Telum spoke with Paolo Alba, Regional Vice President and Philippine Country Lead at PRecious Communications, about the role of PR for startups and its importance in building credibility, attracting investors and establishing a market presence.

PRecious Philippines has developed an offering aimed at supporting the growth of Filipino startups. Could you elaborate on why this focus is a strategic priority for the agency?
Recognising the potential of the Philippines’ rapidly growing digital economy, we launched PRecious Philippines in 2022 to support the country’s emerging tech industries. This expansion reflects PRecious Communications’ ongoing commitment to empowering startup communities across Southeast Asia and fostering innovation and growth in the region. Within a year, we grew alongside startups like Igloo, venture builders like 917Ventures, and all-digital banks like UnionDigital which we support in the Philippines and Southeast Asia.

Within two years, we also diversified our portfolio, which now includes Filipino conglomerates and subsidiaries like Aboitiz Data Innovation and global companies like Visa. Getting to this point was no easy feat. However, it comes with the learning, skills and resources required to adequately support the growth of early to mid-stage startup companies. Seeing the impact we have had on our partners and the communities they serve, I see this as an opportunity to create more synergies and business opportunities within the ecosystem of startup founders, investors and corporations we built.

How does your PR strategy for startups differ from traditional corporate PR, considering the unique needs of early-stage companies?
We understand that early-stage startup companies often operate on limited resources in the beginning. This is where we, as PRecious and the startup, invest in our partnership. That said, we also understand how important it is to develop a strong narrative of the company and the founder.

We work directly with the founder to understand the vision of the company, the pain points that it aims to resolve, and the growth potential of the market and solution. This narrative needs to be compelling and impactful enough to influence investment. As we announce the launch of the solution, we would like to communicate the vision of the founder across relevant and value-adding media platforms. This requires a more targeted and conscious effort to pitch and speak to relevant media outlets that your potential investors are following.

Trust is critical for startups to attract both customers and investors. How can PR play a role in bridging this gap, especially when a startup is relatively unknown?
Trust, in this sense, is not only critical to attract both customers and investors. Without the trust and belief of the press, startup companies would not be able to secure relevant media coverage that highlights their narrative and asserts their brand and credibility. Not to mention, customers and investors only have access to the information carried out in public, making it more crucial to have the proper coverage on these outlets.

For relatively unknown startups, the initial media coverage establishes a foundation for you to communicate your vision. Without it, potential investors and customers would have no means to validate the authenticity of your vision and solution.

Startups in sectors like beauty, tech, or crypto often face unique challenges due to intense competition and rapidly evolving markets. How do you tailor your PR strategies to address the unique needs and competitive pressures of these sectors?
As I tell my team, we can be prepared with communication plans and editorial calendars, but none of this matter if they do not address real-time challenges that the industry our client faces. For startups in competitive and fast-evolving sectors like beauty, tech or crypto, we would pay more attention to our daily monitoring, finding trend-jacking opportunities to position them as the leaders in this space. By staying agile and proactive, we ensure startups remain relevant and competitive, effectively addressing the unique challenges of their market.

In your experience, what are the most common PR mistakes startups make when trying to build their brand, and how do you help them avoid these pitfalls?
There are startup companies that forego communications after their first go-to-market announcement due to limited resources. To a potential customer and investor, the lack of updates about the performance of the company could be interpreted as instability or worse, failure to scale your solution. Meanwhile, the lack of sustainability also makes it harder to establish the startup’s narrative and positioning in the market. Meanwhile, there are startup companies with adequate resources that want to target a broad market when their solution directly targets a niche market.

Alongside missing your actual stakeholders, this also creates misalignments between the agency and client objectives. If it is not addressed upfront, it only leads to misaligned opportunities. In these cases, we would propose a realignment of our strategy early on to ensure that all communications moving forward would support the startup’s objectives at this stage of the company. We are here to advise and realign strategies accordingly.