Media Kit for Startups: What to Include, Format and Checklist

A startup media kit is a single, always-current page (plus an optional PDF) that gives a journalist everything they need to write about you without sending a follow-up email: a short company description, founder bios, approved photos, logos, key facts and one named press contact. This guide covers exactly what to put in it, whether to build it online or as a PDF, how to write each section, and a checklist you can work through in an afternoon.

What a Media Kit Is (and What It Isn’t)

People use “media kit” and “press kit” interchangeably, and for a startup that is fine. The idea dates back to physical folders handed out at events, stuffed with glossy photos and printed releases. Today it is almost always a page on your website, usually at a URL like /press or /media, with downloadable assets.

One naming trap: publishers and creators also have “media kits,” but theirs are advertising rate cards. Your kit is for people who might write about you, not people selling you ad space.

A media kit is also not a press release. A press release announces one piece of news on one day. The kit is the permanent reference shelf that sits behind every announcement. When a reporter reads your funding news and wants a founder photo, the release should point them to the kit, and the kit should hand it over in one click.

Why it matters more for startups than for big companies

A large company has a communications team and years of prior coverage a journalist can pull from. A two-year-old startup has none of that. On deadline, the only reliable information a writer can find is whatever you have published yourself.

Muck Rack’s 2026 State of Journalism survey of nearly 900 journalists found that reporters value clear relevance to their beat, access to relevant sources, original data and high-resolution images in the material they receive (summary of the report). Three of those four things live in a good media kit.

What to Include: The Core Contents

Here is the full list, in roughly the order a journalist looks for things. Not every startup needs every item on day one, but the first six are non-negotiable.

Section	What goes in it	Priority
Press contact	Name, email, phone, time zone, typical response time	Must have
Company boilerplate	50 to 100 word description of what you do, for whom, and where	Must have
Fact sheet	Founded date, HQ city, founders, team size, funding, key metrics with dates	Must have
Founder bios and headshots	Short and long bios, high-res photos, pronunciation of names if needed	Must have
Logo files	SVG and PNG, light and dark versions, usage notes	Must have
Product images	Screenshots, product photos, short demo video	Must have
Recent news	Latest announcements and links to coverage	Strongly recommended
Customer or partner proof	Approved logos, short case summaries, quotes with permission	Recommended
Brand guidelines summary	Colors, correct spelling and capitalization of the company name	Recommended
FAQ for press	Answers to the questions you get asked repeatedly	Optional

Press contact

Put this at the top, not buried at the bottom. Use a real person’s name. “press@” addresses are fine as long as someone checks them daily, but add a named contact and a phone number for deadline situations. If you are in Austin and most of your coverage comes from New York outlets, say “Central Time” so reporters know when to expect a reply.

Company boilerplate

This is the “About” paragraph that appears at the end of press releases, and reporters often paste it straight into their notes. Write it in plain English. Say what the product does, who uses it and one proof point. Avoid category jargon a general reader would not understand.

Weak: “Acme is a next-generation AI-powered platform revolutionizing workflow orchestration for the modern enterprise.”

Better: “Acme makes scheduling software for independent veterinary clinics. Founded in 2023 in Denver, the company’s app handles appointment booking, reminders and payments for more than 400 clinics across 22 states.” (Illustrative example.)

The second version tells a reporter what the company is in one breath, and every claim can be checked.

Fact sheet

A fact sheet is a scannable list of numbers and names. Keep it to one screen. Include the founding year, headquarters, founders and titles, employee count, total funding and lead investors (only if announced), major milestones, and two or three metrics you are comfortable being quoted on. Date every metric: “More than 400 clinics (as of September 2026).” This single habit prevents most of the awkward corrections startups end up requesting.

Founder bios and headshots

Write two lengths: a 40-word version for roundups and a 150-word version for profiles. Lead with what the founder does now, then the relevant background. Cut the hobbies unless they connect to the company story.

For photos, supply at least two headshots per founder: one tight portrait and one wider environmental shot, both at print resolution (at least 2,000 pixels on the long edge is a safe floor). Include a group photo of the founding team if you have one. Name the files clearly, for example jane-ortiz-ceo-acme-2026.jpg, so a photo editor does not have to guess who is who.

Logo files

Offer the logo as an SVG (vector) and as a transparent PNG, in versions for light and dark backgrounds. Add a one-line note on minimum clear space and what not to do, such as stretching or recoloring. If your company name has unusual capitalization, spell it out: “Acme, not ACME.” If you have a registered trademark, the ® symbol is only for marks registered with the federal office; the USPTO’s trademark basics page is a good starting point if you have not filed yet.

Product images and video

Show the product in use. For software, that means clean screenshots at native resolution with fake but realistic data, never a real customer’s information. For physical products, you want a white-background shot and a lifestyle shot. A 60 to 90 second demo video hosted on YouTube or Vimeo, with a download link for broadcast use, is a real advantage for TV and online video producers.

Online Press Page vs PDF: Which Format to Use

Short answer: build the web page first, and offer a PDF as a download from that page. Here is how the two compare.

Factor	Online press page	PDF media kit
Keeping it current	Edit once, live everywhere	Old versions keep circulating in inboxes
Findability	Can appear in search results for your company name	Rarely found unless linked
Downloading assets	One-click, full-resolution files	Images inside PDFs are hard to extract
Offline use and events	Needs a connection	Easy to attach, print or hand out
Design control	Depends on your site builder	Full control over layout

The PDF still has a job. It is useful at trade shows, for investor-adjacent outreach, and for the occasional reporter who wants everything in one attachment. Just put a “last updated” date on the cover and keep it under about 5 MB so it does not bounce off email filters. For the asset files themselves, a shared folder (Google Drive, Dropbox or a zipped download) linked from the press page works better than embedding everything in the PDF.

Where to put it on your site

Use a simple URL such as yourcompany.com/press and link to it from the site footer. Journalists look there first. Do not hide the page behind a form or a login. Every extra step is a reason to move on to the next company in the roundup.

How to Build Your Media Kit: A Step-by-Step Process

1. Collect what already exists. Gather your logo files, past press releases, any coverage, founder photos and pitch deck. Most of the raw material is somewhere in your shared drive.
2. Write the boilerplate first. Everything else hangs off this paragraph. Get two people outside the company to read it and tell you, in their own words, what you do. If they cannot, rewrite it.
3. Build the fact sheet and date every number. Decide which metrics you are willing to have printed. If revenue is private, say so and offer customer count or growth rate instead.
4. Book a proper photo session. A phone snapshot against an office wall is noticeable in print. A local photographer for a half-day session is one of the better-value marketing spends a startup can make.
5. Export the brand files. SVG, PNG, light, dark. Test each on a white and a black background.
6. Assemble the page. Contact at the top, then boilerplate, fact sheet, bios, assets, news.
7. Create the PDF version from the same content, with a date on the cover.
8. Test it like a reporter. Ask a friend to find your founder’s headshot and your founding year in under 60 seconds, starting from your homepage. Time them.
9. Link to it everywhere relevant: the footer, your email signature for anyone who handles media, and the end of every announcement.

Writing Tips That Make Reporters’ Lives Easier

Write facts, not adjectives

“Leading,” “innovative” and “disruptive” do nothing for a reporter because they cannot be quoted as fact. Replace every adjective you can with a number, a customer type or a date. “Used by 12 of the 20 largest school districts in Ohio” is worth more than any superlative (illustrative example).

Give them the story angles

A short section called “Story ideas” or “What we can talk about” helps. List three or four angles your founders can speak to with authority, such as the economics of small veterinary practices, rural broadband gaps, or hiring without a degree requirement. This is how a startup ends up quoted as an expert in stories that are not about the startup at all.

Be honest about what you cannot share

It is fine to say “We do not disclose revenue.” It is not fine to publish a vague number you would not want fact-checked. Reporters remember which companies gave them bad numbers.

A Fill-In Fact Sheet Template

Copy this structure onto your press page and replace the brackets.

• Company: [Legal or trading name, correct capitalization]
• What we do: [One sentence, no jargon]
• Founded: [Month, year] in [City, State]
• Founders: [Name, title]; [Name, title]
• Team size: [Number] employees (as of [month, year])
• Funding: [Total announced], led by [investor names], or “Bootstrapped”
• Customers or users: [Number] (as of [month, year])
• Milestones: [Launch date]; [major partnership]; [award with year]
• Available to comment on: [Topic 1]; [Topic 2]; [Topic 3]
• Press contact: [Name], [email], [phone], [time zone]

Common Mistakes That Make a Media Kit Useless

• Stale numbers. A kit that still says “seed-stage” eighteen months after your Series A tells a reporter the whole page cannot be trusted.
• Low-resolution images. A 600-pixel headshot cannot run in print and often looks soft online.
• A contact form instead of a contact. Forms feel like a black hole on deadline.
• Everything inside one giant PDF. Reporters want to grab one photo, not download 40 MB.
• Customer logos without permission. Get written approval before you display another company’s logo or quote.
• No dates anywhere. Without a “last updated” line, nobody knows whether the page is from this year or 2022.
• Marketing copy pasted from the homepage. Homepage copy is written to convert buyers. Press copy is written to inform writers. They are different jobs.

Your Media Kit Checklist

Work through this before you send a single pitch.

• Named press contact with email, phone and time zone at the top of the page
• Boilerplate under 100 words, tested on two outsiders
• Fact sheet with every metric dated
• Short and long bio for each founder
• At least two high-resolution headshots per founder, clearly named
• Logo in SVG and PNG, light and dark versions
• Product screenshots or photos with no real customer data visible
• Optional demo video with a download link
• Last three announcements and links to coverage
• Written permission for every customer logo or quote shown
• PDF version under about 5 MB with a date on the cover
• Press page linked in the site footer, no login or form required
• Calendar reminder to review the page every quarter

Keeping the Kit Current

The kit is only as good as its last update. Set a recurring quarterly reminder and add event triggers: a funding round, a senior hire, a product launch, a new office, a rebrand, or a notable award. Assign one owner. In a small startup that is usually the founder or whoever handles marketing, and it takes about an hour a quarter once the page exists.

When you publish an announcement, update the kit the same day. If you distribute a press release about a new product, the product images on the press page should already show that product by the time a reporter clicks through.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between a media kit and a press kit?

For a startup, nothing meaningful. Both describe a collection of company information and assets for journalists. Be aware that publishers and creators also use “media kit” for advertising rate cards, which is a different document.

How long should a startup media kit be?

The press page itself should be readable in two or three minutes. The fact sheet should fit on one screen, and the PDF version is usually two to five pages. Length is less important than how fast a reporter can find a specific item.

Should I include pricing in my media kit?

If your pricing is public, yes, include a short summary with a date, because reviewers and roundup writers need it. If pricing is custom or enterprise, say so plainly rather than leaving the reporter to guess.

Do I need a media kit before I have any press coverage?

Yes. The kit is what makes the first piece of coverage possible. Leave out the “In the news” section until you have something to put there.

Is it safe to include funding and revenue figures?

Include only numbers you have already announced publicly or are comfortable seeing in print. Check with your investors and your lawyer before disclosing anything new, especially if you are raising or have confidentiality obligations.

How often should I update it?

Every quarter as a routine, and immediately after any funding round, leadership change, launch, rebrand or major customer announcement.

Build It Once, Then Keep It Honest

A strong media kit is not glamorous. It is a well-organized page with good photos, dated facts and a person who answers email. Build the online version this week using the checklist above, add the PDF once the page is right, and put a quarterly review on the calendar. The next time a reporter lands on your site on deadline, they will find what they need in under a minute, and that is often the difference between a mention and a missed opportunity.