You’re scrolling through your morning news feed, and there it is again.
Your biggest competitor just landed a feature in TechCrunch. Then you hop on LinkedIn, and their CEO is being quoted in a major industry roundup. By lunchtime, you hear they’ve been invited onto that one podcast your entire target audience listens to.
It stings. Especially because you know: really know: that your product is better.
Your tech is more stable. Your team is stronger. Your revenue numbers are higher. And yet, when someone asks ChatGPT who the leaders are in your space, your competitor’s name pops up with a glowing endorsement. Yours? Crickets.
It’s frustrating. It’s also entirely predictable.
If your startup isn’t getting media coverage while your competitor is, it’s rarely about who has the better product. It’s about who built the authority layer first. At Disrupt PR, we see this “Visibility Gap” every single day. The good news? It’s not a permanent condition: it’s an infrastructure problem.
The Visibility Gap Is Real (And It’s Costing You)
A SaaS founder came to us last year, absolutely convinced the media was biased against her.
Her competitor had half the revenue and a fraction of the customers, yet they seemed to own the internet. They had the TechCrunch feature, the podcast circuit, and a “Top 10 Companies to Watch” inclusion. Every time she Googled “best [industry] platforms,” they surfaced.
When we ran a deep dive into why, the answer wasn’t that they had a better PR agency. It was that they had invested in a proactive PR firm for startups six months before she even started thinking about it. They weren’t better; they were just more visible.
They understood something most founders miss: Public relations is not a “nice to have” once you’re successful. It is the very thing that creates the perception of success.
1. They Built the Narrative Before They Needed It
Most CEOs treat PR like a fire extinguisher: they only reach for it when there’s a “fire” (like a funding announcement or a product launch) or when they realize they’re falling behind.
But the competitors who dominate earned media didn’t wait for a milestone to start talking. They focused on a thought leadership strategy that positioned their founder as the go-to expert for industry trends months before the launch.
They built relationships with journalists while the sun was shining. They offered insights on industry shifts without asking for a backlink every single time. By the time they actually had “news,” the reporters already knew their names and trusted their perspective.
PR compounds. Silence does not. If you wait until you’re “ready” for PR, you’ve already handed your competitor a six-month head start. Not sure where you stand? Check out our guide on Are You Ready for PR? to see if you’re actually prepared to move the needle.
2. They Mastered Brand Narrative Strategy
Here is a hard truth from the trenches: Journalists do not care about your company.
They don’t care about your new UI, your “disruptive” (everyone says that) features, or your 2.0 release. They care about stories.
Your competitor isn’t winning because their product is better; they’re winning because their brand narrative strategy is better. They didn’t pitch, “We exist.” They pitched:
- A contrarian industry insight that challenged the status quo.
- Original data that proved a new market trend.
- A bold POV on the future of work/tech/finance.
If you’re wondering why you’re not getting media attention, it’s usually because you’re pitching features instead of narratives. A tech PR agency that actually knows what they’re doing: like our “special forces” team here at Disrupt: knows how to wrap your product inside a story that reporters actually want to tell.
3. They Treated Earned Media as Infrastructure
In 2026, PR is not just about a clipping in a magazine. It is authority engineering.
Consistent earned media builds:
- Search Visibility: Google rewards authority.
- Backlinks: High-authority mentions are the ultimate SEO fuel.
- AI Recommendation Probability: This is the big one.
How Earned Media Gets Your Brand Suggested in ChatGPT is the secret weapon your competitors are using. LLMs (Large Language Models) recognize patterns. If your competitor is mentioned across five authoritative publications and you aren’t mentioned anywhere, ChatGPT is going to suggest them every single time.
They have built the “authority layer” that search engines and AI tools use to decide who matters. You can’t buy that with ads. You have to earn it.
4. They Are Tracking More Than Just “Clips”
Research shows that companies with formal monitoring programs achieve 42% better PR outcomes. Why? Because they aren’t just looking at a PDF of press hits at the end of the month.
They are looking at PR success metrics that actually matter to the bottom line: Share of Voice (SoV), publication authority scores, and message penetration. They are conducting gap analyses to see where you are silent and then stepping in to fill that void.
If you aren’t benchmarking your performance against your competitors, you’re flying blind. Successful brands track how often their key messages are being repeated by the media compared to their rivals. They treat PR ROI as a measurable business metric, not a “finger in the wind” feeling.
Want to know what you should actually be looking at? Take a look at our breakdown of PR success metrics.
5. They Play the “Special Forces” Game
Big, bloated agencies-of-record (AORs) often struggle with the speed of the modern media cycle. They have layers of account managers, junior associates, and bureaucracy that slow everything down.
Your competitor might be working with a leaner, faster PR strategy for CEOs.
They are using a “Special Forces” approach: targeting specific, high-impact wins like industry awards, high-end events, and influencer placements that traditional firms overlook. They are agile. When a news story breaks at 8:00 AM, they have an expert quote in a journalist’s inbox by 8:15 AM.
Flexibility is rated as the key ingredient for PR success by 75% of professionals. If your PR strategy is static and only gets reviewed once a quarter, you’re going to get lapped by the competitor who is adapting weekly.
The Real Competitive Advantage
Perception drives growth. It’s a bit of a “chicken and egg” situation, but in the world of high-growth startups, perception often is reality.
When your competitor owns the narrative, they look like the leader. When they look like the leader:
- Investors feel more confident (and offer better terms).
- Enterprise sales cycles move faster because the trust is already there.
- Top-tier talent wants to work for the “famous” company, not the “stealth” one.
- Conversion rates on your website improve because the brand is recognized.
You can’t flip a switch on authority. You build it, brick by brick, through consistent, strategic public relations.
Why Your Startup Isn’t Getting Press (The Hard Truth)
If you find yourself searching for “how to get press coverage like competitors” or “why isn’t my startup getting media coverage,” the answer is almost always one of these three things:
- You’re too late: You started thinking about PR today for a launch happening tomorrow.
- You’re too boring: You’re pitching what you do, not why it matters to the world.
- You’re too inconsistent: You do one “press blast” and then go silent for six months.
Your competitor treated PR as infrastructure. You treated it as a tactic.
Stop Being the Industry’s Best-Kept Secret
If your competitor is outpacing you in press coverage, it’s not because they’re “lucky.” It’s because they have a system.
At Disrupt PR, we specialize in helping growth-stage companies: the ones with the better product but the smaller megaphone: turn the tables. We don’t do “noise.” We do high-stakes authority engineering that gets you mentioned in the publications that matter and suggested by the AI tools that buyers are starting to rely on.
The visibility gap is closing every day. The only question is: are you going to be the one closing it, or the one being left behind?
If you’re ready to stop being the “best-kept secret” and start being the industry leader, let’s talk. Our team of former journalists and narrative experts is ready to build the infrastructure your brand deserves.
