The first spark
When did it all start? First, a long time ago there was this guy, Mike, who just began his career. A while back, Mike was already in PR – but he worked shoulder to shoulder with marketers who measured everything. That discipline stuck: if you can track what works, you can improve it. So he carried the same logic into his PR craft – curiosity, data, and a belief that communication should be transparent and accountable.
Alina Chepurchenko, now our brand manager and data reporter, was one of the first people who believed in Mike long before Outset PR existed. They’d worked together before, and she’d already seen how his way of thinking could change the rules of PR. She remembers:
“It was in another company where Mike led the PR department. One day, a client reached out to him directly and asked for an interview. Mike took it on, delivered the piece, and the client was thrilled. That’s when I realized: he has his own thing to build in PR.”
Mike’s idea was simple: PR should be transparent and data-driven. While most PR people stopped at the publication, he went further, following what happened next.
He called it “collecting tails (or syndications)” – tracking every trace of a campaign to see its real effect. What once started as a personal habit grew into one of Outset PR’s main principles.
Alongside being a strategist, as a person Mike Ermolaev is deeply humane. It set him apart: his instinct to listen, to care, to give people space. That same empathy became the agency’s core. Yana Samaricheva, now head of content and brand positioning, who has stood shoulder to shoulder with Mike since joining his first PR department in 2019, recalls that it was his openness and warmth that brought the right people together – the kind who still define Outset PR today.
Around it, Mike gathered those who shared that vision. At first, it was just a small chat of five: Mike himself, Yana, Alina, and two more trusted teammates (now brilliant content and project managers in reputable organizations of Europe and Middle East) who joined in part time to support the idea of starting an agency. When it came up, Mike wasn’t sure yet – but they were. The girls said: let’s do it – we’ll back you up. That support became the spark that turned a thought into action.
The moments that shaped us
Then came the first client, Münzen, and it all started.
2023 was quite chaotic. Mike recalls it this way:
“Everything was a bit blurry. It was a strange mix of fear and excitement: fear because now you’re responsible for people, and excitement because you feel something real is finally happening.”
At that point, the agency was still shaping its core, building the client base and testing approaches that would later define its method. Most of the analytics was done manually: tracking coverage by hand, comparing results across outlets, and learning how visibility actually worked. It was the groundwork for everything that came next – messy, detailed, but essential.
Sales meet strategy
Anastasia Anisimova, now head of media relations, was at the center of building the team that handled media partnerships and sales communications. That was where the scaling really began. Soon after, Mike’s fellow SEO specialists joined the process, adding traffic insights that helped launch our first large, data-backed user acquisition campaigns.
As those campaigns rolled out, analytics started to evolve from a supporting function into a system of its own. The agency began accumulating massive datasets – tracking syndications, coverage patterns, and engagement signals. Over time data became a structured framework guiding every decision, from client offers to post-campaign reports.
Meanwhile, Anastasia’s team kept strengthening relationships with the media – building genuine, long-term understanding. That trust turned into real leverage: by late 2024, Outset PR had become one of the major players in crypto media buying, working closely with key outlets across the space. As Anastasia recalls:
“That’s when we realized we weren’t just selling coverage – we were helping shape business results.”
From hands-on to built-in
The next step came naturally. Analytics was already part of how the team worked – every campaign left behind data worth studying. But when Maximilian Fondé, now senior media analyst, joined Outset PR, that process finally took shape. He brought structure to what had previously been tracked manually and turned scattered insights into a coherent framework.
From then on, analytics shifted from a side process to a core strategy. Performance metrics, visibility indexes, and ROI became everyday logic – the groundwork for what the team would later call data-driven PR. Danijela Tomić, now lead of the organic content team, puts it simply:
“Data has become part of our DNA, and today we’re turning insights into real influence. It’s not just about collecting numbers; it’s about understanding what they mean and how they change the story. For us, analytics isn’t a report at the end – it’s a compass that shows where to go next.”
A breather in Tbilisi
After two years of non-stop growth, we knew we needed a pause. To look back, catch our breath, and meet each other for real. The team had worked together without ever being in the same room. So we packed our laptops and booked tickets. It set a new hearty tradition, our team meetup in Georgia.
We stepped fully offline: no more avatars and handles, just real people in one place. It became both a symbol of growth and a reminder of what holds the structure together – connection, trust, and the shared energy that no Zoom call can replace.
For a few days, work and life blended perfectly. We laughed, shared stories, made plans, and came back with new energy – ready to build, pitch, and write again, twice as strong.
As Katya Voziyanova said later, “People who’d never met in person clicked instantly. Even our long-term partners, who joined us in Tbilisi, felt like part of the team. They got pulled by our energy.”
The syndication map and our signature market reports
The Georgia retreat really paid off. We came back buzzing with ideas, and the results showed up fast. Within weeks, Max presented the first version of the syndication map – an analytical system that maps how crypto media actually works. What began as a few sloppy spreadsheets quickly evolved into an interactive structure – one that shows which outlets spark republications, how stories travel through the ecosystem, and how far a single piece of news can really go.
With the arrival of Sofia Belotskaia, now product manager, we finally began developing our first internal parser. What used to be a rough, manual process became a structured, systematic build. By September 2025, the MVP was live – an actionable tracker that scans search engines and collects syndication trails from a single publication. Automating what used to take hours (and plenty of pain) marked one of the agency’s biggest leaps forward in capability.
Soon, we’ve collected an enormous amount of data that needed to be shared. That’s when the idea appeared to create a resource where we could visualize everything we see in the market. So, Outset PR started publishing its own media reports called Outset Data Pulse. They became the agency’s distinctive trait, showing trends, reach, and performance across global and local outlets. Katya puts it just right:
“When you see our reports shared and quoted, you realize – we’re not just following the market, we’re helping to shape it.”
Our first LATAM edition was a huge leap. It proved that PR could explain market behavior through data. The success of that experiment shaped the blueprint for what came next. One report turned into a series: regional studies that helped both clients and media partners see communication impact clearly and take the right steps.
What holds us together
Outset PR runs on trust – the kind that speeds things up instead of slowing them down. Our team works without heavy management or bureaucracy. Everyone owns their part, makes decisions fast, and knows why they matter. That autonomy is what keeps the agency agile and consistent at the same time. As Yana wryly puts it:
“We have controlled anarchy around here. Everyone has space to make mistakes and learn.”
People join Outset PR not just for roles but for mindset. Collaboration here is about matching pace and curiosity. Ideas move quickly because everyone is free to always try something new. Inside, communication is direct and transparent – fewer layers, more context, faster feedback. The general atmosphere, as Danijela says, is a pure harmony:
“There’s a rare balance here: everything’s serious, but it still feels easy.”
Doing PR our way
That same atmosphere defines how Outset PR communicates externally. Clients and media partners feel the same openness the team practices inside – quick responses, honest feedback, and respect for everyone’s time. Alina describes it like that:
“The same transparency that drives analytics drives communication too – no hidden terms, no empty promises.”
Outset PR itself was born from the idea that PR could be done differently. For Mike, it started as a conviction: communication shouldn’t rely on intuition alone. It can be systematic, transparent, and verifiable – a discipline with logic and outcomes.
“We don’t sell PR as a service – we sell meaning,” Yana says. “We show that PR can be fair, transparent, and safe.”
While the market often treats public relations as something vague or secondary, we turned it into a working tool, serving true data-driven PR at its best – with metrics and clear impact. Our job isn’t to collect publications, it’s to create results you can actually see.
We also don’t follow clients' requests blindly. Years of working with global media have taught us what every outlet can deliver, and where value really comes from. That’s why we suggest smarter, data-backed alternatives to placements, even when a client has their favorites.
And if we see that collaboration won’t bring real benefit, we say so. Outset PR builds partnerships, and instead of profit, our goal is long-term trust. Because when relationships are honest, results always follow.
What’s next for Outset PR
A lot has been built – but even more is ahead. The last few years were about laying the foundation: building systems, shaping positioning, proving that PR can be both human-centric and data-driven.
Now comes the stage of growth – expanding what works, refining what we’ve built, and exploring new ways to deliver results for clients. With that thought in mind, in 2026, we’ll introduce a new product that takes our analytics to the next level. Not to spill too much of the tea: think of it as a unified interface that helps us and other PR talents to track all things сrypto media – and put that information at the center of performance-based strategies.
Outset PR will keep experimenting. The team never stops looking for unexpected paths – new methods, new products, new collaborations. There’s always something to test, rethink, and improve. But one thing won’t change – the agency’s character.
Well, enough talking. We asked our core team directly how they see our future. No scripts and filters, just sincere answers from the people who build Outset PR every day. Alina pointed out our mindfulness:
“The next stage isn’t just growth but conscious development – deeper analytics, more transparent processes, and clearer results.”
Anastasia added to that the connectivity of all the processes:
“We’re turning what we’ve built into a multi-layered system – PR, media, analytics, products, all reinforcing each other.”
Eugenia Nosova, now content selling team lead, makes a point about our comfortable, family-like vibes:
“If in three years Outset PR stays the way it is now – with the same people, the same drive, and the same sense of fun – I’ll be happy to still be part of it.”
And, of course, Mike echoes us and goes out loud:
“With this team, we can move mountains – and I want everyone to know that!”
