Masha Drokova isn’t your normal investor in Silicon Valley. Drokova worked as a public relations strategist for nearly a decade with companies like HotelTonight, Houzz, Gett, and more, before starting to invest. Drokova is now a venture capitalist with Day One Ventures, which she launched in 2017. The 31-year-old immigrant just raised $52.5 million for her firm’s second fund, much exceeding her initial goal of $40 million. But the underlying key to Drokova’s success, she say, is her and her team’s uncanny ability to assist portfolio companies in developing killer media advertising campaigns, a vital aspect in deciding a startup’s longevity that she feels founders neglect far too often.
The most common blunder made by early-stage companies, according to Drokova, is spending money on expensive PR consultants rather than building a purposeful, in-house plan for media campaigns related to particular business goals. Founders pay PR agencies $10,000 to $50,000 per month for 3-6 months, and at the end of that time, they have one or two stories on media outlets they’ve never heard of she said “I don’t think it’s a very good solution for an early-stage company”. Since Day One Ventures actively builds a media strategy for every of the early-stage firms it invests in, this never occurs, as incentives are aligned and the team is sure to focus on telling the right story.
This includes anything from building a cohesive founding story and objective for the firm to executing focused PR efforts that assist organizations achieve specific business goals, like as employing more staff or growing the consumer base for a certain product. According to Drokova, the venture firm helped DoNotPay obtain publicity on the Today Show in January, which resulted in a 70 percent increase in income in only two days. The “Robinhood of the Internet” firm assists Americans with difficult activities such as disputing parking fines and cancelling gym subscriptions.