You need to be able to connect with investors, partners, users and other entrepeneurs as often as you possibly can, wherever you possibly can.  You never know who you are going to meet at any moment, so you need to always be ready.  Also, no one knows what the next twitter is going to be, so being an early adopter gives you a distinct advantage among your peers.  As an entrepreneur it is your J.O.B to be in the N.O.W.

4. Stick to the story.  Trust me, it pains me to write it as much as it pains you to read it, but no matter how played out the term "branding" might be it is something you need to understand as a startup.  At Glassbooth, we were lucky to have Alex Jacobs -- who is a branding wizard -- constantly harping about branding and keeping it cohesive.  This was key, and something all of us came to really understand.  What we learned and what you need to do RIGHT NOW is put together a style guide and mission statement that you read until your eyes bleed.  It might seem esoteric and silly, but when you are pitching EVERYONE (because you need to pitch EVERYONE), you need to be certain that every member of your team is saying the exact same thing.  This will give your team greater flexibility, which is a distinct advantage to have at conferences and parties.

5. Don't pitch. Believe.  By the time we launched, our pitch at Glassbooth was something much different than a pitch.  It became an organic and intuitive experience, something that was uniquely pleasurable (keep it clean kids), and honestly, easy.  Compared to our first attempts to fundraise, the pitches we made to potential partners after launch were of an entirely different breed.  To get to this place, all you need to do is devote your life to your product.  Forget about extracurriculars.  Forget about sleeping.  Dive head first into your project and come up for air as you launch.  If you do this, your pitch will evolve.  If you don't, it's probably just going to stay a pitch.

Ok, so take my advice with a grain of salt.  But we were pretty successful at Glassbooth garnering press.  In our first month we did over 150,000 uniques, and appeared in over 50 major blogs and/or media outlets, including the NYTimes, Wired, BBC America, HuffPo, Techcrunch and tons of others.  And we had a budget of basically nothing.  We definitely didn't have the funds to hire a PR team.  We just hustled, and worked until our eyes bled and obeyed the five principles above (we also had some help from our friends!).  We were certainly lucky -- we had an exclusive national launch with Thrillist, who happened to share an office with The Huffington Post -- but in the end it was all of our diligence and hard work that made the luck possible. 

So take my advice.  Or don't.  Either way, good luck.  Go make the internet better.