Edamame PR’s case for fixed-price earned media
Eitan Soloducho is Managing Partner at Edamame PR & Strategy, a no-retainer PR agency that secures earned media coverage for founders and companies worldwide, as well as O-1 and EB-1 visa applicants. The conversation explores how fixed-price placements and refunds helped the agency win trust, and how clear timelines, outlet selection and client approvals shape the work.
When a service depends partly on outside editors, reduce uncertainty by agreeing on the outlet, format and delivery window upfront, and make payment depend on delivery. Honest outlet fit and a single client approver can also prevent delays and misplaced expectations.
What’s the short story of how your business started, and what makes it genuinely different from the other options your customers have?
We started Edamame PR & Strategy in 2014 to get rid of the waste and uncertainty of the retainer model. Founders kept telling the same story: monthly invoices, activity reports, and few or no articles to show for it. So we built a no-retainer model. Clients approve specific placements upfront: which outlet, what format, which time window. They pay a fixed price per article, and if a placement isn’t delivered, they get a 100% refund. Since 2014, about 96% of the placements we’ve taken on went live. We only do earned coverage, no paid "council" posts, and clients approve the topic and every draft before an editor sees it. In 2021, Forbes used us as the example of a firm that "offers one service and does it well." As for the name, edamame is healthy, delicious and affordable. That felt like the right standard for PR.
How did you win your first customers, and where does most of your new business come from today?
Cold outreach. In 2014 nobody knew us, so we reached out to companies directly. The offer was simple: pay for a specific article, with a full refund if it isn’t delivered. That takes the risk out of trying an unknown firm. Today, most of our new business comes from referrals and repeat clients. Many clients come back for their next round of placements and introduce us to people they know. One example: a client’s Forbes placement fell through when the editor left the outlet. They got a full refund, and a month later they ordered 4 more placements. When the model stays fair even when something goes wrong, people come back and send others.
What’s one decision that changed the direction of your business, and one mistake that taught you the most?
The decision was committing to a delivery window before the client pays. Every placement now comes with a 21 to 60 day window, agreed upfront. That turned PR from an open-ended expense into something clients can plan around: a launch, a funding round, or a visa filing date. Writing the article is the fast part, usually about a week. Most of the window is the outlet’s own queue, so we plan around each editor’s schedule from day one. The mistake that taught me the most was letting too many people on the client side edit one draft. Four people once edited a single article, and it added three weeks. Now we ask every client for one approver before we start, and with listed companies we build legal review into the timeline from the beginning.
What has changed in your industry or in what your customers expect over the last couple of years, and how have you adapted?
More and more people ask an AI assistant instead of searching Google. Founders now ask us whether coverage will help them show up in ChatGPT and Claude. It does, because AI assistants lean on trusted publications, so earned coverage is one of the few levers a company has. A few weeks after one client’s Entrepreneur feature, ChatGPT started naming them when asked for the best AI tools for finance teams. We adapted in two ways. We choose outlets by what the client’s buyers actually read, and those are often the same publications AI assistants cite. And we keep the facts in every article consistent with the client’s website and LinkedIn, because AI answers get clearer when everything describes a company the same way. Clients also want certainty from day one: the outlet, the format and the timing.
If you were advising someone starting out in your industry today, what would you tell them to do first, and what would you tell them to ignore?
Do first: learn what each outlet actually publishes, and be honest with clients about fit. Saying "this won’t land at VentureBeat, but it will at ReadWrite" saves everyone a month. Start every conversation with where the client’s buyers read, not with which logo they want. A feature in the trade outlet their market reads often does more than a Forbes mention nobody in that market sees. And tie your fee to placements, with a refund when one isn’t delivered. It makes you more careful about what you take on, and clients trust it. What to ignore: activity reports and pitch counts that don’t end in a published article, and any promise about outcomes someone else decides, like an editor’s choice or a visa decision. We never promise a visa outcome. We deliver the articles.
Thank you to Eitan Soloducho and the team at Edamame PR & Strategy for sharing what actually worked with Leaders Perception readers.
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