PressWhisper: PR Agency Knowledge Now Software for £120/Month

Jim Edmondson had built and run companies for twenty years — nine of them at the head of an aerospace engineering group, with more than $120 million raised across his ventures along the way $120m — when he found himself doing something he had never done before: begging for press. The company was AVRE Industries, the WWII-heritage clothing and whisky brand he co-founded with the historian James Holland and the comedian Al Murray. The products were the kind that write their own headlines: a bespoke 1940-pattern battledress made in Britain, cut from a parachute that came down over Normandy; a 15-year-old blended malt bottled 265 times, one for each of the men of Operation Chariot, signed by Murray and Holland. What AVRE didn't have was a route to the people who write about clothes and whisky for a living. Every agency he spoke to quoted the same thing: around £5,000 a month, six-month minimum, £30,000 before a single word was printed. When he asked what the money bought, the answer was always a version of "relationships" — the agency knew which journalists mattered, and he didn't. That was the moment the business turned into a product. The agency wasn't selling writing; Edmondson could write. It was selling knowledge of who covers what, held in people's heads and address books, rented by the month and never owned. Knowledge is a database problem, and with his co-founder Jay Abbott — three decades of software engineering behind him — he set out to build the database. The tool they built reads what tens of thousands of journalists have actually been publishing, matches a story to the twenty whose recent work makes them a genuine fit, writes each of them an opening paragraph rooted in their own coverage, and stops there. There is no button to send more. Edmondson ran it on his own company first: Al Murray's whisky launch had press within 24 hours and a Beat Magazine feature, and James Holland launched his book The Visionaries through it in May. Then he gave it to ten other founders as a White Glove beta. All ten got press. Most landed three articles or more. The fastest journalist reply came back in four minutes and 39 seconds, in an industry where one pitch in thirty gets an answer at all. And a funded Los Angeles company that had been paying $15,000 a month on retainer booked a sit-down with a Puck journalist two and a half days after signing up. "For years the product agencies really sold wasn't the press release. It was knowing who actually mattered," Edmondson says. "Once software holds that knowledge, the advantage founders were paying for disappears. Founders still need a real story. They just don't need £5,000 a month to find out who should hear it." PressWhisper is built in Newquay on roughly £50,000 of the founders' own money and more than a thousand of their hours, with no outside investment. It is free to start and £120 a month after that, with no contract.

Press is the trust that converts — customers, investors, hires — and for two decades it has been priced like a luxury. Design went self-serve with Canva, websites with Webflow, accounting with Xero; PR was the last major function a founder still had to rent by the month. This is the story of the person who decided it didn't have to be, told by someone who had the money to pay the retainer and chose to build instead.

Every founder who has ever been told to wait until they can afford PR. The pre-seed company that gets a press office for less than its software stack; the funded company with an answer to the $15,000-a-month question. And, on the other side of the inbox, the journalists who currently wade through fifty-plus pitches a week to find one real story.

Beat Magazine feature on Al Murray and AVRE's Vat 01 whisky, 31 May 2026 — the first campaign the tool ever ran. The Visionaries by James Holland (Bantam, 7 May 2026) launched through the platform; Holland's testimonial is on presswhisper.com. White Glove beta: ten customers, ten got press, most with three or more articles; fastest reply 4m39s against an industry benchmark of one in thirty (Propel). DeepReal, Los Angeles: $15,000-a-month retainer replaced; Puck interview booked in 2.5 days at 0.8 per cent of the old bill. [CONFIRM naming] Bootstrapped: ~£50,000 founder capital, 1,000+ founder-hours, no outside investment.

Interview Jim in Newquay, or build a free press kit at presswhisper.com — £120 a month, no retainer.

n July the UK PR industry got its first price tag: £7.1 billion a year, 95,000 jobs, wages 18 per cent above the national average. In August a two-founder software company in Newquay went ten for ten against it. PressWhisper spent the summer running a White Glove beta — ten companies, each handed the full service: a press kit built to newsroom standard, a map of the twenty journalists whose recent work made them a genuine fit, and personalised pitches sent by the founder. All ten got press. Most landed three articles or more. The fastest reply from a journalist arrived four minutes and 39 seconds after the email did. The industry benchmark, from Propel's analysis of some 400,000 pitches, is one reply in thirty. The ten were not chosen for being easy. They included a Bristol e-commerce agency, a new cycling magazine, a Scottish whisky founded by rugby internationals, an independent running magazine staging its first festival, a loyalty app for independent shops, a menopause supplement, a surf-tracking app, a San Diego biotech, a WWII-heritage clothing brand and a funded Los Angeles media-tech company — that last one replacing a $15,000-a-month retainer and booking a Puck interview inside 60 hours. The same month the product community noticed. PressWhisper was #1 Product of the Day on Product Watch on 1 August, then Product of the Week and Product of the Month, and a Tiny Startups top pick. It launches on Product Hunt on Saturday 26 September. It has done this from Newquay, without a penny of outside money. Jim Edmondson — who ran an aerospace engineering group for nine years and co-founded the AVRE clothing and whisky brand with Al Murray and James Holland — and Jay Abbott, a software engineer with three decades of product launches behind him, have built the company on roughly £50,000 of their own capital and more than a thousand of their own hours. Their users are in Bristol, Edinburgh, London, San Diego and Los Angeles. Their office is a few minutes from Fistral. Cornwall's technology story is usually told through space and renewables. This is business software, built here, selling to founders in London and California — and taking on an industry that has just been valued at £7.1 billion with a product that costs £120 a month.

Ten for ten is the number the PR industry can't argue with, and it was produced by a company that has never raised a round. For Cornwall it is proof that a nationally competitive software business can be built and run from Newquay. For founders everywhere it is the first public evidence that the knowledge agencies rented out by the month works just as well when it is owned as software.

Cornish and South West founders who have never had a route to national press. The regional technology sector, which gets a product company to point to alongside the space cluster. And the ten beta customers, whose coverage is now in print.

White Glove beta, August 2026: ten customers, ten got press, most with three or more articles. Fastest reply 4m39s. Product Watch: #1 Product of the Day (1 Aug 2026), Product of the Week, Product of the Month. Tiny Startups top pick, August 2026. Product Hunt launch: Saturday 26 September 2026. UK PR industry valued at £7.1bn / 95,464 jobs (CBI Economics for the PRCA, 9 July 2026). Industry benchmark: journalists reply to roughly one pitch in thirty (Propel Media Barometer). Built in Newquay on ~£50,000 founder capital and 1,000+ founder-hours; no outside investment.

Jim is in Newquay and can walk a reporter through a live press map in twenty minutes. presswhisper.com — free to start.

Press was the last major startup function still gatekept by agencies — design went self-serve with Canva, websites with Webflow — and it just followed. Founders can now build an agency-grade, verified press kit and put it in front of the right twenty journalists themselves, for £120 a month. Unlike every previous DIY option, journalists answer it — because it was built to their standard.

Press is the trust that converts: customers, investors, hires. Founders were priced out of it at $10–15k a month, and the cheap alternative — blast tools — burned their names in every newsroom it touched. The journalist benefit is why this version works: verified claims, capped outreach, replies as the metric. The caveat that keeps this defensible: no tool can guarantee placement — journalists decide. The flagship case is deliberately reported as a reply and a booked interview rather than coverage, because the piece hasn't published yet.

Founders at any stage. The pre-seed founder who could never afford PR gets a press office for less than their software stack; the funded company gets an answer to the $15,000-a-month retainer question — the LA case was exactly that. Second order: the journalists whose inboxes get quieter and sharper.

A Los Angeles company replaced its $15,000-a-month PR retainer with PressWhisper. Within 2.5 days, a journalist at a major US business title had replied and booked the founder interview — at 0.8% of the old monthly spend. PressWhisper earned Beat Magazine coverage for AVRE, the WW2-inspired clothing and whisky brand fronted by Al Murray and James Holland — and co-founded by PressWhisper's Jim Edmondson, who tested the tool on his own company first. Unasked, PressWhisper built Virgin Atlantic a complete demonstration press kit around its real Starlink Wi-Fi launch: https://www.presswhisper.com/press/virgin-atlantic/virgin-atlantic-becomes-first-starlink The market maths, independently sourced: newsrooms are roughly 20% smaller than pre-pandemic while pitch volume is up 200%+ (Qwoted, 2026), and 53% of ~1,900 journalists surveyed oppose AI-generated pitches outright (Cision State of the Media 2026).

The reader's single next step: build your kit at presswhisper.com — £120 a month, no retainer.