The Anti-Techcrunch Revolution: 7 Shocking Ways Paying Us to Demolish Your Startup Will Unleash Viral Fame While You’re Still Broke

Because getting eviscerated by professionals is the only marketing strategy you can actually afford

In an industry where the average startup has a better chance of being struck by lightning while winning the lottery than getting featured on TechCrunch or the big tech media mafia, a bold new marketing strategy has emerged: paying someone to publicly mock everything you’ve worked for. At TechOnion, we’re proud to announce our new service where we brutally roast your startup for a fraction of what you would waste on LinkedIn ads that nobody will ever see.

The Attention Economy’s Dirty Secret

Let’s face it: tech media doesn’t care about your “revolutionary” app that helps people catalog their houseplants or your “game-changing” SaaS platform that’s basically just Slack with different colored buttons. TechCrunch, The Verge, and other major outlets are too busy writing their 47th article about whatever Elon Musk tweeted while sitting on the toilet this morning.

A recent completely real study that we definitely didn’t make up shows that 94% of press releases sent by early-stage startups end up in the same digital folder as those emails from your college ex who “just wants to catch up.” They’re not even being rejected—they’re being ignored, which in the attention economy is a fate worse than death.

“We spent $15,000 on a PR firm and got one mention in the ‘New Funding’ section of a newsletter that only VCs read, and they were all too busy looking at their own reflections in PowerPoint decks to notice,” said Brianna Zhang, founder of WaterCycle, an AI-powered water bottle that reminds you you’re dehydrated while simultaneously making you feel bad about climate change.

Enter Strategic Self-Flagellation

This is where TechOnion’s “Roast Your Startup Until It’s Medium Rare” service comes in. For a modest fee (significantly less than a single booth at a conference where you’ll collect 200 business cards that immediately go into the trash), we will publicly eviscerate your company with such precision and wit that people can’t help but pay attention.

Why does this work? Because 58% of consumers want content that makes them laugh.¹ And nothing is funnier than watching someone else’s dreams get crushed—especially when they’re in on the joke.

The psychology is simple: when Dollar Shave Club founder Michael Dubin used self-deprecating humor in his marketing, the company’s website crashed from traffic and the video gained over 28 million views.² When SURREAL cereal took playful digs at other cereal brands, they built a massive following on LinkedIn of all places. And when Squatty Potty featured a unicorn defecating ice cream (we’re not making this up), company sales increased by 600%.³

“Getting roasted by TechOnion was the best thing that ever happened to our startup,” claimed Alex Johnson, founder of MindfulMoment, an app that uses machine learning to tell you exactly how bad you are at meditation. “They said our UI looked like it was designed by a toddler who’d been given espresso and a box of crayons. Traffic to our site increased 3000%, and we closed our seed round the next day. Turns out VCs love companies that can take a punch in the crouch”

The Premium Roasting Experience

Our roasting packages come in three tiers:

1. The “Mild Discomfort” Package ($499)

• A 500-word takedown of your business model
• Three jokes about your founder’s LinkedIn profile
• One comparison to a failed startup that makes your team nervously Google “Are we actually just [Juicero/Theranos/Quibi]?”

2. The “Existential Crisis” Package ($999)

• A 1,500-word comprehensive dismantling of your company
• An AI-generated image of your founders crying in a WeWork
• A detailed explanation of why your TAM analysis is more fictional than Lord of the Rings
• A flowchart predicting exactly how your startup will pivot before eventually becoming a crypto company

3. The “Complete Psychological Devastation” Package ($2,499)

• A 2,500-word surgical dissection of everything wrong with your company
• A custom video where we explain to your parents what you actually do in terms they’ll understand, only to watch their faces fall with disappointment
• A detailed analysis of which of your competitors will acquire your technology after you fail
• A mock press release announcing your company’s demise that’s so convincing your investors will call in a panic

The Science Behind the Shame

This isn’t just about humiliation—it’s strategic humiliation. Website roasting is “a powerful tool to uncover hidden issues, improve user experience, boost SEO, and drive better results”.⁴ While traditional marketing channels require significant investment, guerrilla marketing techniques like our roasting service allow startups to “generate buzz and attract attention without spending large sums on traditional advertising”.⁵

Plus, parody and satire can “help your campaign stand out and reach a wider audience”.⁶ When people find something funny, they’re more likely to share it. And in the digital age, where social media and word-of-mouth are crucial for success, this can be a major advantage.

“After TechOnion roasted us, our demo video went viral in VC circles,” said Mohammed Al-Farsi, founder of CryptoKitty2049, a blockchain platform that lets you buy and sell digital pets that are identical to the original CryptoKitties but cost twice as much for no reason. “One investor told me, ‘I still think your idea is stupid, but anyone who can laugh at themselves this hard might just be crazy enough to succeed.’ He wrote us a check for $3 million.”

How It Works

1. You apply: Send us an email at [email protected] and tell us what your startup does. Be specific. We can’t properly mock your unrealistic unit economics if we don’t understand them.
2. We investigate: Our team of cynical tech journalists and failed founders dig through your website, social media, and pitch deck to find every flaw, inconsistency, and instance of the phrase “we’re like Uber but for…”
3. We create: Our writers craft a devastatingly funny takedown of your business that somehow makes people want to check it out anyway.
4. You cry, then celebrate: First, you’ll question all your life choices. Then, you’ll watch your website traffic and social media follows skyrocket as people rush to see if you’re really as ridiculous as we made you sound.

Why This Actually Works

The cold, hard truth? In today’s overcrowded startup ecosystem, attention is the scarcest resource. Traditional PR is expensive and increasingly ineffective. Content marketing takes months to gain traction. Social media is a slot machine that occasionally pays out but mostly just takes your quarters.

But humor? Humor cuts through everything!

“Guerilla marketing is all about thinking outside the box and standing out from the crowd,” according to startup marketing experts. By voluntarily putting yourself in the line of fire, you demonstrate confidence, self-awareness, and the kind of resilience that makes investors think, “This team won’t crumble under pressure.”

Plus, as the team at Slack discovered, you can showcase your product’s effectiveness through “witty taglines and humorous scenarios”. When we roast you, we’re not just making fun of you—we’re highlighting your product’s features and benefits in a way that people will actually remember.

The Hidden Benefits Nobody Talks About

Beyond the obvious marketing advantages, getting roasted provides several unexpected benefits:

1. Investor Immunity: After we’re done with you, investor due diligence will feel like a gentle massage. You’ll have heard—and laughed at—every possible criticism of your business.
2. Team Building: Nothing brings a startup team together like collectively being the butt of a joke. It’s like an expensive corporate retreat, but without the trust falls and personality tests.
3. Product Clarity: Our roasts often accidentally provide the clearest explanation of what your product actually does. Multiple founders have told us they now use quotes from our roasts in their elevator pitches.
4. Reality Check: Sometimes you need someone to tell you that your blockchain-enabled AI toothbrush for dogs is actually a terrible idea before you spend your parents’ retirement fund on it.
5. Content Jackpot: The roast itself becomes content you can share, respond to, and leverage across all your channels. It’s content marketing you don’t have to create yourself.

The Ultimate ROI

Traditional marketing methods promise vague returns on substantial investments. Our roasting service delivers concrete results: immediate attention, memorable branding, and the kind of word-of-mouth that money can’t buy.

“We spent six months trying to get coverage in tech publications with zero success,” said Patricia Okoro, founder of FitFriend, an AI personal trainer that’s just as judgmental as a real one. “TechOnion roasted us on a Monday. By Wednesday, we’d been contacted by TechCrunch, Product Hunt featured us, and three angel investors slid into my DMs. All because someone finally had the courage to point out that our logo looks like a reproductive organ.”

The Choice Is Yours

You can continue sending press releases into the void, spending your limited runway on Facebook ads that get ignored, and hoping that someone, somewhere, will care about your startup.

Or you can embrace the roast, turn vulnerability into visibility, and join the ranks of founders who discovered that sometimes the best way to get taken seriously is to stop taking yourself so seriously.

The tech media landscape is broken. PR is dead. Traditional marketing is a money pit. But satire? Satire is forever.

Apply now to get roasted. Your ego may never recover, but your startup just might.

References

1. https://contentworks.agency/10-brands-that-do-humour-in-social-media/ ↩︎
2. https://hackernoon.com/5-startups-using-funny-marketing-to-stand-out ↩︎
3. https://www.allbusiness.com/4-companies-use-humor-marketing-113812-1.html ↩︎
4. https://attractly.co.uk/blog/why-getting-a-roasting-of-your-website-homepage-or-landing-page-is-a-great-idea ↩︎
5. https://fastercapital.com/topics/the-benefits-of-guerilla-marketing-for-small-businesses-and-startups.html ↩︎
6. https://10xscale.co/the-use-of-parody-and-satire-in-digital-marketing-campaigns/ ↩︎