Submit a startup story
The Founder Gazette is a daily newspaper about startups. It takes submissions from founders through one form, it charges nothing to read them, and a person reads every one.
What this is
The Gazette covers three things: startup news, founder stories, and the practical tips founders can use this week. It is written to newspaper standards — every number carries a source, nothing is invented, and a human editor approves every story before it runs. The editorial standards set out the whole contract in a page.
Most publications accepting submissions want a pitch by email to a named journalist. That is a real skill and it takes weeks to learn. The Gazette does it differently: there is one form, the same form for everybody, and no tier that buys a better reading.
Why the desk exists
A founder with 400 customers and a genuinely odd story cannot get a reply from a national desk, while a company with a press agency and nothing new to say gets covered twice a month. That gap is not a judgement about which company is more interesting. It is a judgement about whose email gets opened.
The Gazette was built to close it. Submissions arrive in the same queue as the stories the paper finds itself, and they are judged on the same bar: is this useful, is this checkable, would a founder be glad it ran.
What to send
- One number you can prove. Customers, revenue, units shipped, months to break-even. One real figure beats five adjectives.
- Where that number can be checked. A dashboard screenshot, a public filing, a page on your own site. If there is nowhere, say so — the story then runs attributed to you, which is honest and still publishable.
- What actually happened. The decision you made, what it cost, what changed. Not the mission statement.
- Two links at most, to your own pages.
What the desk declines
Funding rounds where the number is the only content. Rewrites of another outlet’s article. Listicles. Anything with no checkable fact in it. Milestones that matter internally and nowhere else — a rebrand, a new hire nobody outside the company will feel, an award nobody has heard of.
Declining is not a verdict on the company. It is a verdict on today’s edition, and the desk says so in the note it sends.
What happens after you send it
The desk reads the submission, then drafts the story against the paper’s house rules and checks every figure against what you supplied. A human editor approves or declines it. If it runs, you get the article link, a share image sized for social, and a Featured badge for your own site on publication morning — and a permanent story number that keeps the piece in the archive.
Publication is free. An accepted story can pay £99 to take the next available slot rather than wait, which moves the date and nothing else; those stories carry a visible Sponsored label, because the reader is entitled to know who chose the date.
Questions
Is submitting a startup story free?
Yes. Sending a story costs nothing and acceptance is decided on editorial merit alone. Accepted stories can pay £99 to take the next available slot instead of waiting; that moves the date and adds a visible Sponsored label, and it is the only thing money can do here.
Which startup publications accept submissions?
Most publications take pitches by email to a named journalist, which means finding the right person and writing a pitch they will open. The Founder Gazette takes submissions through a form instead: one form, no tiers, and every submission is read by a person.
How long does it take to hear back?
The desk reads submissions daily. If a story is accepted you get an email with what happens next; if it is declined you get a short note saying so. Nobody is left waiting without an answer.
What makes a submission likely to be accepted?
One number you can prove, a specific thing that happened, and somewhere the number can be checked. A launch with a figure attached beats a launch described as exciting.
Send it
Also worth reading: how to get your startup featured when nobody has heard of you, what makes a founder story publishable, and where else to take a UK story.