MA Family is a communications company specializing in technology and venture capital. Pulse 2.0 interviewed MA Family Partner and Chief Operating Officer Yury Molodtsov to gain a deeper understanding of the company.
Yury Molodtsov’s Background
What is Yury Molodtsov’s background? Molodtsov said:
“I started in communications before moving into venture capital when I became the first employee of Day One Ventures. This San Francisco-based VC firm uniquely supports all of its portfolio companies with Communications and Public Relations. This game gave me a good understanding of tech startups and the challenges they face, whether it’s attracting customers, finding investors, or building a strong brand to hire great people.”
“I lead day-to-day operations at MA Family, a communications agency for tech companies, which means managing our distributed team of Account Managers and handling all the ongoing and future campaigns with our clients. We have a rule that all our clients must be managed personally by one of our partners, as this is the only way to guarantee quality and personalized service. So I provide my ideas and feedback from the messaging development to specific pitches. And I also like to talk to reporters and pitch announcements myself occasionally, since there’s no other way to stay immersed in this space.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Molodtsov reflected:
“I saw our client give a keynote at the WebSummit stage, and a giant crowd suddenly came just to see him. I also know how much work was involved in preparing this and how much time he spent on building the vision and refining his speech with a great coach that we found. Seeing the result of this was priceless.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features?
“We help companies communicate with their target audiences and achieve their business goals through Public Relations. This can mean vastly different things, from making product announcements to appearing on a Joe Rogan podcast, or setting up an event for 500 customers to sustain and build their community and support business development. The news media is just one channel. We create research pieces, produce viral stunts, handle offline events, and ghostwrite blogs and social profiles.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges have Molodtsov and the team faced in building the company? Molodtsov acknowledged:
“The media industry is changing a lot. It’s diverging into the mastodons like The New York Times and more niche, specialized outlets, with everyone in between bleeding staff through layoffs. We have to adapt and figure out how to work in this environment. Increasingly, our clients are interested in building their personal followings and communities, in addition to their media presence, which requires a new approach to working and finding individuals who can organize offline events and manage newsletters.”
Evolution Of The Company’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since its launch? Molodtsov noted:
“We never use AI for writing, but we use it a lot for research. PR is about creating a compelling story, and few things can be as compelling as hard data. AI is very useful for getting our hands on this. That’s probably the most significant change we experienced, even though it’s happening across the board. For gathering initial data, AI is already better and faster than an intern or a junior employee. Never use it for writing anything important, though; it just doesn’t have the taste to do it well.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Molodtsov cited:
“With Flipper Zero, we had to fight the Canadian government, which was trying to ban the device, to shift attention from a devastating situation with carjacking in the country. This included leveraging the community, consulting with multiple security experts and reporters, and leading the campaign to reverse the decision, which was ultimately successful.”
Customer Success Stories
When asking Molodtsov about customer success stories, he highlighted:
“Shortly after Christmas, the New York Times published a negative story about our client, implying that their software was used to hack hundreds of vendors and the Pentagon itself. However, it was rushed and lacked a solid basis; still, it caused significant turmoil as customers rushed to ask questions and warn that their policies might lead to the termination of their contracts. We worked tirelessly to update the story itself and secure follow-up pieces in Forbes and other publications that presented our side of the story. Since the DOJ had no interest in our client specifically, we were able to calm this down very quickly.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing?
“Practically all companies beyond the Series B stage need communications in one way or another. They outsource this for various reasons: sometimes, they lack the expertise to tackle a particular market or country, and sometimes, they want to make a buzz and attract customers, investors, and prospective employees from other niches.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Molodtsov affirmed:
“In addition to PR and journalism, our team members have professional backgrounds in tech, venture capital, cybersecurity, and web3. We speak the same language and can turn mundane product updates into newsworthy events. We come in as consultants and drive internal strategies to meet business goals. We connect our clients to each other and help them find the best partners, customers, and outside consultants, whether they need branding, design, or speaking coaches. We hold regular events and meetups to introduce them.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future goals? Molodtsov concluded:
“In the near future, being included in major LLM training datasets will be as crucial as ranking on the first page of Google. As users turn to AI for product recommendations, research, summaries, and learning, businesses have a new arena to reach audiences. Competition for visibility in AI search will be fierce and increasingly vital. We want to help our clients secure a foothold in there. Because the most reliable path into these datasets is through high-quality coverage in major media outlets partnered with AI labs like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Perplexity. In this new landscape, optimizing for training dataset inclusion is the next evolution of SEO.”
