TuneCore, a startup that lets musicians break out of the label world and publish their music directly to online distribution channels like iTunes and Amazon, has been on a tear lately with some excellent and well deserved press coverage.
I asked one of our interns, Peter, to email their PR group to get additional background information for CrunchBase and a potential story we’re working on that involves them. Peter did just that, sending a very polite email to “press@tunecore.com” asking for additional information on their funding and, hopefully, starting a dialog.
Apparently that email goes to Jeff Price, the CEO (pictured to right). He responded back:
Hi Peter
Why are you asking. How will this information be used? Who are you? Who funds you?
Peter responded politely with a lengthy description of TechCrunch, who he is, and why he wants to have a discussion with TuneCore’s PR group. Price’s response:
Hi Peter
Thank you for educating me on your site.
Here is a link to all of our press releases for more information on TuneCore
http://www.shorefire.com/clients/tunecore/
I suspect you might have better luck getting information if you did not cold contact the CEO and state you want to know sensitive information without first establishing a relationship and context
As you can imagine, we didn’t expect this kind of response from a simple email to their press group. If anyone out there actually represents TuneCore and is interested in having a civil conversation with us about the business, please contact us. Otherwise, we’ll just go f** ourselves per Price’s request.