Find-the-Nugget Angle Selection
Ignore the company's own messaging; find the single thread reporters care about and double down.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 88%
Most products don't have an inherently interesting story, but almost every company has one thread that connects to something reporters (and the public) already care about. Gerber's method is to deliberately narrow — pick the single most interesting initiative or fact, tie it to a live macro conversation, and drop everything else, rather than pitching the company's full messaging.
Origin
Emilie Gerber, Six Eastern — she notes ~80% of her clients haven't reached mass awareness, so nugget-finding is the bulk of the work, not the exception.
Core principles
- 01The company's own messaging (growth metrics, feature list) is rarely the story
- 02Tie the one interesting thread to a macro conversation people already follow
- 03When the product is unpitchable, mine the founder's personal story
- 04One vivid, specific fact beats a comprehensive but generic pitch
How to run it
- 1
Inventory the threads
List everything happening at the company — customers, partnerships, initiatives, founder background, unusual metrics.
Watch out Don't try to tell all of them at once; a partnership-plus-growth-metrics-plus-launch pitch dilutes the story.
- 2
Pick the thread that connects to a live macro story
Choose the one initiative or fact that ties to something people already care about and that a specific publication covers.
Pro tip A striking supporting stat (e.g. '40% of filers hadn't filed the prior year') makes the chosen angle concrete.
- 3
Double down and drop the rest
Build the whole pitch around that single angle; use the founder's personal story if the product itself is too technical to pitch.
Pro tip Match the angle to a publication that cares about that kind of story — a personal founder angle may not fit TechCrunch but fits others.
In the wild
Amid many client threads, Gerber focused solely on Column Tax's partnership to offer embedded tax filing to low-income SNAP recipients, tying it to TurboTax's 'free' fines and the IRS's nascent free-filing system.
→ Landed a Fast Company piece rather than a generic 'latest growth metrics + partnership' announcement.
Entropy's product is a technical transaction-data API few reporters grasp, so Gerber leaned into the founder's personal story — she struggled to rent her first US apartment due to the credit-scoring system her company could help change.
→ Secured coverage and a Money 20/20 speaking slot by pitching the personal angle to outlets that care about it.
Common mistakes
Pitching the company's messaging
Leading with growth metrics and a partnership announcement in the company's own words gives reporters nothing they care about; the job is tying it to what people actually care about.
Is it for you?
Best for
Founders or comms leads at companies without obvious mass appeal who need an interesting earned-media angle
Not ideal for
Companies with self-evidently newsworthy news (major funding, viral product) where the angle is already clear
From the transcript
“it's like identifying the piece of the story that's most interesting and then like doubling down on that”
“I believe 40% of the people that filed their taxes with column um had hadn't filed taxes in the previous year”
“we've actually really leaned into the founder story”
“80% of the companies we work with are are at a stage where they haven't reached that kind of mass awareness yet”
From the episode
The ultimate guide to PR
Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern)