10,000 Signups in 24 Hours: Honeyjar Bets AI Can Fix PR

Honeyjar pulled 10,000 waitlist signups in its first 24 hours, and its beta roster already includes Nextdoor, Coco Robotics, Bloomberg Beta, Mission North and Full Picture. That's a fast start for a startup whose founders say the PR process itself is broken — and who are betting AI can rebuild it.

CEO Michelle Masek and Chief Communications Officer Nadia Jamshidi launched Honeyjar to bottle the expertise of senior PR pros and sell it to anyone who handles communications without the title. The company will appear at TechCrunch Disrupt this week as part of the Startup Battlefield 200. Both founders spent decades in in-house communications and at agencies; Masek recently served as senior vice president of marketing and communications at Ev Williams' venture firm, Obvious Ventures.

The product automates announcements, journalist targeting and speaking-opportunity scouting. But the scope is wider than pitch-writing.

"Honeyjar can find reporters, build media lists, scan news and social, track coverage, and surface opportunities," Jamshidi said. "Those capabilities are important, but they're just one piece of what we're building. The bigger idea is bringing the whole communications workflow together: signals, context, strategy, judgment, timing, and execution."

Where did the idea come from?

The origin story runs through Obvious Ventures' portfolio. Masek described the challenge of "helping with the why and when of comms and marketing for 110 portfolio companies" — and found herself asking, "Is there a way to scale the senior-level expertise into AI [in a way] that actually helps users do the work of comms in the proactive and skilled way that we do?"

Honeyjar is her answer. The founders insist the tool doesn't replace PR professionals. Masek said she and Jamshidi built the tool they wanted to use themselves, and argued it can make agencies and in-house teams more effective while letting solo practitioners "take on that third client without any scaling cost."

The target market extends well beyond founders. Masek said she realized there are "millions and millions of unassigned communicators responsible for the work of comms."

"They don't have the title of comms, but they're marketers, investors, authors, creators, school superintendents, sports team leaders," she said. "It's incredibly horizontal, this need to nail strategic communications. It's always passed around, but the problems are very often not solved."

That's a deliberately broad wedge into a market the founders say nobody formally owns. In plain words: Honeyjar is selling judgment to people who don't have a comms hire.

What about AI-generated PR spam?

Journalists already drown in AI-written pitches, and a tool that drafts more of them sounds like a threat to inboxes. Masek's answer: the customer still has to hit send. Honeyjar can draft a pitch email or social post in the customer's voice, but publishing stays human.

"We never want a world where the human is removed from the loop," she said.

The founders say they've tried to "infuse and encode Honeyjar with our wisdom," and a broader initiative called the Comms Lab now trains the product on the judgment of other PR pros as well.

"For us, judgment is knowing what to do, what not to do, when to act, and how to adapt to the situation," Jamshidi said. "That comes from understanding a company's goals and priorities, what's happening inside and outside the organization, and knowing what to say, to whom, where, and when."

Sometimes that judgment means restraint. Masek said Honeyjar might tell a founder they're simply not ready for coverage — a filter most pitch-blasting tools don't offer.

"We hear from reporters all the time who want better pitches, who want to hear from experts directly," she said. "We actually see a future where there are more credible pitches in your inbox from sources who you actually want to hear from."

Whether reporters buy that vision — or just see more automated mail — will decide how far the 10,000-signup momentum carries.

By Grace Kim