701am

Filed at sunrise TUE · 26 MAY 2026

TUE · 26 MAY 2026

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★ The tools
Build a Data Story A 3-minute workshop Earned Media Skills 28 open-source skills Kraken The Newsroom Prediction Engine View the full tool gallery Work with us

Industries · For startups

You can't outspend them.
You can out-story them.

A startup is outgunned on budget by every incumbent in the category. The one advantage you have is a sharper story and a faster-moving truth. Earned media is the lever that turns that story into the attention you cannot afford to buy.

Book a sunrise call See how it works

Thirty minutes. No deck. No pitch. No charge.

★ Where the startup story gets told ★

§ 01 · The first truth

Capital is borrowed.
Attention is earned.

Every startup pitches the same arc: big market, bold team, inevitable future. An investor, a recruit, a first customer — they hear that arc a hundred times a month, so they discount the pitch and look for the one signal a founder cannot manufacture: does the world outside your deck believe you yet.

The story is the moat before the product is

That belief is not bought — you do not have the budget, and the incumbents will always outspend you. It is earned when a reporter covering your space writes about you, when your founder's contrarian take runs where investors and recruits read, when your name is the one a customer brings up before you pitch them.

The proof is in your own trajectory right now. The traction curve no one expected. The insight that made you start the company. The wedge the incumbents are too slow to see. Each is a story a tech reporter is hunting for and cannot get from a Series-D incumbent. Most founders wait until they're 'ready.' The ones who break out place the story while it is still surprising.

§ 02 · The ledger

What an earned placement does for a desk.

14
Placements earned
Pre-Series A
3
Tech outlets
TechCrunch · Forbes · more
1
Un-ignorable founder story
Found in the first call

The pattern repeats across early-stage companies. We spend the first weeks finding the angle no incumbent can claim — a founder's origin, a contrarian thesis, a traction number that breaks the pattern — and the rest placing it where investors, recruits, and customers already read. The category changes. The mechanism does not.

★ Illustrative of the pattern. Client specifics confidential. ★

The office holds the same two articles, whatever the industry on the masthead —

§ 03 · The method

Two things. Done without compromise.

We do not run your growth experiments or write your launch tweets. We build the conditions under which an investor, a recruit, or a customer already knows your name before you reach out. The method fits on a single page, and it does not bend for the stage you are at.

★ Tenets of the office ★

The Two Articles of Earned Authority

Adopted at sunrise. Held for the founder's desk.

Art. i

Find the angle inside your story.

Buried in your origin and your traction is one true sentence about why now that no incumbent can claim and no editor can refuse. It is almost never the thing on your pitch deck's title slide. We sit with you until we find it, and then we sharpen it until it cuts.

Art. ii

Place it where it compounds.

A launch nobody covers is a tree falling in an empty forest. We do the unglamorous work — the research, the pitch, the follow-up — until the right reporter at TechCrunch or Forbes runs the story. Then we do it again, until your name is the one the ecosystem repeats.

— 701am, est. at sunrise

Office of Earned Media
7:01
§ 04 · What changes

What changes when the ecosystem knows your name.

We do not sell deliverables — we change your trajectory. Here is what it is worth when investors, recruits, and customers already believe you.

7:01
i.
The outcome

You raise from a position of belief.

When an investor has already read about you, the round is no longer a cold pitch — it is a conversation with someone who is half-convinced. Earned credibility moves the term sheet.

  • Investors who already know you
  • Warmer rooms, better terms
  • A why-now they repeat for you
ii.
The outcome

The best people come to you.

When the press is writing about your company, the recruits and customers you were chasing start reaching out. The story does the work a cold outreach engine never could.

  • Inbound recruiting and demand
  • A signal that you are the one to bet on
  • Momentum money can't buy
iii.
The outcome

A story that outlasts the round.

A placement is not a moment — it is the narrative the ecosystem repeats about you. The angle that broke you out keeps compounding through every raise and every launch after.

  • Proof that never expires
  • Mind-share against the incumbents
  • A moat you built without the budget
§ — Why the office

Why founders choose 701am.

There is no shortage of agencies that promise coverage. There are very few that will sit with you, find the one true thing, and stake their name on placing it.

Founder-led

You work with David.

Not an account manager, not an intern on a template. David sits with you himself, finds the angle, and runs the pitch — the same operator who has built and grown businesses, not just talked about them.

One hour. One desk. One person accountable.

An operator's eye

We read what others miss.

The angle no competitor can copy is almost never in your deck. It is in the traction and origin story most agencies are too junior to find — and finding it is the whole game.

The story hiding in your own numbers.

Nothing invented

Only what is true.

We never fabricate a number, a quote, or a claim. Earned authority that cannot survive a fact-check is not authority — it is a liability. Everything we place is real, and that is exactly why it lands.

No invented stats. Ever.

A note from the office

There are a thousand startups with a deck that says they will win. There are perhaps a handful a reporter would write about today. We are built to make you one of them — before you can afford to be. If attention is your bottleneck, the sunrise call is free.

— David at 7:01

§ — In their words

What people say about David.

David's expertise in SEO is incredible. He has the ability to jump between SEO strategies and tactics to drive substantial growth while managing and leading high performance teams. He's an impactful (and essential) person to have on your growth team!
Meredith Kokos AI-Driven SVP of Growth | Scaling PE & VC-Backed B2C/DTC & B2B Companies
David is one of the brightest minds I know out there on the web, and I've worked with many. Work with him whenever you can!
Brian Wallace Founder, NowSourcing – Infographic Expert | Featured: NYT, Forbes, Mashable
I have never learned so much from someone I worked with. He was always an inspiration to me. He's the hardest worker I have ever met. No idea how he finds the time to accomplish all he does in a day. Couldn't have more respect for him.
Sara Routhier Senior Director of Content at Quote.com

★ Recommendations from people who have worked with David. Words unchanged. ★

★ The work begins at 7:01 ★

Ready to out-story the incumbents?

Thirty minutes. We listen, find the angle hiding in your founding story, and tell you straight whether we can earn you the attention you can't yet buy.

Book a sunrise call Or read the field manual