The food: Chocolate Pyramid

Where to find it: Pastelaria Briosa, Coimbra, Portugal

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Welcome to another edition of #FoodEntrepreneur Friday, where I serve up an order of international food with a side of insight for entrepreneurs.

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This tower of chocolate glistened in the pastelaria limelight. It’s choco-goodness called out: “Eat me, sexy, I’ve got a hard chocolate shell and more secrets waiting inside.” The quality of a Portuguese chocolate pyramid can be a gamble. Pastry makers take the leftover chocolate pastry crumbs of yesterday’s baked goods, smash them together in a pyramid shape, hard cast it in a chocolate shell and peddle the recreation as a chocolate pyramid. Sometimes, like wine or day-old Thai food, the chocolate pyramid improves with age. Other times it’s just crap. This week at Draper University, us students learned about how entrepreneurs should handle the media. Sometimes, like a good chocolate pyramid, the media can look sexy on the outside and promote quality content, as well. Other times it’s just crap. Here are a few things I learned from my media lecturers Hemione Way and Raj Mathai:

• Think outside the ‘box’. If you’re trying to reach the media, then don’t just rely on sending emails to their overloaded inboxes. Dare to be different.
• Tell the bigger picture. If you’re an Uber for the tow truck business (yawn), then make your story interesting by explaining how you’re cutting greenhouse gases and saving the world (Yay!).
• Don’t assume conversations with the press are off the record.
• Have a beer with the press. Media people are people too; get to know them.
• Offer exclusive stories to the press. It will make them feel loved.
• Bad things can happen in a company. Make sure you have a crisis team complete with a public relations representative who can handle the press.

Oh, and make sure never to say “no comment” when things really go wrong in your company. That only excites the press to sniff out what’s really going on in your company. And that, my entrepreneurial friends, is just crap.

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Update (as of July 1st, 2014): An entrepreneur friend of mine recently wrote an article “8 Free or Really Affordable Ways to Get Some Publicity Online for Your Start Up or Company.” In his article he recommends different strategies for handling media coverage. For one, he suggests trying BoostLikes. How it works is you write an online article and include a simple mention of BoostLikes. Soon after sharing your article with BoostLikes, they promise to deliver 250 free likes from real people to your Facebook page within 4-7 days.

My friend’s post intrigued my ‘marketing’ and ‘test-and-iterate‘ approach to entrepreneurship, so I’m giving BoostLikes a go too. As of this writing (July 1st, 2014) the TASTE with Kevin Longa facebook page has 333 likes. Let’s see if BoostLikes brings that number to 583. Perhaps this move might boost organic marketing growth much like how Gilad Lotan wrote in this intriguing social media marketing article.

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¹ If you’re curious about what Draper University is, check out this video China’s CCTV created about our Fall 2013 class.
² This is the sixth week in a seven-week journey as Longa Travels Productions attends the Draper University entrepreneurial program. Because of the rigorous curriculum and course schedule, food essays and writings might be on hold until the program ends.