The New Rules of PR: Trust, Performance & AI with Lauren Kleinman

#36. What does great PR actually do for a business? And as consumers increasingly discover brands through creators, Substack, Reddit, and AI, what does it take to build trust — and stay relevant — in a rapidly changing media landscape? This week, Kate Yarbrough sits down with Lauren Kleinman, founder and CEO of Dreamday and co-founder of Quality Media and The Quality Edit. Before becoming a founder, Lauren helped scale Ritual as one of its earliest marketing leaders, where she saw firsthand the gaps between traditional PR, affiliate marketing, and measurable business results. Those insights ultimately led her to pioneer the concept of performance PR: combining storytelling and credibility with traffic, revenue, and customer acquisition. In this conversation, Lauren shares how Dreamday grew out of the pain points she experienced as an operator, why the future of brand discovery extends far beyond traditional media, and how AI and LLMs are creating an entirely new layer of visibility for consumer brands. She also opens up about entrepreneurship, choosing the right co-founder, building teams around your weaknesses, navigating burnout and motherhood, and why the strongest founders eventually learn to make themselves less essential to the day-to-day business. In this episode, we discuss: Lauren’s path from Ritual to founding Dreamday and Quality Media How performance PR connects storytelling with measurable business results Why consumer trust is shifting toward creators, newsletters, Reddit, and social platforms How AI and LLMs are changing brand discovery and visibility What Lauren believes separates enduring founders and brands Why resilience, decisiveness, and staying close to the customer matter as companies scale What to look for in a co-founder and how to build a strong working partnership How burnout, motherhood, and scaling her team changed Lauren’s definition of success Why delegation can make both a founder and a business stronger Lauren’s biggest lessons on resilience, pressure, and enjoying the process