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Module 04 / Lesson 15 · Read, apply, check
Prepare a technology press pack that makes metrics, demonstrations and founder access useful to a reporter.
Create a metric sheet with name, definition, period, source, calculation and limitation. Registered accounts, weekly active users, paid seats and revenue answer different questions. Explain whether a number is gross or net, cumulative or current, measured or estimated. Use the same definition across the pitch, deck and interview brief. If the definition changed, show the effect rather than presenting an artificial growth line. Ask a colleague to reproduce the key calculation from the approved input. The aim is a small set of reliable facts that a founder and reporter can discuss without ambiguity.
A demonstration should show the claimed capability under conditions that are described honestly. Prepare the task, input, expected behavior, known limitations and fallback if the environment fails. Label pre-recorded footage and simulated data. Do not quietly substitute a human-operated result while describing the product as autonomous. A successful demonstration is useful evidence of that case, not proof that the product works everywhere. Invite questions about the setup and what the demonstration does not test. Where access involves customer information, use an approved or synthetic example that preserves the relevant behavior without exposing private records.
Prepare a brief covering the problem, product status, business model, customer evidence, competition, funding facts and difficult unanswered questions. The founder should be able to explain how the company makes money and why the claimed difference matters without relying on jargon. Include the technical lead when the founder cannot responsibly answer implementation questions. Agree who will follow up on missing facts and how quickly. Do not train the founder to bluff. A clear statement that a detail needs checking is more useful than a confident answer that later conflicts with the evidence pack.
Use a concise fact sheet, a metric dictionary, a demonstration guide, source availability and a clearly dated folder of approved images. Include relevant rights and attribution information. Keep confidential documents out of unrestricted links and define how additional evidence can be reviewed. Provide a named contact for technical and business questions. If using the publication’s general pitch route, follow its current public guidance; TechCrunch’s tip page distinguishes ordinary pitches from sensitive-source channels. The course does not require sending anything during practice. Build a pack that could support a genuine reporting conversation when authorized.
Definitions, dates, sources and reproducible calculations.
A real task with stated conditions and limitations.
Founder and technical access with clear responsibilities.
Approved assets, evidence index and responsive contacts.
A fictional developer-tools company reports forty thousand users. During preparation, the agency discovers that this means lifetime account registrations, while six thousand accounts were active in the last month and eight hundred organizations pay. The pitch uses the precise measures rather than a single ambiguous user total. A demonstration shows a common debugging task using a synthetic repository, with the engineer explaining which languages are supported and where the tool fails. The founder can discuss the pricing model and customer feedback, while the engineer handles implementation detail. The fact sheet records the reporting date and definitions. If the demo environment breaks, the team can provide labelled footage of the same workflow and arrange a later live session without pretending the recording is live.
A less prepared team calls every registration an active customer, combines monthly and annual revenue figures and runs a staged demonstration with hidden manual intervention. The founder has memorized claims about unlimited scale but cannot explain the test conditions. A reporter who asks for a reproducible task exposes several inconsistencies at once. The problem is not insufficient performance theatre; it is the absence of a shared factual account of the product and business.
A polished deck does not validate its metrics, and a smooth demonstration does not establish broad reliability. Treat each as a way to communicate evidence with defined scope. The best preparation often removes inflated claims and makes the remaining information easier to inspect, which can improve the quality of the reporting conversation.
Use authorized data and accurately label recordings, simulations and estimates. Sensitive-source channels are not a shortcut for ordinary promotional material. Verify the current contact guidance, protect confidential records and do not imply that a reporter’s access to a demonstration commits them to publish or endorse it.
Do this today · 30 minutes
Build the developer-tools company’s metric sheet and demonstration brief.
Use a document or spreadsheet and the fictional case in this lesson. Public or synthetic evidence is sufficient; no purchase or real outreach is required.
Before: Definitions, dates, sources and reproducible calculations.
After: Approved assets, evidence index and responsive contacts.
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Have a colleague review your decision and evidence. Record the unresolved question, its owner and the next review date before using the plan with a client.
Before you move on
A developer-tools client has forty thousand lifetime registrations, six thousand monthly active accounts and eight hundred paying organizations. Its proposed demo uses synthetic data and a recorded fallback. How should the agency present these materials to a technology reporter?
Next lesson →TechCrunch: pitch and source contact routes
Lesson edition 1.0 · References reviewed 16 October 2026 · Practical exercise reviewed 16 October 2026. Examples are illustrative teaching scenarios.
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