Valley PR Blog

Ubiquity PR: From Cubicle to Consultant

By Linda VandeVrede on November 29th, 2007 In Agencies

Tech PR is alive and well in Arizona.  Aly Saxe, an Arizona native and graduate of the University of Arizona, formed her own biz, Ubiquity Public Relations, just three months ago.  

She started out as a writer and producer for a variety of broadcast news stations in Tucson and Phoenix, and then “saw the light” and switched her focus to PR.  After a stint at the Arizona Department of Transportation, she moved to an agency where she began to focus on technology and B2B products. 

I asked her how she knew when the right time was to make the leap from cubicle to consultant.  She has watched the Phoenix tech industry grow dramatically over the last couple years and realized that there just weren’t many firms specializing in this area.  “I had always planned to have my own company someday, and I think it was really just a matter of finally taking a leap.”

The biggest surprise so far has been how busy she has been, she says.  “I expected to spend the first year securing a certain amount of clients as well as freelance projects, but in less than three months my client book is just about full.”  She’s even contemplating hiring an employee, which she didn’t think would come into consideration for quite awhile. 

The biggest challenges these first three months have been on the operations side. “When the printer decides to go haywire and my QuickBooks isn’t working, I have no one to pass those issues along too.  Right now I just cry and throw things, but something tells me that that strategy won’t work in the long run.”

The innovation of tech PR is what attracted her, and she feels that the entrepreneurs in the tech industry are some of the most interesting and inspiring people she has met.  Couldn’t have said it better myself. 

Her advice to PR people who are currently at an agency or corporate job and who want to strike out on their own is  ”think about why you want to work for yourself and what kind of life you are trying to build.  Then write a business plan around that and do it already.  We’re sick of hearing you talk about it!”

Contact her at aly@ubiquitypublicrelations.com

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