🚀📰 How I Landed Forbes, ABC News & HuffPost in 30 Days (With No PR Team)
Published 4 months ago • 4 min read
🧵 The Unhinged Confidence That Helped Me Build A Globally-Recognized Brand
I was 26 years old and had spent about 8 months working on my side hustle, Sukoon Active. I had the naiveté and unhinged confidence of a first-time founder in her 20s: I thought everything was possible — and to some extent, it was. Sukoon consumed most of my nights and weekends.
What most people don’t know is: news outlets, podcast hosts, everyone in media is ALWAYS looking for a story. I actually didn’t know that either. BUT, I was a girl with a dream living in New York City. I had decided to launch a Kickstarter campaign for my brand in May 2016.
My background was in affordable housing finance — aka a desk job where I plugged numbers into Excel spreadsheets all day. So, starting a clothing brand dedicated to Muslim women as my side hustle was quite a departure from everything I knew.
In some ways…I never dreamed of making it into mainstream media. But in other moments, I wondered, why not me?
It wasn’t about going viral. It wasn’t even about having the best product. It was about positioning. And persistence! It was about moving forward, through the rejection.
Keep reading for how it all went down.
💡 Inside This Issue
If you're new here — hi! I’m Arshiya, and this newsletter lives at the intersection of storytelling, leadership, and what it means to build something real without losing yourself. I write about identity, strategy, and the invisible work behind visibility.
This week → I'm going back in time to my first company — and how we landed major press within weeks of launching.
📣 The Backstory
When I launched my first brand, we didn’t have a PR firm. No big agency. No email list. It was just me in my tiny Lower East Side apartment with an idea and a bunch of friends cheering me on.
I had joined a small product founder group that an old coworker had referred me to, and there were some really cool people in there who had done $1M Kickstarter campaigns with growth agencies. My eyes were wide — a part of me wished I had the money to hire an agency… but another part of me knew that the goal of my Kickstarter was to prove out my concept through organic market validation.
After chatting with one of these agency-backed founders, I realized: What the agencies do is reach out to reporters and pitch a story to get media coverage.
Cue: unhinged confidence! I knew I had a powerful story and a deep belief that the market (and the media) was ready for it.
I cold-emailed dozens of reporters. I started a Twitter account and tweeted at them. I had no idea what a press kit was, so I literally just emailed a few paragraphs and snapshots of my prototypes. In the pre chat GPT world…my story was raw, at best. But it was full of PASSION. I made sure every touchpoint spoke directly to the why behind the brand — not just the product, but the problem it solved and the story it carried.
For better or for worse, I showed up like we were already worthy of the spotlight.
💥 The Video That Changed Everything
Not gonna lie…the majority of these pitches went unanswered. BUT. One day, about 2 weeks into my Kickstarter campaign, I woke up from a Ramadan nap to HUNDREDS of notifications on my Facebook account. I immediately felt worried — did I get hacked?
The press didn’t care about what I built (to be honest I hadn’t even launched anything yet!). They cared about why I was dedicating myself to building it.
💼 Work With Me
To be honest, sometimes it’s hard to talk about those early milestones. Part of me still can’t believe I did all that! But here’s the thing: once you do it, no one can take it away. That milestone lives in your story forever — no matter what happens to the brand, the launch, or your career.
I think back to that day a lot — and how a conversation with someone I met in a random founder group inspired me to write all those cold pitches. I think about all the people I met after that — sometimes strangers, sometimes hired consultants, mentors, and experts who were just a few steps ahead. They helped me determine what to do next.
All those people changed the course of my startup — and, honestly, the course of my life.
If you’re trying to grow your visibility, your business, or your leadership presence — I'd love to chat and explore what it could look like to work together.
I’ve launched bootstrapped brands with zero connections. I’ve landed in Forbes and ABC without a PR team. I’ve navigated corporate systems as the only woman of color in the room. And now, I coach and advise people who are building their next thing — bringing over a decade of experience, strategy, and story to help shape your transformation.
🧘🏽♀️ Wellness: Don't meditate your way out of anxiety, do THIS instead.
📈 Social Media Strategy: My favorite digital media director asserts that every brand should have a weird, social-first series."The weirder, the better." Would you try this?
One of my earliest mentors for Sukoon, Nawal! She hosted me in Vietnam to explore my first production run in 2017. Everything she guided me through forever changed my life, and kicked off a decade of learning about how to build an ethical global supply chain.
