How to Submit to Startups.fm: A 2026 Walkthrough

Startups.fm sits at the intersection of directory and media: listings alongside interviews and episodes. Being listed is straightforward; being featured is a different conversation.

The short answer

Startups.fm belongs in the batch, not in the plan. Ten of these in one sitting costs an hour; treating each one as an event costs a week for the same dozen listings.

What Startups.fm is

A startup media property with a directory component: submitted products appear in a catalog, while editorial content covers founders and companies.

Submitting, in order

Submit the listing through the form
Draft a separate two-paragraph pitch
Lead the pitch with the unusual fact
Offer a founder for an interview
Follow up once, then stop

Before you touch the form

Keep the two submissions separate in your head: the listing goes through the form, the interview pitch goes to a person. Media-adjacent directories only act on the second, and mixing them loses both.

What it is good for

General and niche directories give a young domain a citation that persists for years, which matters when the domain currently has almost none.

Pitching the story rather than the product

Lead with the change, not the release: the market you left, the constraint you hit, the number that surprised you. Editors choose on whether a reader who does not use the product would still care, which is a different test from the one a directory applies.

One thing that catches people out

There are two doors here and they lead to different rooms: the catalogue takes a listing, the editorial side takes a story. Most submissions knock on the first and hope for the second, which is why they get a row rather than coverage.

Checking what you actually got

Load the listing in a private window, as a stranger would
Check the screenshot or logo renders at the size the card expects
Inspect the outbound link, not the button, if it routes through a redirect
After six weeks, run a site: query on the listing URL
Record followed or not followed — that field predicts value

Where it fits in a launch plan

Send the listing through the catalogue and pitch the story separately, with a founder angle. One submission cannot do both jobs, and the pitch needs a reason beyond the product existing.

Two submissions, two doors

The listing goes through a form and is housekeeping. The story pitch goes to a person and is editorial. Mixing them loses both, because the form has no path to an editor and the editor does not read forms.

Keep them separate and send them separately.

What editors select on

Whether a reader who does not use the product would still care. That is a different test from the one a directory applies, and it is why most product announcements produce no coverage.

A story needs a change, a decision or a number that stands alone.

Leading with the change

The market you left, the constraint you hit, the pricing decision that shocked your customers. Start there, then one sentence on the company.

Three sentences total, and the editor knows whether to reply.

The listing is housekeeping

Submit the listing with plain factual copy and no claims about the future. It takes ten minutes and produces a page.

Do not attach a pitch to it. The listing form is not read by anyone making editorial decisions.

Preparing a story pitch

Subject line with the angle, first sentence with the fact, then two sentences of context. No attachments, no deck, no calendar link.

Editors reply to pitches that respect their time, which in practice means short ones.

If only the listing happens

That is the normal outcome and it is still a citation on a media-adjacent domain. Record it, check it annually, and do not treat the absence of coverage as a failure.

Most companies are not news, most weeks.