WE QUIT THE AGENCY.
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED NEXT.
Tova Ben-Naim spent four years in communications at a climate-tech company. Not running a communications agency. Actually inside a company, watching how PR actually worked from the client side. The agencies charged $12,000 a month. They wrote the same pitch in five slightly different ways and sent it to a list that hadn't been audited since 2019. When a journalist finally replied, it was to say they'd already been pitched the same story by three other clients on the same blast list.
Darius Okoye was an ML engineer at an editorial technology company. He spent two years building tools that helped newsrooms understand which stories their readers actually cared about: beat clustering, engagement signals, journalist interest graphs. The irony was not lost on him: the technology to understand journalists at scale existed inside media companies. It just wasn't being used by the people trying to pitch them.
They met at a dinner in Philadelphia in late 2022. Tova was frustrated. Darius had an architecture in his head. They started building three weeks later.
Press Monkey launched in 2023. The first version was rough. It could draft a press release and suggest a journalist list. The current version researches journalists, writes personalized pitches, sends them from your inbox, chases follow-ups on a schedule, and books podcast appearances. It has done this for 600+ founders and marketing teams across 40+ countries.
The team is five people. Two engineers who previously worked on language model fine-tuning. Claire Unger, a former staff writer at an indie tech publication, who now runs media strategy and keeps the journalist database honest. And Tova and Darius, who still answer support tickets on Fridays.
"Paying $12K/month for someone to write 'thought leadership' is insane. We built the thing that should have existed five years ago." Tova Ben-Naim, CEO
PR THAT ACTUALLY
REACHES JOURNALISTS.
Not a list of 50,000 emails. Not a wire distribution to outlets nobody reads. The right 30 journalists, pitched correctly, from your own email address, on a story that has a real angle. That's the whole thing.
If you get one reply that turns into a feature, the service has paid for itself for the next three years at the Launch plan price. Most users get their first reply within 10 days. Some get coverage within a month. Some don't. Journalism is unpredictable. But the outreach beats what any agency would have sent for the same money.
Start your first campaignFormer head of communications at a climate-tech startup. Four years watching agencies bill $12K/month to send bad pitches. Moved to Philadelphia in 2022. Quit agencies in 2023.
ML engineer at an editorial technology company before Press Monkey. Built the journalist interest graph from scratch. Believes that if the technology exists to understand journalists at scale, it should be available to the people trying to reach them.
Ex-staff writer at an indie tech publication. Now keeps the journalist database accurate and reviews pitch quality weekly. The reason the pitches don't sound like press releases.
Both previously worked on language model fine-tuning. They prefer to stay out of the about page.
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FOUNDED 2023 · 5 PEOPLE
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