‘Press Hook’ Makes Marketing Accessible to Women Entrepreneurs

“Our male counterparts with less traction were getting considerably more funding. If there was even one other man in the room with us, a junior employee, the VCs would speak to him rather than us. We had to show more results with less money. We really had to hustle.”
-Michelle Songy, CEO and Founder of Press Hook

In 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic, Michelle Songy founded Press Hook, “a platform for brands, company founders and experts to create digital press kits and discover journalists looking for stories in order to secure press coverage,” after experiencing first-hand the challenges that women-owned businesses face when seeking capital and media marketing. Press Hook is exactly the kind of tool that Songy needed when she was starting out with her business, Cake, so she decided to create what she could not find. “Songy and her cofounder faced sexism from venture capitalists they approached for funding. Companies founded solely by women only secure 2% of available capital, and Cake was no exception, ” MeiMei Fox writes of the struggles Songy encountered when developing Cake in her recent Forbes article, “Press Hook Makes Getting Press Coverage Easier For Your Brand.”

The primary focus of Press Hook’s efforts is centered around women and minority-owned businesses. Songy explains her motivation behind this mission,

“We really want to help these businesses get press attention, find followers, and even secure investments. People need to know about them in order to support them…It feels good disrupting existing industries by creating a more inclusive system so that other people will not have to face the same obstacles in the future. It’s exciting.”

Press Hook, along with other digital journalism programs, is another tool in a woman entrepreneur’s toolbelt in her journey to going global. Growing your brand can be one of the most challenging aspects of entrepreneurship, as Fox cites, “according to the Chamber of Commerce 70% of the 33 million small- to medium-sized businesses in the U.S. lack the resources to pursue a PR strategy.” Songy taking matters into her own hands to bridge the gap of press and PR for SMEs has already made a lasting impact. And of course, wegg® is here to help every step of the way.