PR for Growth-Stage Companies: What Changes After Year One

For those of us who have been there, the first year of starting a business is a crazy rush of adrenaline. As a 2025 GrowFL “Company to Watch,” we know that sometimes things go right and many times, everything that can go wrong does. Mostly, it seems the entire organization’s focus is on letting the world know it exists.

Naturally, a start-up’s PR plan reflects the chaotic nature of, well, starting up – a focus on announcing “we’re open” and telling the founding (or founder’s) story. Although short-sighted, this emphasis makes sense; there’s not a lot of story to tell and the continued existence of the business rests on getting noticed. Generating leads and, if you’re lucky, notching a few wins is truly the priority.

It’s Time to Grow Up

But what happens after the dust settles? In Year Two, what worked at the onset will no longer sustain your PR efforts. As your business matures, so too does your audience and the story you tell. Importantly, the business is closing deals and has people’s attention and those stories need to be told. The company has entered the growth stage, and it’s time to build an ongoing narrative that doesn’t just get attention but gets results that boost the business.

Identify Evolving Audiences – In a way, the Year One audience is fairly simple: the press and potential customers. As the business matures and moves deeper into growth, several other key audiences begin to emerge: future investors, key talent recruits, industry analysts, competitive players, trade press, potential partners, a growing team and, yes, even regulators. Identifying your new audiences and figuring out how to tell the same story differently to each one opens new challenges and opportunities. Importantly, being able to define the audience sets the PR team up as an invaluable set of corporate antennae. Knowing your audience provides a framework for building an effective PR infrastructure (think editorial calendars, media lists, publication contacts, performance dashboards, etc).

Tell New Stories – As exciting and “we’re gonna change the world” as it may be, the founding or founder’s story can’t be the sole PR focus as the company begins to grow. As the audience expands, so too must the variety and nuance of your PR efforts. Spotlighting wins, whether they’re about clients or top talent, is a great way to push past awareness and into consideration. Now is the time to use growth to make the company an industry expert. Highlighting products and people brings depth to your story and frees up the founder(s) to focus on growth, growth and more growth. New stories strengthen new relationships and build trust with the public (see a pattern here?).

Go from Coverage to Narrative – You’ve got their attention, now what? Time to build trust and work on relationships. With credibility (which is a trusting relationship, by the way) comes flexibility in how the narrative is presented and the business goals it supports. Reliable narrative emerges when the founding story morphs into an ongoing dialogue about products and services and how the company is different. It allows for PR goals (talk to second-tier investors) to align with business goals (secure a second-tier investor). It’s like getting to know someone – the more things you know, the deeper the relationship. Critically, strong narrative and relationships create space for mistakes, should they ever happen…

Growing Up Without Losing Your Voice

A young company in growth phase can be a beautiful thing. By using core values and key differentiators as narrative North Stars, PR teams can more effectively evolve to whom and how the company tells its story. A strong, evolving narrative that keeps corporate identity top of mind builds trust, establishes credibility and creates the flexibility to change quickly, something growth-stage companies know a lot about!

At Paquin PR, one of the things we like best is helping clients transition from the “we’re here!” stage to “now it’s time to rock” part. We know firsthand that strong PR and PR infrastructure are business accelerants in this crucial transition period.

We welcome the opportunity to learn about your growing pains and maybe tell you about our own growth strategies  Give us a shout, we’d love to talk.