How do you find good PR agencies to consider?

Build a shortlist of four to six agencies from sources the agency cannot control: founders one stage ahead of you who paid the invoice, the bylines on coverage you admire, and your investors' portfolio lists. Skip award badges, "top PR firm" listicles, and inbound cold pitches. Those measure how well an agency markets itself. They say nothing about whether it gets clients covered.

The strongest source is a peer referral. It is also how most B2B buying happens: research consistently finds more than 8 in 10 buyers begin a purchase with a referral they trust, and rate peer recommendations above any form of advertising. Ask three or four founders a half-stage ahead who they used, what it cost, and what they would do differently. A reference you sourced yourself beats any the agency hands you, because agencies forward only their happy clients. The checking-references page covers what to ask once you have those founders on the phone.

The second source is the coverage itself. Pull five recent articles from the outlets your buyers and investors actually read, then find out which firm placed each one. Many agencies list clients on their sites, and a founder will usually tell you if you ask. A placement you traced yourself is evidence the agency cannot curate.

Your investors are the third source and the most underused. A VC with thirty portfolio companies has watched a dozen agencies perform across real engagements and has no incentive to flatter any of them. Ask for the list, and ask which firms they would not use again. The second answer is usually more candid than the first.

Rank every source by how hard it is to fake:

• Peer referral - a founder who paid and got coverage. Hardest to fake, most useful.
• Investor portfolio list - performance observed across many companies. Free and candid; ask for it.
• Bylines on coverage you admire - real placements traced back to the firm.
• Award badges and "top firm" lists - mostly pay-to-play or vanity. Distrust by default.
• Inbound cold pitches - proof of self-marketing, nothing more. Treat as noise.

Once you have four to six names, put every firm through the same evaluation: the questions in the pitch-questions page, a skeptical read of their case studies (the reading-case-studies page covers how), and reference checks you run yourself. The agency-size and generalist-vs-specialist pages cover whether to weight big firms, boutiques, or industry specialists differently.