OC Weekly feature article: “Firecracker PR Reflects on Two Decades of Helping Companies Get Known”

Thank you OC Weekly for their thoughtful feature on Firecracker PR founder and managing partner Edward Yang, and his reflections on 20 years of service.

Here’s an excerpt from the article (click here to read it in its entirety):

“While working for Orange County technology companies in the early 2000’s, Edward Yang saw a persistent problem: most tech companies were horrible communicators. They tended to focus more on features and benefits, and not enough on telling compelling stories. That’s where he saw a need that could be filled.

Yang cut his teeth at OG technology company Gateway in their Lake Forest location before the company began its inevitable decline against fierce rival Dell. From there, he had stints at other Orange County tech firms such as Envision Financial Systems and D-Link. Firecracker PR was founded as a part-time consulting business in 2004, steadily adding clients who saw the benefit of getting press coverage on a regular basis. In 2008, Yang quit his job to run Firecracker PR full time…just as the housing market plunged the nation into a recession.

Yang smiled as he recalled those times, “Ironically, those hard times may have benefited us. Companies were looking for ways to cut costs, and one attractive area was these overpriced public relations agencies charging outrageous monthly retainers for little results. We won over prospects with a value message of delivering more for less.””