Five Minutes With a Female Founder: Meet Nina Pfister

At 143PR, we're constantly inspired by the women building innovative companies, solving real-world problems, and redefining entrepreneurship. Five Minutes With a Female Founder is a blog series featuring quick but insightful conversations with female entrepreneurs. Through five questions, we explore what inspired them to start their businesses, the lessons they've learned, the challenges they've overcome, and the advice they have for other women pursuing their own ventures.

In this interview, we're highlighting Nina Pfister, co-founder of Mooring Advisory Group, a senior-only B2B tech PR firm working with venture capital firms and the early-stage companies in their portfolios. We had the pleasure of being introduced to Nina when we launched 143PR. Having launched years before we did, Nina’s advice and support has helped us grow and focus our own business.

Here is Nina’s interview.

What motivated you to start this company?

MAG PR was born out of a pivotal moment in my life, as I was determined to design a fulfilling career that would also allow me to be present for my family. In 2016, I was in an executive sales role at a startup, traveling constantly and unexpectedly, while owning my new mom and wife titles. As a recovering perfectionist, I can admit that I ran head first into a wall. The hamster wheel wasn't sustainable, and no amount of optimizing my calendar was going to fix it.

When I started thinking about what came next, I knew I wanted to return to PR, which had always been the work I loved most. But I didn't want to rebuild the same big-agency machine I'd left years earlier. That model has junior account executives doing the heavy lift on accounts that founders think they're buying senior expertise for, and early-stage B2B tech companies and the VCs backing them deserve better than that. They're moving too fast and the stakes are too high. So, I built MAG PR around a simple premise—senior practitioners only, earned media only, and a boutique structure that lets us do excellent work without the agency bloat. My partner Lauren came on board in 2017, and that focus has been our north star for the last decade. We've never looked back!

What has helped you build trust with customers/clients?

For starters, saying no. We tell prospects when we're not the right fit and we tell clients when a pitch angle won't land, etc. PR has a reputation for spin at all costs, and the fastest way to dismantle that reputation is to be the firm that's straight with people even when it costs you something in the short term. The other piece is that the majority of our business comes through VC referrals, as we've spent years building a strong network. When a VC sends us their portfolio company, they're putting their own credibility on the line, so we treat every engagement like the relationship that referred it depends on the outcome, because for us, it does.

What's been the hardest part of entrepreneurship that nobody talks about?

In this industry specifically, I'd first say the emotional weight of other people's expectations. When a founder client is anxious about a big milestone announcement, those big emotions don't stay on their side of the table...we carry it. Multiply that across a full roster, add your own team counting on you, and there's an always-on cognitive load that doesn't show up in any business book.

The other piece is the constant calculus of which hats to take off, when, and at what cost. I'm a PR executive, but on any given day I'm also HR, finance, IT, operations, marketing, and business development. Every "should I outsource this" question is really three questions stacked on top of each other: Is someone else going to do this better than me? Is the time I'd buy back worth more than what I'd spend? And does this expense still let the boutique model pencil out? There's no clean framework for any of it, and the wrong answer in either direction (spending too much, or holding onto something you should have handed off a year ago) costs you real money or real sanity (usually both!)

What's your one piece of advice for other female founders?

I do love this question, but there are so many nuggets I could share! I think for a female founder who's just getting started, get uncomfortable and put yourself out there to build a network of fellow female founders. Seek out the women who've built businesses (and lives) that genuinely inspire you, and squeeze every bit of learning out of those relationships that you can. Ask the awkward questions about money, hiring, boundaries, and everything in between—and share what's working for you just as openly. In the last decade of steering MAG PR, I can attest to the fact that a rising tide lifts all boats, and the founders I've learned the most from are the ones who treat other women's success as fuel rather than competition. That mindset shift from scarcity to abundance changes how you show up in every room and will pay dividends down the road.

Read more interviews in the series here.