# Direct posts outperformed a $30,000 PR placement

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/direct-posts-outperformed-a-30-000-pr-placement/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Amjad Masad](https://realalpha.app/builders/amjad-masad/) · Amjad Masad is founder and CEO of Replit. · Co-founded and leads Replit, a browser-based coding platform letting anyone write and deploy code.
- Host: [Joe Rogan](https://realalpha.app/people/joe-rogan/) · Host, The Joe Rogan Experience
- Show: The Joe Rogan Experience
- Episode: [Joe Rogan Experience #2344 - Amjad Masad](https://realalpha.app/v/WfmrEa0L08E/), Jul 2, 2025
- Moment: 1:35:50 to 1:38:06 of the episode (2 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/direct-posts-outperformed-a-30-000-pr-placement/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/WfmrEa0L08E/?t=5750

## Quote

> “I tweeted the same news. I got **hundreds of thousands of views**.”
> — [Amjad Masad](https://realalpha.app/builders/amjad-masad/) at [1:36:19](https://realalpha.app/v/WfmrEa0L08E/?t=5779) · The Joe Rogan Experience

## Takeaways

1. A $30,000 PR spend produced one placement and roughly two views.
2. One tweet drew hundreds of thousands of views.
3. Direct founder communication keeps control of the message.

## About this segment

Amjad Masad says a $30,000 PR agency secured one placement with about two views, while his tweet reached hundreds of thousands. He explains why he now speaks directly to his audience.

From “Joe Rogan Experience #2344 - Amjad Masad”, Jul 2, 2025. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/WfmrEa0L08E/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[1:35:55](https://realalpha.app/v/WfmrEa0L08E/?t=5755) attached to it this is fucking crazy i watched i watched these uh entrepreneurs uh like zuck and elon and all these guys come up in this very hostile um media uh environment and so as i'm building my company, I actually never hired a PR agency. I hired once a PR agency, paid them $30,000. They got me a placement in a really crappy publication, got maybe two views. I tweeted the same news. I got hundreds of thousands of views. I'm like, fuck that. I'm not going to use you anymore. It's like you wasted my time. And since then, I've been just going direct to my audience and just building an audience online, uh, to, to put out my message. And I, I thought, you know, um, uh, they, uh, you know, if they don't build you up, maybe they can't tear you down. Uh, right, right. Uh, you're, you have, you're in control of the message that gets out

[1:36:54](https://realalpha.app/v/WfmrEa0L08E/?t=5814) there. And I've, I've learned how people react to communications and, and, and, um, it's almost like trial by, by fire. Well, there's a deep hunger for authenticity right now. Yeah. So if they know it's coming from you yeah like okay this is great yeah like it takes a little weight off of them like oh this is nice it's nice to hear it from the guy who actually runs the company yeah and like i make mistakes and you know they happen and i i try to to correct them and um i'm not going to be perfect and i think just the corporate world changed because of this hunger for authenticity and um and i think more and more founders are and entrepreneurs are finding that that's the way to go. That's, you know, you don't really need those more traditional ways of getting the news out.

[1:37:42](https://realalpha.app/v/WfmrEa0L08E/?t=5862) But I actually, I'm friends with a lot of reporters that are really good, but they tend to be the reporters that do really deep work. I've met them over time, and I still go direct, but sometimes they write about our company. But they're a minority. Yeah. I think the whole industry's economics and incentives are just like the clickbait and all that stuff. Yeah, that's what