While working for Orange County technology companies in the early 2000’s, Edward Yang saw a persistent problem: most tech companies were horrible communicators. They tended to focus more on features and benefits, and not enough on telling compelling stories. That’s where he saw a need that could be filled.
Yang cut his teeth at OG technology company Gateway in their Lake Forest location before the company began its inevitable decline against fierce rival Dell. From there, he had stints at other Orange County tech firms such as Envision Financial Systems and D-Link. Firecracker PR was founded as a part-time consulting business in 2004, steadily adding clients who saw the benefit of getting press coverage on a regular basis. In 2008, Yang quit his job to run Firecracker PR full time…just as the housing market plunged the nation into a recession.
Yang smiled as he recalled those times, “Ironically, those hard times may have benefited us. Companies were looking for ways to cut costs, and one attractive area was these overpriced public relations agencies charging outrageous monthly retainers for little results. We won over prospects with a value message of delivering more for less.”
Since then, the agency has grown steadily without the need for any external financing or loans. “Bootstrapping a company never seems to get the glory of those who raise capital, but the benefit is you have full control over making sure growth doesn’t come at the expense of poor client service,” Yang explains.
Today, Firecracker PR calls the city of Brea its home, with their core client managers there and various team members distributed around the nation. With international clients in nations as far-flung as France, the UK, Brazil, Japan, and India, having a flexible team structure has allowed it to thrive and adjust with market changes.
“Orange County is unbeatable for its combination of natural beauty, quality of life, diversity of people, and hubs of technological innovation,” Yang continued. “Having access to schools such as the University of California Irvine and California State University Fullerton is a huge benefit as well.”
UCI holds a special place his his heart, as that’s where Yang completed his MBA back in 2001 when the school of business was still generically named “Graduate School of Management” before taking on “The Paul Merage School of Business” in 2005. “Even back then, Orange County and UCI told a compelling story of its combination of advantages that are hard to find anywhere else.”
While starting off serving technology companies exclusively, the agency has broadened its areas of expertise to encompass other industries. The companies and organizations FIrecracker PR has represented at one point look like a who’s who of market leaders and emerging powerhouses: Boeing, Fujitsu, Gigabyte, TP-LINK, American Heart Association, Shield AI, Western Governor’s University (WGU), Linksys, Grupo Vidanta, Universal Electronics, NordVPN, Ecobat, and many others.
Reflecting on twenty years of business, Yang notes that the benefit of time offers a unique perspective, “Having gone through the ups and downs of the economy, major technological shifts, COVID, and political change, it helps us help our clients take a more measured, long-term view on creating their message. Times may change, but a compelling message is timeless.”
That’s where Firecracker’s “Ignites” process comes in. “It’s so difficult to select a service provider,” Yang admits, “because there’s not much to distinguish one agency from another. Every agency says it provides the best customer service. Every agency says they get results. How can you stand out from the competition?”
Ignites is their unique 5-step process that helps companies scale up their media relations, leading to consistent media coverage. The agency essentially productized its service offering with a process that was broken down into understandable components, which were highly customizable depending on the needs of its clients.
As Yang puts it, good public relations comes down to good storytelling. “Everyone loves a story, since the beginning of human history, since our own childhoods,” Yang points out. “And every CEO has a story to tell. It’s our job to make that story as powerful as possible, and get it out to as many relevant people as possible. Even CEOs who think their business is boring, or that they don’t have a story, often sell themselves too short. With just a bit of time, we can quickly identify some compelling stories of how they help their customers. It’s those stories that can help their reputation.”
The topic of reputation was such an important one that Yang wrote and published his first book on how to repair and build online reputation in “RepGold: A Step-by-Step Guide to Successfully Repair and Build Your Online Reputation”. How a company’s reputation is perceived can be directly impacted by the type of media coverage it gets.
Today, the media industry is facing seismic upheavals, with traditional outlets being replaced by social media influencers, podcasters, and newsletters. Add to that the impact that AI is having, and any company that isn’t doing PR may soon find itself invisible online. That’s because AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude AI, Grok / xAI, Perplexity seem to take their cues from media outlets, some even signing agreements with news organizations to scrape and use their content.
“PR used to be an afterthought for some companies, a luxury you would splurge on,” said Yang. “In an AI future, all signs point to the fact that if you aren’t doing PR, you may soon find yourself at a significant disadvantage. It’s time for every company to start telling their story, and telling it now.”
