With Maria Glazkova, Ambassador of WomenTech Global, member of RASO, Women in VC and GWPR associations, as well as founder of This is Fine PR agency and PR partner of the Untitled Ventures foundation, we talked about a career in communications, startups and, of course, PR.
How did you decide to go to PR?
- The decision came unexpectedly, then I was studying at the Aerospace University and at the next summer practice at the plant I realized that this is somewhat not what I want. There was a certain desire to see something more than machine tools - although, don't get it wrong, I think the profession of engineers is endlessly in demand. In my third year, I went on a summer internship at an advertising agency as a PR intern. Of course, it was all very far from classical and even more so digital PR. You need to understand that this happened in Samara, a provincial city in Russia. But even there and at that time, the atmosphere and the ability to come up with something and see the result quickly won me over. During that summer, I managed to participate in several projects. One of them is the Night of the Advertising Eaters, an international history and a very rewarding experience in terms of organizing the event and press support.
And so you went to work as a PR man?
- It was the 4th year, I transferred to the correspondence faculty and yes, I went to work as a PR manager. She also did a lot of things - from creating TV channel design concepts to holding kickboxing fights. But in the fifth year, that is, a year later, I realized that I lacked specialized education, or rather just information about how PR is done in different countries, in different companies. And I went to study in London for a year at the PR & Marketing faculty.
When and why did you decide to engage in PR for tech companies?
- It happened by chance, otherwise you will not say. I returned from London to my hometown and went to work in a newspaper in the marketing department - I decided to find out how it is, on the other side of the barricades from PR people. This is about 2011, then Twitter was not very popular in Russia, but I had an account. And once there, on some of my tweets, an invitation came for an interview from the founder of a technology company that created (and is now successfully creating) solutions in the field of law tech. When I came to the interview, I immediately realized that this was it. There were also the first attempts to do international PR. Then I worked only with technology startups. The most memorable of the first was LinguaLeo - this is the Russian version of Duolingo. There I was already in the position of Head of PR and was responsible for PR in the markets of Russia, Turkey and Brazil, as well as for internal communications.
How long did you work inside the company before starting your agency?
- Just after LinguaLeo, I decided to create a small agency so that I could work not with one company, but lead several startups. There are so many interesting companies! This is how This is Fine PR appeared in 2015. One of the earliest customers was TruckerPath, a Silicon Valley startup that made a platform for truck drivers. We made a number of publications with them in the media - WSJ, Fortune, TechCrunch and others. The founder enjoyed the job so much that I was asked to become a permanent consultant. A similar story happened with WayRay, a company that creates augmented reality systems. I made the announcement of the investment round and later accompanied the team at the CES in Las Vegas. In both cases, there were about 50 publications in tier-1 media about the company and products. The founder of the company really liked the result,
It turns out that you were lured into hiring again?
- Yes, I worked at WayRay for almost 2 years. We went to CES a couple of times, we also went to WebSummit, where we managed to make the founder of the company a speaker on stage, we also won the prestigious LA Automobility award and wrote about the company to CNBC. Then I moved to the British company Wheely - ordering a car with a personal driver. She moved to London with them and also worked for about two years.
But what about startups and other companies? Lost interest?
- No, on the contrary. In parallel with my main work, I participated as a mentor in hackathons, I was invited to the jury of various start-up contests. At the same time, if in WayRay and before it I did more classical PR - we went to exhibitions, launched products and invited journalists to do reviews, wrote press releases and made announcements in the press, etc., then at Wheely I also got acquainted with marketing in in general - with maintaining the company's channels, writing and implementing a marketing strategy, working with partners - banks, payment systems - and launching marketing campaigns. Having gained such different experiences, I even more wanted to share it with startups.
Did you even receive an achievement award at Wheely?
- Yes, this is PRNEWS Person of the Year. To be honest, it was very nice to see myself alongside international PR specialists. Such recognition from the international community. There were two more awards - one was also my Women in Tech Excellence, and the second for a PR campaign for the Major Players in PR team.
Are you running an agency again?
- Yes, This is Fine again actively leads clients. We have a lot of good startups in our portfolio, mostly deep tech companies. And in 2020, I became a PR consultant in one European fund - the Untitled Ventures, and in one American - MindRock Capital. I have worked with startups all my career and, of course, talked a lot with foundations. I decided that working in one of them would be a logical career development and would give me the opportunity to work with a large number of different startups, not only in PR, but in marketing activities in general. With the Untitled, we were in the same time zone at the time, so it was more productive to work with them. As a result, I was hired as a PR partner. We have a very cool team with unique knowledge, experience in building billion-dollar companies.
How did you join Global Women in VC?
- Even before that, I first became a member of RASO, and then an ambassador of Global WomenTech. I used to think that this is done for show. But by joining the associations, I realized how strong the influence of the community is, how useful networking is in terms of some kind of growth, understanding what is happening in different markets. So yes, I also joined Women in VC.
The founder of the Untitled Ventures is now often seen in the media - your job?
- Yes, we have greatly increased the presence of the fund in the media, The Telegraph, Silicon Canals, EU-Startups wrote about the Untitled - these are very prestigious business and startup media, they are read by both the global venture capital community and entrepreneurs, journalists from Europe, USA and England. We also began to frequently write columns about the venture capital market and its future, how you can become an LP and invest in startups, and many other topics. The columns are taken by such top-tier media as Tech.eu, Sifted.eu, RBC.
You write columns too
- Yes, I am writing about PR, you can read me in PRWeek, a thematic international publication. I also write for TNW, RB.ru, VC.ru, Hackernoon - publications for startups and venture. Now Sifted.eu asked me to write about PR for startups - it will be out soon, follow the publications.
What advice would you give to aspiring PR people?
- PR now includes a large number of instruments. It is not only about media outreach, guest posts, the ability to convey the message correctly, react to the consequences in time and organize a press conference. Now the PR specialist must understand both content and opinion leaders, launch campaigns and measure the result. You need to know Google analytics at least at a basic level, be able to use metrics. In addition, you definitely need to understand the business of the company you work with. Conventionally, not only to take PR courses, but also on those topics in which your client makes a product. Monitor markets and news, competitors and employees' actions.
Of course, I am now describing the work of not an intern, but rather a top manager. But this is where you end up going if you like PR.