Hi TantaStefana. So after I was told that we were thinking of using Michael Terpin, I called around. He has a reputation of promising major publications but doesn't deliver. I can't find a single example of a PR campaign he did on an Altcoin that was able to get press releases in a major publication (i.e. WSJ, NYT, Wired, etc.). I spoke with industry insiders, attorneys and even the CEO of crypto company that he's actually worked with in the past. People here were very interested in working with him, so I kept an open mind and decided not to say much and just see how it played out. When I finally saw the list of outlets that he got us into I wasn't impressed (but on his behalf I will say I enjoyed reading the articles). While it wasn't total proof, it was consistent with what I suspected which was that he wasn't going to be the guy to get us into premium publications.
I'm not quite so sure why everyone is so ready to jump behind Transform PR. There are a lot of PR firms, and this whole process seems like it should be very simple because with a lot of options out there I can't see why we can't get them to try to win our business. You just ask them for a list of publications that they say they have reach with and ask them to SHOW YOU PROOF of this. If it's impressive, then you set up a list of expected deliverables that they commit to if they want our business. If they can't deliver then they don't get paid, or it's a lesser amount. If they are confident they can get you were they say they can, then they shouldn't have an issue with this. If we were to do it this way, then we wouldn't be speculating on someone's ability to get us into where they promise. We would then have set ourselves up in a situation that is cut and dry and we are investing in PR (because investing and speculating are not the same thing). If it's structured in this way then we don't waste money if what we expect is not delivered.
But what worries me, is that I'm not positive we need to be spending money on PR at the moment, or if we do it can be better executed. And if we do hire another PR firm, my suggestion is let's try someone totally different. Why go with the same guy twice, especially when we are concerned about his effectiveness. Let's get an additional data point, and see how effective another team is. But for certain let's have them show us some proof first that they can deliver what they say they can.
I've been pretty busy lately with a crypto-startup I helped launch (
www.blockfolio.com for anyone interested - shameless plug!). I'm handling the biz dev / marketing for them and in the process I've gotten a lot of ideas that I think can help Dash deliver a strong message as well. I can make the time to spend with Dash core team in the future and see if I can help set up a good marketing strategy if they are open to it. This is the kind of stuff I love to do.
-Ed