Pitch the desk.
We commission long-form and dispatch work from writers who report — not writers who summarise. We pay on publication and respond to every pitch, even when it's a no.
What we publish
Two forms, both requiring actual reporting — a source on the phone, a company visit, a document obtained:
Reported features, founder profiles, and deep-analysis pieces. The story should have a specific question at its centre and answer it through reporting, not opinion.
Field notes from inside a company during a specific week. A product launch, a hiring sprint, a pivot. You were there; this is what you saw.
Rates
We pay $0.50 – $1.20 per word depending on form and reporting depth. Long-form with significant original research lands at the top of that range. Quick dispatches are toward the bottom. Rates are agreed before commission; no surprises at invoice.
Payment is on publication via bank transfer or Wise. We do not pay on acceptance only — if we commission a piece and kill it at edit, we pay the agreed kill fee (25% of the commissioned rate).
What we're looking for
- A founder or operator nobody has profiled well. Not the same fifteen people that appear in every feature. Interesting work at the second and third tier, or a contrarian angle on a familiar name.
- A decision, not a journey. What was the actual choice, and what did it cost? Founding stories are fine but they need a specific pivot point, not a summary arc.
- Numbers that nobody else has. If you have access to financials, hiring data, or internal metrics — pitch it with that as the lead. Documents make stories.
- Field notes from the inside. A week embedded with a company that is doing something other publications haven't noticed yet.
What we are not
- No thought leadership. Opinion pieces without reporting to back them up are not something we publish.
- No SEO bait. “The 7 lessons I learned from building my startup” is not a pitch. We do not publish list content.
- No rewrites. If the piece would be substantively similar to something already published in TechCrunch, Forbes, or any other publication, don't pitch it to us.
How to pitch
Submit through the pitch form with: one paragraph on the story (what it is, why now, who you talked to or plan to), one paragraph on you (relevant clips, context), and your proposed word count and form. We read every pitch; turnaround is under two weeks. You can also email info@theentrepreneurstory.com if you prefer plain email — but the form gets to the desk faster.