HOW IT ALL BEGAN
Back in 1999, our founder, Ben Kaplan, wrote and self-published his first book, How to Go to College Almost for Free — a book based on his experiences in winning two dozen college scholarships worth $90,000 and attending Harvard for free.
After booking himself on 2,000+ TV and radio shows — including appearances on Oprah, Good Morning America, CNN, Fox News, and National Public Radio — the book became an international bestseller.
In fact, Ben did such a good job promoting the book that he soon realized that he had developed a skill of great value to many other companies, organizations, and enterprises.
For the next 10 years, Ben and his team built a highly successful PR and marketing company, working with both top traditional PR firms and individual clients like Citibank, Dr. Pepper, Discover Card, and many more. Because Ben’s team was smaller than the bigger firms, they leveraged technology and data analysis in innovative ways to get more effective results.
The seeds of what would become PR Hacker were planted when Ben and his team were invited in 2012 to participate in Start-Up Chile, a global business incubator sponsored by the Chilean government. After working for 12 months with companies spanning every industry from more than 50 countries around the world, Ben and the team realized that there was a pressing need for a new kind of PR firm — one that was global in scope, leveraged the latest technological tools, and was able to capitalize on the coming convergence of mass media, social media, and paid media.
In 2013, the team decided to move operations to San Francisco and launch PR Hacker. The response from large and small companies alike was beyond all expectations. Rising star tech companies used PR Hacker to find its initial audience and raise more funds. Multi-billion dollars enterprises signed up PR Hacker as their new agency of record, replacing long-standing relationships with underperforming PR firms.
Time after time, PR Hacker achieved results that were 25x to 100x more effective than anything the industry had ever seen.
And we’ve only just begun.
IF DONE WELL, PR SHOULD HAVE THE HIGHEST ROI OF ANY MARKETING DISCIPLINE