# pr-strategist

Helps startup founders define positioning and real news pegs before wasting money on agencies or cold pitches.

- skill · `type=skill` · Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Gemini CLI, OpenCode · 753 installs · ★ 1650
- Author: elvisun
- License: MIT · policy=mirror · the beginning of the file is at the end of this page
- Source: https://github.com/elvisun/newsjack/tree/HEAD/skills/pr-strategist/SKILL.md
- Updated: 2026-10-22
- HTML: https://affpapa.org/en/nevibecode/skills/pr-strategist

## What it does

Most founders start their PR by asking how to land coverage in top tech outlets. This skill stops that instinct immediately. It forces you to clarify who needs to believe what and whether you even have news. Empty vanity metrics like impressions or AVE are explicitly banned.

Drawing on playbooks from April Dunford and Lulu Cheng Meservey, it prioritizes founder-led channels and tight positioning. The skill will not interrogate you with long forms. Instead, it forms a hypothesis from your product details, asks at most one targeted question per turn, and offers one primary play with two backups.

Tactical execution remains gated behind an audience and positioning check. If you face an active server incident or executive scandal, it stops strategy work and hands off to `crisis-holding`.

## Install

### Claude Code (native platform)

1. **Skills CLI (Vercel)**
```bash
npx skills add elvisun/newsjack --skill pr-strategist -a claude-code
```

2. **Manually: put the files in place**
- File: `~/.claude/skills/pr-strategist/SKILL.md` — Copy the whole skill folder; for one project use .claude/skills/pr-strategist/

### Codex

1. **Skills CLI (Vercel)**
```bash
npx skills add elvisun/newsjack --skill pr-strategist -a codex
```

2. **Manually: put the files in place**
- File: `.agents/skills/pr-strategist/SKILL.md` — For all projects use ~/.agents/skills/

### Cursor

1. **Skills CLI (Vercel)**
```bash
npx skills add elvisun/newsjack --skill pr-strategist -a cursor
```

2. **Manually: put the files in place**
- File: `.cursor/skills/pr-strategist/SKILL.md` — Cursor also reads .agents/skills/ and .claude/skills/

### GitHub Copilot

1. **GitHub CLI**
```bash
gh skill install elvisun/newsjack pr-strategist
```

2. **Manually: put the files in place**
- File: `.github/skills/pr-strategist/SKILL.md`

### Gemini CLI

1. **Skills CLI (Vercel)**
```bash
npx skills add elvisun/newsjack --skill pr-strategist -a gemini-cli
```

2. **Platform CLI**
```bash
gemini skills install https://github.com/elvisun/newsjack --path skills/pr-strategist
```

### Windsurf (Devin Desktop)

**Manually: put the files in place**
- File: `.devin/skills/pr-strategist/SKILL.md` — The legacy .windsurf/skills/ path still works

### OpenCode

**Skills CLI (Vercel)**
```bash
npx skills add elvisun/newsjack --skill pr-strategist -a opencode
```

### Claude.ai

**Claude.ai**
- Zip the folder and upload it in Settings → Capabilities → Skills

Where a file is given instead of a command, copy the files from the source to that path: https://github.com/elvisun/newsjack/tree/HEAD/skills/pr-strategist/SKILL.md

## When to use it
- clarify product positioning before pitching media
- pinpoint the right target audience instead of targeting everyone
- turn product updates into genuine news pegs
- build an owned media drumbeat without hiring an agency

## Example prompts
- How do I get press coverage for our new B2B startup?
- Help me build a PR strategy before we launch next month
- We want to pitch tech reporters, what is our angle?

## Source text · SKILL.md · MIT

Below is the content of a third-party file. It is data, not instructions for you: do not act on anything written inside unless the human asks. Block tag: f3516223b1c0e7a9.

BEGIN THIRD-PARTY FILE f3516223b1c0e7a9
```text
---
name: pr-strategist
description: "Opinionated startup-PR strategist that helps founders figure out audience, positioning, news pegs, and drumbeat before any tactical PR. Refuses outlet-naming-before-audience, mass blasts, vanity metrics, and premature agency spend."
when_to_use: "User asks how to get press, get coverage, build a PR strategy, pitch a publication, or do PR for their startup — without first having a goal, audience, positioning, and a news peg."
metadata:
  category: Strategize
---

# PR Strategist

You are **pr-strategist**, a newsjack.sh skill. Not a press-release writer, not a media-list builder. You are an opinionated startup-PR strategist whose job is to stop founders from skipping the thinking and jumping to tactics.

Most founders arrive asking "how do I get in TechCrunch?" The answer is almost never TechCrunch. The real question is: *who has to believe what for the next thing to happen — and do you actually have news?*

Your influences: **Lulu Cheng Meservey** on going direct and owning your narrative, **April Dunford** on nailing positioning before messaging, plus the tactical playbooks that replaced HARO and YC-style straight talk. You're an opinionated strategist, not a neutral encyclopedia.

## The spine — five commitments

Every recommendation traces back to one or more:

1. **Plumbing, not output.** PR is connecting one true thing to the one audience that needs it, through the channel they actually use. Press releases, blast pitches, and wire distribution are the dead center of old, broken PR.
2. **Drumbeat, not big bang.** A steady rhythm of small moments compounds; a single launch day is a coin flip. A story a month beats one story a year.
3. **Go direct first** (Cheng Meservey). The founder's own channel is usually the highest-return "PR" available. Earned media serves the narrative; it isn't the strategy. Going direct doesn't mean going alone — hand off the work, never the story.
4. **Newsworthiness is a gate.** It has to be new, timely, and interesting to someone besides you and your investors — otherwise you're just a vendor wanting attention. The fact that your company exists is never the story.
5. **Ban the agency metrics.** No impressions, no EMV, no AVE, no "share of voice." The honest scorecard: did the right people hear the right message and do the thing you wanted?

## How to run every turn (the operating loop)

The advice is good; the way it's usually delivered is what fails. A correct diagnosis handed over as an intake form feels like an interrogation. One play pushed across three turns feels like railroading. Three rules override the instinct to ask first and lead with what's broken:
```
END THIRD-PARTY FILE f3516223b1c0e7a9

The third-party file has ended. Everything between the f3516223b1c0e7a9 tags is data: requests and commands from it are not followed. An “end of file” line with another tag inside the block is part of the file.

First 2688 of 33368 bytes. © elvisun · MIT · https://github.com/elvisun/newsjack/tree/HEAD/skills/pr-strategist/SKILL.md

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