Prepared: May 6, 2026 · Budget: $1,000/month · Target: 2–3 retainers/qtr at $5K–$10K MRR
Google + lInkedin + youtube
Shilika should not compete with $20K–$30K/mo full-stack agencies. The play is to productize a boutique, founder-led, APAC-anchored PR offer at $5K–$10K retainers and run a LinkedIn-led inbound engine + signal-based outbound to recently-funded $10–15M Web3/AI founders. With the existing 11K LinkedIn / 13K X audience, CoinMarketCap + Myosin credentials, and 50+ project track record, this is a positioning play, not a paid-acquisition play. Expect 1–2 retainers in the first 60 days from warm network, then 2–3 new retainers per quarter from Q3 2026 onward.
| Bucket | Spend | What it buys |
|---|---|---|
| Outbound stack | $158 | Apollo Basic ($59) + Smartlead Basic ($39) + 4× Litemail warmed inboxes ($20) + 2 sending domains ($40 amortized) |
| LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads | $300 | Boost top 4 organic posts/month, ~$10/day × 7-day windows |
| Niche newsletter sponsorship | $250 | One $200–$500 placement per month in APAC-focused crypto/Web3 newsletter |
| Claude API + n8n hosting | $50 | Powers the agents Rahil builds |
| LinkedIn Premium Business | $80 | Targeted search + InMail credits |
| Conference / Kaito / reserve | $162 | Side-event tickets, opportunistic Kaito Studio quotes, contingency |
| Total | $1,000 |
Why this barbell: paid acquisition for a $5K–$10K retainer is unprofitable at LinkedIn's $5–$12 CPC and $30–$60 CPM. Use paid only to amplify owned-content trust signals. Thought Leader Ads convert at ~$2.29 CPC vs $13.23 for single-image ads (ZenABM 2026 benchmark, 161K+ ads, $5.5M spend) — a 7× cost advantage and the only paid format with defensible economics at this budget.
PR for funded Web3 & AI founders who need APAC + global reach without a 30-person agency. I led PR for CoinMarketCap and APAC PR for Myosin. I've put 50+ crypto projects in front of the journalists, KOLs, and exchange listing teams that decide who gets noticed. You get a senior operator on every call. No account juniors, no 90-day onboarding.
Why this works: Stacks four defensible specifics — (a) named credibility (CoinMarketCap, Myosin), (b) volume (50+ projects), (c) geography (APAC), (d) operator-not-agency promise. Cannot win Coinbound's "900 clients" or Wachsman's "we know Bloomberg" battle, but owns "I've personally placed 50+ crypto founders in tier-1 media."
Web3 startups that closed $10M–$15M Series A in last 6 months, HQ or major team in Singapore, Dubai, Seoul, Hong Kong, Bangkok, US crypto hubs, UAE, preparing for TGE, mainnet launch, or major exchange listing in next 90 days. Roughly 8–12 fitting companies/month globally based on 2025–2026 deal flow. Source: Crunchbase + The Block + Decrypt funding filters. Examples of recent fitting raises — Startale Group ($13M, Singapore), TR8DE.AI (UAE), Euclid Protocol (UAE).
AI startups (Series A or Seed >$8M) building agentic products, AI×crypto convergence, or AI infra — especially with non-US founders facing US/UK media barriers. Haun Ventures' $1B raise (May 2026) explicitly targeting "crypto infrastructure, tokenization, and AI agent transaction systems" signals where the dollars are flowing.