looking for starling cycles sponsorship?
We receive loads of sponsorship requests from enthusiastic young riders looking to be The Next Big Thing.
Most of them send a really, really crap sponsorship pitch and don’t get further than Joe’s inbox.
“Wil You Sponsur Me Plz??” emails just aren’t going to make anyone part with free stuff.
Try a bit harder, please aspiring World Cup Champs and Youtube Superstars!
Don’t just send us a one line email, treat it like applying for a job.
Don’t use ChatGPT or Claude or similar. We can tell. Your application will go straight in the bin.
Send a well-written, spell-checked, polite email when you apply and include:
Take it seriously, show us you’re going to be good to work with. Ask your mum to proofread your email.
You wouldn’t punt an employer a one-line email asking for a job, so why would you do the same for sponsorship? Treat it like a job application.
Hint: This is NOT a good sponsorship email:
“Hi Starling. I’m 14 years old and have just done my first MTB race. I want to do more. Will you sponsor me?”
Before you go any further:
Under 16 years old? Sorry, young riders, we’re not looking for riders under 16 right now.
Under 18 years old? We’re not going to consider your sponsorship application if your parents aren’t copied into the email.
We need them to be looped in to all communications and aware that you’re talking to us.
Things to bear in mind when you apply:
What’s in it for us? Sponsorship is a transaction – the rider gets support and in return, they offer value to the brand.
We want to put Starling in front of new people who don’t already know about us.
We want to show those people our bikes, teach them about why they rock and encourage them to be interested in what we’re doing.
We also need help creating content for our website and social media channels – riders who can produce photos and videos to a decent standard are a huge asset.
When you apply, think first, what value are you offering Starling cycles?
How can you help us with those jobs above?
And why are you different?
What can you do that we can’t already do?
Find out what that is, then use that to sell yourself to us.
Hint – we love MTB guides, holiday business owners, event organisers, race organisers and YouTubers. We really love working with people in countries that aren’t the UK where we’re trying to grow.
Make us feel special. Send us something specific when you apply, show us you know the brand and you care about it. Show us why you care as much as we do about our brand.
Don’t just copy and paste the same sentence into 50 emails and send it round 50 brands.
No 👏🏻 ChatGPT 👏🏻
No 👏🏻 Claude 👏🏻
No 👏🏻 AI APPLICATIONS!! 👏🏻
Right now, we are looking for a few riders to join the Starling Cycles family.
We’re open to proposals and love hearing from people.
If your application is successful, we will most likely offer a discounted price on a frame.
In rare cases, we may offer long-term loans of frames or bikes at no charge. This is rare, though and only for riders who are offering something really special.
We’re not looking to bring on salaried riders right now, but, we may change our mind for the right person.
If you’re a higher-profile rider and think we’ll be a good fit, let’s talk.
We’re really interested in finding riders who focus on non-competitive riding and making it look fun.
We’re especially interested right now in adventure, gravel, bike-packing, and ultra-distance riders – both competitive and non-competitive. This is an area we’d really like to lean into.
We’re also interested to hear from content creators, MTB guides, event organisers, race organisers, club leaders, and anyone who’s got a real, human audience to connect with.
Racers – we’re open to proposals for Enduro at grass roots through to the national level. It’s more about having fun, than winning races for us, right now though.
Note, we’re not able to support racers looking to start racing, you should already have a few races under your belt by the time you speak to us.
And, right now, we’re happy to hear from people anywhere in the world.
Get in touch – we want to meet some new people in new places. Canada and Germany are especially interesting. We’d love to get to know some riders in Asia.
