The Founder's Guide to Being Quotable
Journalists don't quote companies. They quote people. If you want your business to earn coverage, the founder needs to have something genuinely worth saying — and the conviction to say it clearly.
One of the most common requests I hear from founders ahead of a media push goes something like this: "We need to get into [publication]. Can you help us write a press release?"
The question is not wrong, exactly. But it is coming from the wrong place. The conversation that needs to happen first is not about the press release. It is about whether the founder has something worth quoting.
Why quotes matter
In any story a journalist writes about your business, your voice matters. Not your company's voice — yours. The spokesperson who can offer a perspective that is specific, intelligent and slightly unexpected is the one who ends up in the story. The one who offers corporate language and approved messaging ends up on the cutting room floor.
Journalists are, at their core, looking for the same thing all good writers are looking for: something that makes the reader think, huh, I hadn't considered it that way. A quote that reframes the problem. An observation that reveals something true and underappreciated about the industry. A position that is defensible but not everyone would take.
The three tests of a quotable perspective
Before any media interaction, it is worth asking three questions about what you plan to say:
- Is it specific? "We believe in innovation" is not a perspective. "We think the industry is optimising for the wrong metric, and here's why" is.
- Is it honest? The most quotable founders are the ones who say things other people in the industry are thinking but not saying. That takes a certain kind of courage — and it is also what earns trust.
- Is it genuinely yours? A perspective you arrived at through experience reads completely differently to one constructed for the purpose of looking credible. Journalists can tell. So can readers.
Building the habit
The founders I have seen develop the strongest media presence share one characteristic: they think out loud regularly. They write. They post. They talk about what they are observing in their industry — not just what their company is doing. They have developed a genuine point of view by articulating it, over and over, in different contexts.
By the time a journalist calls them, they are not scrambling for something to say. They already know what they think. That is the goal. Not media training. Not message discipline. Just the habit of thinking clearly and saying it.
Payal Dasgupta
Communications Strategist
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