Brett Farmiloe, Founder & CEO at Featured, Scottsdale, AZ. One of YEC's original members.
We are glad to welcome Brett back to YEC, an alumnus returning to the table.
"I'm Brett. I run Featured, the AI co-pilot for PR, from Scottsdale, Arizona, and we own Help a Reporter Out (HARO) and Connectively. We help experts get featured and journalists find people worth featuring.
It all traces back to an RV."
We asked: What is taking most of your attention right now?
"Featured News. The problem I picked for this quarter: when an expert answers a question on HARO or Connectively and the journalist doesn't use it, that answer sits in a database forever. Most of them end that way, because a reporter uses a handful of quotes out of forty."
We asked: What is the most expensive thing you have learned?
"I tried to launch an iPhone app company a few years out of college. The business built apps for minor league baseball teams, and we launched more than ten of them. Every app meant paying a developer, because I wasn't one, so the margin on each was awful. Teams paid a one-time fee, so nothing recurred."
We asked: What can another member come to you for?
"The sign would say: Getting featured, and reviving brands.
Getting featured: if you want to be in the press or cited by AI engines, come find me. More than two million pitches went through HARO last year, so I know what lands and what gets someone banned."
We asked: Tell us something that has nothing to do with the company.
"I've kept backyard chickens for about ten years, which in Scottsdale means fresh eggs and a running fight with the summer heat. Weekends are minivan life with three kids.
Also, Hot Pockets. When we were trying to fund the RV trip, a buddy's mom was the VP of marketing at the company that makes them. She couldn't cut us a check, so she handed us a stack of vouchers, and two of us ate Hot Pockets three meals a day for 30 days straight. Picture Supersize Me without the hospital visit. A week after we threw away the Hot Pocket vouchers, we found our title sponsor a block from my house. I haven't eaten a Hot Pocket since."
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