Week 4 Assignment: Media Pitch

Chad Reid
Purdue University

Its helpful to understand why the pitch below is the way it is. SF Gate is the online version of
the San Francisco Chronicle. It has a business section that also happens to syndicate articles
from Entrepreneur magazine fairly often.
The publication regularly localizes national stories, whether its look what local colleges made
XYZ rankings, or heres a list of the Bay Area cities that are considered the most expensive,
or whatever. So it made sense to me to localize a recently published list of the Best PrivatelyOwned Companies in America from a reputable publication. Also keep in mind that articles on
SF Gate are pretty light reads.
The audience for SF Gate wants local news, and for this section particularly, wants local
business news. As a PR employee at one of the listed companies, its a good opportunity to take a
national recognition for the company, and get it published locally. And it because it lists all local
companies, its a more compelling story for a journalist -- especially since the work is done for
them.
I somewhat disagree with how formal Aronson et al. (2007) say to make a pitch to the media for
this instance, especially since this is to a tech journalist in the SF Bay Area and in the age of
social media, but Ill make it somewhat formal anyway.

28 Bay Area Companies Represented in the Latest Entrepreneur 360

Jessica Floum, Business Reporter
SF Gate
901 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
Dear Ms. Floum,
Ive enjoy your writing for SF Gate, particularly the technology reporting youve done, and I
wanted to see if you're interested in publishing an article about the 28 local companies that were
recognized by Entrepreneur magazine as being the Best Privately-Owned Companies in
America. The list, called Entrepreneur 360, was just published in Novembers issue.
This is the second year of the business magazines annual list, which is released before their
Entrepreneur 360 Conference in Long Beach, Calif. on Nov. 16. The ranking reflects a diverse
composition of companies, representing everything from food and beverage to software startups.
These companies make a significant economic impact for our local community, both in the
number of employees they hire and the customers they serve.

Heres the full list of San Francisco Bay Area companies represented in Entrepreneur 360, with
their national ranking:

#1 RetailNext San Jose, CA

#7 Talkdesk San Francisco, CA
#23 Drawbridge San Mateo, CA
#24 August Home San Francisco, CA
#27 Flexport San Francisco, CA
#32 JotForm San Francisco, CA
#45 Love With Food San Mateo, CA
#58 UpCounsel San Francisco, CA
#79 Caliber Truck Co Santa Cruz, CA
#80 Stitch Labs San Francisco, CA
#91 NetLine Corporation Los Gatos, CA
#111 Magoosh Berkeley, CA
#116 ClicksMob San Francisco, CA
#117 MeWe San Francisco, CA
#120 Dang Foods Berkeley, CA
#183 Opus 1 Music Studio Mountain View, CA
#234 Continu San Francisco, CA
#278 LetsLunch.com San Francisco, CA
#282 People Count, Inc. Mountain View, CA
#291 ID4A Technologies San Francisco, CA
#297 Hero Digital San Francisco, CA
#299 Rocana San Francisco, CA
#311 Inmoji San Francisco, CA
#324 ProfHire Berkeley, CA
#326 NeoReach San Francisco, CA
#339 Lifestyled Listings Santa Cruz, CA
#347 The Town Kitchen Oakland, CA
#360 Strikedeck Sunnyvale, CA

If you wanted to check, here's the full ranking from Entrepreneur:

http://features.entrepreneur.com/entrepreneur-360/.
I work for #34 on the list, JotForm. We'd be happy to provide an original quote or set up an
interview if you thought it was helpful. And please find the attached infographic detailing some
interesting stats about these local honorees.
Thank you, and let me know how else I can help!
Cheers,

Chad
Chad Reid
Director of Communications
JotForm
Contact: chad@jotform.com
(415) 317-0927

Reference
Aronson,M.,Spetner,D.,&Ames,C.(2007).Thepublicrelationswritershandbook:The
digitalage(2nded.).SanFrancisco,CA:Wiley