A Word to the Wise
Journalists are often accused of being hurlers on the ditch - more comfortable with pontificating about how the world should be run. Douglas Dalby, a former business journalist with more than 20 years' experience as a reporter on various national newspapers, left his job with The Sunday Times
(Ireland) in December 2006 to start Prangle Ltd, a news release distribution service. "I suppose after years of writing about business - and small business in particular - I thought it was time to give it a try myself," he said. There are few areas of business that change faster than information technology – making it ideal for an entrepreneur with an idea to sell. Dalby, 43, launched the website www.prangle.ie in mid-February and more than 60 subscribers and 600-plus journalists now use the service to distribute and access press releases.
Countless thousands of press releases are sent every day in Ireland by all kinds of organisations including companies, government agencies, charities and sports associations. "The business was born out of the endless blizzard of news releases my colleagues and I were receiving in my email every day in newsrooms up and down the country," he said. "The concept of Prangle is simple: it aims to allow journalists to select the releases that interest them in a single, structured web-based service and allows news providers to reach thousands of journalists without having to send releases to every email address in the country."
From his own experience, Dalby identified the major public relations companies as the biggest disseminators of releases on behalf of their clients. He approached them with the concept and discovered that the frustration of journalists with the number of irrelevant releases landing in their inboxes was matched by agencies, who were finding it increasingly difficult to reach journalists. The turnover of journalists in the media is unprecedented at present, making it very difficult to keep tabs on who is covering what topic and who is working for what publication or radio station. There are now more than 500 registered publications in the Republic and more than 40 radio stations.
Dalby decided to take the plunge. "It was a very difficult and quite frightening decision in many ways - I had recently become a father for the first time, I still have a considerable mortgage and I knew from covering business for years that it would mean very hard work with no guarantee of success," he said. "On the other hand, I knew there was a need for the service, I knew the executives in most of the bigger public relations agencies and companies with in-house marketing, so I was pushing open doors.” He also had the comfort of knowing that start-up costs would be few - he remains the sole full-time employee. Aside from the costs of web design and hosting, the single biggest cost has been earnings foregone.
Dublin City Enterprise Board were able to help out with an employment grant, which coupled with his own savings helped him through the first crucial months. "I knew that it would take a while before I would get paid - I had to concentrate on making sure agencies were posting releases and that journalists were using the service. I knew I couldn't charge anyone for usage until there was a critical mass of releases. It was chicken and egg: agencies wouldn't use it unless they knew journalists were using it and journalists wouldn't use it if there was nothing there for them to see." Prangle is a subscription service for news providers and is free to journalists. "My business model is to take a small chunk out of as many organisations as I can rather than a large fee from a few. For the service to work for journalists, it must become comprehensive - we need as many news releases as we can muster." Dalby has spent much of his time in presentation meetings. "I knew it would be important to meet clients personally, it helps them trust who they are dealing with, which is very important in a start-up situation". www.prangle.ie/
© Dublin City Enterprise Board 2007. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or part without the permission from the D.C.E.B.
More information