[Top Agency & Israel Business Series] Modern PR and Media Ownership Secrets With Omri Hurwitz

​Omri Hurwitz is the Founder and CEO of Omri Hurwitz Media, a leading PR agency specializing in tech startups and high-profile entrepreneurs. As a tech marketer and media strategist, he has built a global reputation by blending traditional media with social platforms to amplify client narratives and drive brand growth. Beyond PR, Omri owns equity in multiple media outlets, including Hurwitz TV — a digital publication that fuses business, lifestyle, and entertainment content. His innovative approach and emphasis on authenticity have positioned him as a rising influencer in the modern media landscape.​

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [04:13] Omri Hurwitz discusses the three pillars of his media company’s business model
• [07:05] How Omri began investing in media outlets and scaled a successful acquisition strategy
• [12:34] Tips for structuring media investment deals with sweat equity and strategic involvement
• [13:45] The biggest mistakes people make in PR pitching and how to avoid them
• [17:43] How data and analytics are used to improve PR performance and pitching success
• [20:00] The role of AI and predictive tools in forecasting media article impact
• [20:58] Omri’s insights from his transformative Army experience
• [28:28] Challenges faced as a young agency founder and the role of emotional intelligence
• [36:28] How to improve CEO charisma and practical communication tips

In this episode…

Breaking through the noise to get media coverage or PR traction can feel overwhelming, especially for startups and entrepreneurs fighting for attention in competitive markets. Many founders struggle with traditional PR tactics that no longer resonate with reporters or audiences, often leading to wasted time and missed opportunities. So, how can companies modernize their approach to media and PR to stand out and succeed?

Omri Hurwitz, a media entrepreneur and investor, shares how he tackled these challenges by reinventing traditional PR with a data-driven, tech-first approach. He emphasizes the importance of aligning with reporters’ incentives — like focusing on amplification and article virality — rather than pitching from a self-centered brand perspective. He also reveals why acquiring media assets and leveraging AI for predictive insights gives his clients a competitive edge. Additionally, Omri explains how emotional intelligence, clear writing practices, and charisma are critical skills for anyone looking to boost their media presence and leadership impact.

In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz interviews Omri Hurwitz, Founder of Omri Hurwitz Media, about building a modern media empire through data, acquisitions, and innovative PR strategies. Omri also discusses key PR pitching mistakes, using AI to predict article success, and how personal habits like daily writing have shaped his entrepreneurial journey.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Omri Hurwitz on LinkedIn
• Omri Hurwitz Media

Special Mention(s):

• Noa Eshed on LinkedIn
• Bold Digital Architects
• Real Life Superpowers
• The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
• Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio
• The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
• On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Related episode(s):

• “[SaaS Series & Israel Business Series] The SaaS Growth Playbook With David Bitton of DoorLoop” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “The Intersection Between Comedy and Business with Comedian Elon Gold and CEO of Get Visible, Jason Ciment” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Top Israel Leader Series] Engineering the Autonomous Revolution with Rabbi Mois Navon of Mobileye” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Top Agency & Israel Business Series] How To Scale a B2B Tech Startup Through Trust With Noa Eshed” on the Inspired Insider Podcast

Quotable Moments:

• “Charisma is not about being perfect. Charisma is about being authentic, being vulnerable, being engaging, entertaining.”
• “Writing came from pain. I felt pain, and I wrote about that pain, and it went away.”
• “You need to let him know why writing about your client will make the article go viral.”
• “Everything in business, everything in media, is built upon incentives. The quicker you learn, the better.”
• “The more you’re a populist, the more results you’re going to get. It’s that simple, man.”

Action Steps:

1. Align your PR pitch with reporter incentives: Focusing on how your story benefits the reporter’s goals increases the chance your pitch will be accepted.
2. Leverage data and analytics in your media strategy: Using benchmarks and predictive insights helps secure more impactful media placements and better ROI for clients.
3. Invest in relationship-building with journalists: Treating reporters as collaborators can dramatically improve media coverage opportunities and long-term PR success.
4. Practice spontaneous writing daily: Free-form writing clears mental clutter and enhances authentic communication skills for sharper audience connection.
5. Adopt a multi-layered business model: Diversifying income through services, equity investments, and financial markets builds a more resilient and scalable enterprise.

Episode Transcript

Intro: 00:15

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr. Jeremy Weisz.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 00:22

Dr. Jeremy Weisz here founder of inspiredinsider.com where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders. Today is no different. I have Omri Hurwitz. You can check him out at omrihurwitz.com he’s an amazing media company, which I’ll introduce you, Omri, in a second.

I always like to point out other episodes of the podcast people should check out. This is kind of a combination. Omri, I was telling you of like a top agency series and top Israel business leader series, and I had a David Bitton of DoorLoop, the really interesting story of how he grew his SaaS company. And I think at the time when I, he had hired over 200 staff in the matter of a year and a half. They raised over $130 million.

It’s not his first rodeo, obviously, but he shared the journey there. Another one was of my favorites. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him, Omri, but Elon Gold, one of my favorite comedians, he’s hilarious and he does great imitations of Israelis along with other people. So people can check that one out. And Mois Navon of Mobileye, he was one of the founding engineers of Mobileye.

And he talked about, you know, obviously, you know, people in Israel know this. It’s like a unicorn. They were acquired by Intel for $15.3 billion. But the interesting part of the story was kind of the ups and the downs and the sacrifices they had to make, because it wasn’t always that obvious. Right?

So he had to go back to his family, his kids, and be like, you know, we are pulling out of all extracurriculars. There’s no more eating out because there was some lean times in those days. And so it was really interesting. So that and many more on inspiredinsider.com. This episode is brought to you by Rise25.

At Rise25, we help businesses give to and connect to their dream relationships and partnerships. How do we do that? We do that in two ways. One, we help companies launch and run a podcast or an easy button for people to do that.

We do the strategy, accountability and the full execution production. Number two, we’re an easy button for a company’s gifting. We make gifting staying top of mind easy. Whether it’s clients, partners, prospects, I like Omri also for it to be affordable. So we do everything.

Just give us a list of your, you know, addresses and people and we’ll do everything else. We kind of call ourselves the magic elves that run in the background to make it easy for the company, for their podcast, and for their gifting. You know, Omri, for me, you know, the number one thing in my life is relationships. And I know the same is for you, too. And so I’m always looking at ways on how I can give to my best relationships.

And I found no better way to profile the people and companies I most admire and share with the world what they’re working on. So you can check it out at rise25.com. And I am excited to introduce Omri Hurwitz. He’s a media entrepreneur and investor. His companies have worked with over 50 leading tech brands.

You can see him on their website such as Lone Bass, Spike Cinderblocks, Walnut, Taylor Brands, many more. And we’re going to get into the weeds a little bit on what they actually do and how it works. And also with investors. He’s involved with owning over 15 media outlets as well, so I’m excited to chat. Omri, thanks for joining me.

Omri Hurwitz: 03:34

Thank you so much, Jeremy. Big fan. Thank you for letting me be on the show.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 03:38

I want to give a big shout-out to Noah Eshed, who we would. I mean, we were connected, actually, I’ve followed your stuff before, but she’s like, you need to have Omri on the podcast. And so thank you, Noah Bold Digital and they co-host the Real Life Superpowers podcast. I listen to that episode. It’s a good one with Henry there too.

But I want to start off.

Omri Hurwitz: 03:59

Just great people.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 04:00

Great people. Totally. Talk about your media company and what you do. And I’m going to share the screen. So because there’s a video piece.

So if they’re listening to the audio you can check out the video too.

Omri Hurwitz: 04:13

Awesome. So I own a media company today. We’re the largest tech media company in Israel. We do three things. One, we do PR for startups and we do that in the USA market.

So USA-based media outlets and we work with about 50 clients at a time. At any point in time today, I think we have something like 52 or 53 clients. What we do is we both work. We work with Israeli startups and USA based startups as well, and we publish articles about them in the United States. Right in, in, you know, Forbes, Business Insider, Fast Company, Digital Journal, TechCrunch, etc. and so that is like one part of our business.

And we’ve actually took a very traditional industry, which is PR and really modernized. It really made it tech driven. And I think we’re going to kind of dive into that a bit later in this conversation. The second thing that we do is we buy media outlets or percentages in media outlets. So we would go to media outlets in the United States and we would buy 15%, 17%, 20% into media outlets.

And the business model behind that is both on the revenue side. So we get more revenue to our business through advertising, sponsorship, sponsored articles, sponsored events, etc.. And then the second thing is we try to make that asset that we buy, we try to make it worth more and then we sell it if the opportunity arises. So that’s the second kind of part of our media company. And then the third part is actually has nothing to do directly with media.

But we invest in the stock market through the profits of our company. So basically we have this three-layered, multi-layered process that kind of incentivizes each one of these steps. So the PR clients helps us get, you know, the opportunity to buy into media assets. And buying into media assets helps our PR clients. And investing widely in the stock market helps us create a better service and product for our clients.

So that is like our three step method or three multi layered platform. And yeah, that’s a bit about us.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 06:29

You know you started when you were young which is interesting. We’ll get into how it all started. But I want to focus in on the media outlet piece for a second because it’s really unique. You don’t find, you know, companies doing the services you’re doing. It’s like, hey, we’re going to own some media companies too, like media outlets, right?

Which makes sense because when you have, you know, a certain amount of investment and stake in it. It’s easier to get your clients in something that you own, I imagine. So talk about the idea for starting to invest in media outlets and how that came about.

Omri Hurwitz: 07:05

So it actually happened very organically and very purpose-led. So let me explain. We started doing our pitching to the reporters, etc. when we started our company and people were and we had a good, a really good success rate because we use analytics and data driven insights in our pitching to be able to kind of incentivize reporters to write our articles, usually articles they would not write otherwise just because we were incentivizing them through data and analytics. And then what happened is the reporters would come to us and tell us, listen, every time we publish an article about your client, it goes viral. Why?

Because our company also does the amplification of those articles through, you know, advertising, organic coverage on LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.. And then I just had profits in the company and I told myself, wait, we know how to market media. And I don’t see a reason why a PR firm shouldn’t own a media outlet. So I bought my first stake in a media outlet. And the negotiation was very easy for me because the media outlet that I bought really wanted someone to kind of take it off their shoulders.

In a sense, that media outlet was kind of struggling, and I just saw so much potential in that media outlet. And like I kept telling myself, like, there’s so much I can do with it. And we made that first acquisition. The first acquisition, actually, the first one actually failed. So the first acquisition, we weren’t able to actually turn that media outlet into a substantial media outlet like into substantial revenues, etc..

But we kept it and we still but then we ended up like selling it a bit later on, but we basically broke even on that. But then on the second media outlet that I bought, and that was while I was still holding that first media outlet, I was not afraid. So I was not afraid to take another chance. Right. I thought, okay, we tried one playbook with this.

Let’s try a kind of like a different playbook on the second outlet. And the second outlet just worked. And we made lots of money on that second outlet, and we continued to build that model and buy more and more into media outlets. And the thing about that is, the more you do that, the more leverage you have to get better deals as you go forward, especially when you already have a track record of knowing what you want to do after you buy that outlet. So that’s how it started.

So just to kind of summarize, it started one because it was a very organic thing to do. And I’m kind of surprised other PR firms did not do that before us. And the second thing is, I was and I didn’t mention this in this short speech, is that I was pissed off of just waiting for reporters to answer my pitches, even though we had a really good success rate with most of them, it’s still a hassle. And I’m like, let me just buy this outlet or let me just buy into that outlet and get some control. So those are the two main, two main reasons.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 10:10

No, I love that talk about when, you know, I’m curious. Looking back, what made the first one not work as you thought, and the second one, what made it work better because you saw potential in the first one, obviously, right. So you’re like, this is going to work. We’re going to kill it here 100%.

Omri Hurwitz: 10:33

So listen, so first of all, this is for the audience to know. Every time you look back at something, you need to look at it in the most objective way possible because you never know what plays a role in things working and what plays a role in things not working out. And sometimes, and lots of the times, it’s not directly in your control, and there’s just a handful of options and maneuvers that you can do to basically help yourself in a situation. What happened with the first outlet is we were a bit premature in what we thought we could do with it. So let me explain.

We bought the outlet and we had a plan for it. The thing was, while we had the plan, we didn’t take into account certain maybe obstacles or certain kind of like things that might stand in the way. And because we did not facilitate a good enough or at least a sufficient enough business plan going forward, we ended up pivoting too much with that outlet without having enough patience to kind of let one strategy kind of lead the way. And that’s why the first one failed. I would say that even if we ran a different playbook on that first one, it might still have failed, right?

So, like, there’s no need to take everything personally. There’s no need to overthink certain situations. I just advise to continue moving forward.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 12:08

I want to talk about so when you’re going is it just from the when you’re going to purchase a stake. Is it just hey, we’re going to offer you this amount of money for a piece or are you also offering, hey, we’re going to put our resources behind it and there’s some sweat equity as well. How do you tend to structure it or think about it when you’re approaching the media outlet?

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