The Difference Between A Review and Write Up [Startups]

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I have many people asking me to write about their startups, and even more so than ever before. Many times, I respectfully decline usually due to two things:

1. The startup isn’t really a startup and is not worth writing about (no offense). 

2. I simply do not have the time (I do have a life).

If the startup happens to get past these filters and perk my interest, they usually are told a “write up” will be given.

A write up is very different from a review in one very important way; I do not test out the service. Instead, I research the startup, maybe conduct an interview with the founders and publish a post based off of that with a link out to an actual review done by someone else.

Sometimes though, startups pass through the write up filter and hit what I would consider gold with me, a review.

This means I will make an account and use your service, top to bottom for weeks before writing up a post on my site. I will find out every flaw, every benefit and report all that to the founder before writing the post. I also only do a review once a startup is past the private beta stage, this is because this is the testing phase where issues are everywhere and I don’t find that to be fair.

This does not mean if I do a review I will praise a startup, I have completely torn apart products I have reviewed in the past. It just means I have been inspired by a startup’s product enough to invest time into and write about their product.

There you have it, how I write about startups and the difference between a write up and a review. What about you startup reviewers? How do you pick and choose what startup you want to cover?

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  • Interesting post. It would be really useful if you could include links to your past work. Maybe one link to your last review and one to your last write up. Just to provide a solid example of what you are saying. What do you think?
  • If you give me a day to look through my previous posts I can definitely give you some examples :D
  • thanks
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