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Good Cold Email: https://twitter.com/cjc/status/1370436952869150721

Cold emailed Mark Cuban story: https://twitter.com/harryhurst/status/1389054067377377285

How I used cold email: https://twitter.com/TommyGWu/status/1415689057791733760

Always follow up. And to follow up again at least 6 more times, thesaurizing

Asking To Meet Someone 1-1

Since relationships are built through 1-1 interactions, you can’t build meaningful relationships without 1-1 meetings. There are tons of things you can do to make a meeting great before it even starts.

Scheduling. Here are some tactical do’s and do not’s that make scheduling simple.

Do: Say what you want to talk about during the meeting in the email. It makes it easy for them to say yes and it gives you both a little reminder when you go back and check the email right before the meeting.

Don’t: Use the term “I’d like to pick your brain about …” It screams “I’m not willing to do the legwork to come up with specific questions and topics.”

Do: Give as much information as possible - “I’m based in the Mission and I’m in SOMA on Thursday afternoons.”

Don’t: Be vague or pretend to be busy when you’re not. One of my favorite lines to avoid vagueness is: “I’m flexible on time and place but like to offer a concrete suggestion…”

Do: Anchor the conversation with 2-3 options around both time and place. Windows of time are totally fine. “Would you like to meet over coffee at Stable Cafe between 2-4pm on Thursday or Friday?”

Don’t: Ask “when is best for you?” or say “we should grab coffee!” without an anchor time. It seems nice because you give them all the choice, but you’re also putting all the work on their desk and gives them no information about your preferences.

Calendar Invite It might seem obvious, but many people still screw up the concluding act leading up to a meeting - a calendar event. Busy folks live by their calendars, so make it easy for them to remember the meeting - where/when it’s happening, who it’s with, and possibly what it’s about. Here’s a little sample from my calendar: It could be even better if I had titled it “Ben- Jim discuss AI Strategies” or put the subject in the notes section.

Research Do your homework before a meeting. Stalk your counterpart on the internet a bit. Read their twitter/blog, skim their LinkedIn, Github, what have you. The whole goal is to understand a bit more about who they are, what they’ve done, and what excites them. It’s also just flattering when someone pulls out a relevant reference to your web page in a conversation.

How To Ask People To Introduce You

Reach out to someone that they know and trust and help them with something, with no expectation of anything in return. Eventually, you’ll be able to ask for an introduction. Warm introductions are the best — and often only — way to get to the busiest and most successful people.

Send a separate, forward-able email that includes:

Who you are
Who you want to connect with
What you want out of the connection
Why the connection will be beneficial to all parties
A link to your profile, your teaser/one pager, and any additional material needed to evaluate the request

Do Not:

Respond on the same thread. Then one has to draft a new email, write their own subject, and copy and paste your text which either screws up the formatting or loses the links. Make it easy for the middleman
Write the intro as if the middleman it. It’s inauthentic and therefor ineffective. “I would never just send something along without context. I always give my take on why an intro could make sense.” - a middleman

All of this can be done in 5–6 sentences.

Double opt in. Always. This creates a lot of extra work for me but it’s the only way that I can maintain my credibility w/ all parties. I even do this friends and family so don’t take it personally.
Win/Win(/Win). The main reason for rule #1 is to confirm with all parties that there is (at least the potential for) valuation creation on all sides.

Subject: Intro to Naval Ravikant re: Platonia ( people discovery via skill-sharing) seed round

Archit,

Thanks for the offer of connecting us to Naval. As discussed, we are looking to raise a pre-seed round for Platonia, which facilitates people discovery via casual skillshare.

We have heard great things about Naval, and would love his take on Platonia given his exprience with Angelist. We’d be in Mountain View two weeks from now, so we’d love to get on his calendar if there’s interest.

Deck attached. Please let us know if there’s anything else we can provide.

Best, Piyush Any links: Linkedin, Product

Pitching to Strangers

The key is that every form of communication is not about me but about you. Including this post. If the information I share here cannot help you improve and is not implementable, it is useless. You can apply this little shift of mindset to improve any form of communication. What is going to motivate anyone to do something for others? For money? For vanity? For altruism? If you can’t answer that question regarding whoever you are trying to target or sell to, then you haven’t done your homework. The least you can do is to do some digging and come up with a decent pitch. So instead of can you do this and that for me, you really should be putting a bit effort, tell a compelling story when you have nothing material to offer. offer something of value before you ask for anything. sales isn’t about selling a product. It is about creating value-generating relationships that enrich the lives and businesses of both parties. You may not be the best writer, best vocabularist or best grammarist - but you can care and make it all about your reader and that is all that matters truly in the end. An extension of this that I practice - if anything I am saying/writing is not going to make the reader feel better or helping her improve, it is better to scratch it out. I know negative thoughts, darkness have a place but that is in fiction. In real life and non-fiction, look at what is beautiful and if something is not, think of how it can be improved. As you prepare your pitch, clarify your purpose and strategy by making sure you can answer these three questions: After someone hears your pitch…
- What do you want them to know?
- What do you want them to feel?
- What do you want them to do?
If you’ve got strong answers to these three questions, the pitch will come together more easily. I apply same to my verbal and written communication now (be it emails, a proposal, website copy, client conversation, webinar etc etc). - Am I clearly making my audience know, feel and do what I want them to? If not, I refine it. I practice it until it is serving the purpose I want it to.
Examples:
- Reminding a prospect who hasn’t enrolled yet
  
  Earlier- “Please let me know if you are enrolling”
  
  Better yet- “I hope you have all the information you need about our services. If you have any concerns, you can reach out to me personally. Since we work with limited clients and seats are filling fast (and I don’t want you to miss any deadlines), please inform me if you want me to hold a seat for you.”
- Writing an informational article
  
  Earlier- “What I think of XYZ issue”
  
  Now- “XYZ issue is ___ (facts). It is impacting ___ in this way (what it means for the reader). I think of it as a ____ (opinion). It is becoming more critical as we do not __. If we want to change our __, we need to act upon __ (call to act).”
- Asking for a favor
  
  Earlier- “I am __ and I want __.”
  
  Now- “I read your __ and found _ pertinent to blah blah. I am a __ and can help you improve___ by __. If this interests you, I would love to work together as _____. Can we get on a call this week anytime between 1-3pm to discuss this?”
- Rejecting something
  
  Earlier- “I am sorry but this does not work.”
  
  Now- “I admire your __. You have helped me by ___. Since you appreciate my __, it is important for me to point out the problems in this proposal. I do not think it works because ___. We may do _____. Let me know what you think about it.”
If you don’t ask, you won’t receive. Know the difference between being enthusiastic and pushy. Enthusiasm can be quite infectious, but being pushy simply means you are trying to impose your own interests, your own agenda onto others. No one likes being told, harassed, or tricked into doing anything, even if it might be in their best interests.
Be competent. Know your stuff, know your product or services that you are trying to sell. Know your competitors, know your customer’s alternatives well. There is no quicker way to lose credibility when you aren’t prepared and exposed to be a know-nothing bullshitter. This is perhaps the biggest reason a lot of salespeople fail. They don’t put in the work in the first place and somehow expect to wing it.
The tone of this letter counts. Project ordinary, calm self-confidence. Refrain from praising or fawning or self-deprecation or cuteness or making a big deal out of it – you’re not subordinating yourself to this person; you’re just passing along your paper. Don’t sound like you’re presupposing or demanding that you’ll get a response. Try a formula such as, “If you should happen to have any comments, I would be most interested to hear them”. A good final sentiment for your letter is, “Will you be at such-and-such conference?”.
Here is the procedure: (a) choose someone you wish to approach and read their work with some care; (b) make sure that your article cites their work in some substantial way (in addition to all your other citations); (c) mail the person a copy of your article; and (d) include a low-key, one-page cover letter that says something intelligent about their work. If your work and theirs could be seen to overlap, include a concise statement of the relationship you see between them.

Keep it Short. If you can keep an email to less than 2 or 3 sentences, it’s much easier to read it right then. If your email is longer than a paragraph or two, people will often put off reading it and it will probably take you longer to get a response.

Bad:

Hi Mattan,

My name is (redacted), I am recent graduate originally from California but am currently living in (redacted) and am looking for work. I have a Bachelors Degree in Accounting, but am not having much luck finding work in that field and to be honest with you I am struggling with the idea of being an accountant as a career. I sort of always had that thought in the back of my mind while in school but stuck with it because I think it is a skill set that is often overlooked by young entrepreneurs, which is more of what I see myself as.

Today on the news here they ran a segment stating that multiple companies within the city of (redacted) are looking for coders. I have always been interested in the idea of coding but have very limited experience. The extent of my experience in coding comes from creating some macros in the visual basic editor in Microsoft Excel, which I found to be quite enjoyable.

I checked out the website that was advertised and I think this may be something I want to pursue. I was wondering if you could offer me some advice on where to begin. Here is the website in case you want to check it out: (redacted)

After looking through the minimum requirements I see that I am lacking the following:

development experience

familiar with an at least one imperative (C/C++, Java, Javascript, C#, Python, Ruby, etc.) or functional language (Haskell, Scala, F#, Clojure, etc)

Understand basic control structures and elements of programs like loops, variables, functions, and potentially objects and classes.

First thing that I did after seeing the requirements was type in “how to code” on YouTube and that is how I came across you and your talk “How to Teach Yourself Code”. What I am wondering is if the advice from the video still applies today and if Rails is still the way to go or where you would start if you were in my situation. One extra thing to consider is that my PC is in California and at the moment all I have access to is my chromebook. Will this be sufficient to get started or will I need something with a traditional OS?

Sorry for such a long introductory email, but I hope you get a chance to read this and respond.

Thank-you for the video and talk, I will be diving into more of the details you discussed in the coming days.

Hopefully some of that snow in NY is starting to melt!

Good:

Hi Mattan,

I just saw your “How to Teach Yourself to Code” talk from Internet Week but noticed it was recorded almost two years ago. Does your advice in the video still apply?

If so, can I use a Chromebook or will I need something with a more traditional OS?

Format for readability and claritu: It’s easier to read emails that are broken down into one or two sentences per paragraph than long paragraphs. Break your paragraphs down into shorter sentences, separate your call to action, and use bold/italics for emphasis and to draw the reader’s attention to the important parts.

Bad:

Hi Mattan,

I took your April skillshare omrails class. It was a great intro class. Currently I’m following your advise by doing the Hartl tutorial. I have a question if you can give me some suggestions. Is there an equivalent to Hartl’s Rails tutorial for iPhone app development? My personal goal is to create a Rails website for my wife’s jewelry business, then an iPhone app to go along with the website idea. Your help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Good:

Hi Mattan,

Thanks for the One Month Rails class! I’m following your advice by doing the Michael Hartl Ruby on Rails Tutorial.

Quick question: Do you know of any classes like the Hartl Tutorial but for iPhone apps?

Content

Nobody has much time to go through everything they get in their mailbox.

Smart Subject Line Make your subject line smart enough to be opened by the reader.
Call To Action At The Top If you must send a long email with a lot of information, put the call to action up at the top. Something like: “I’m sending this email to see if you can attend the event below. Just respond with a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.”

It is very important to know who you are writing the email. An impersonal, vague, bland email won’t get you very far. You need to do your homework very well. It helps you create good context in your email and make the email copy engaging also. It gives a very good message in the mind of receiver. It lets them understand that you are genuinely reaching out to him/her with a good context which could add value to you.

Just tell me three things.

First, in a matter of fact way tell what it is you are doing.

Your first 3 lines should give quick overview of Who you are? Why you are writing? No buzzwords, just an explanation. “A world changing next generation platform for GenZ blah blah blah” - yuck. “We’re making an app for ordering pizza. It’s better than all the other apps out there because it’s like Kayak - it meta-searches all the local pizza places near you to give you a list of prices for the options you’ve selected” - yay.
Introduce yourself, but don’t make a meal of it. For example, I put my personal details in brackets like this in a recent pitch: (I’m a Zen master, psychotherapist, and published author.)
Alternatively, Do some discrete name dropping. Instead of saying, “My guest post was recently published at SevenSands.com” you could say, John MacDonald recently asked me to write a guest post at SevenSands.com and it was well received by his readers.”
Briefly list previous gigs. You want to make sure that your recipient knows that he or she is in good company. Which well-known blogs have you been published in? Which relevant jobs have you held down?
The best way to figure that out is to see whether you’ve done something awesome in the past, something that indicates that you’ll be doing awesome things in the future. I often check people’s LinkedIn profiles through Rapportive when they email me – I’ll see where they’re working, where they went to school, and what their deal is. For example, I’ve learned that people who are currently working in finance but thinking about “starting their own startup” are almost always a red flag. (No offense to finance itself, I studied finance.) Going to a good school is a plus. Working at a startup I’ve heard of is a plus. Being a consultant or running a small company is usually a minus.If you don’t have anything yet in terms of experience, then put together a good looking website (not a deck) that makes it look like you put some real thought into what you’re trying to do

Tell how you think they can help.

“Your vision with Wikipedia inspired us to contact you and we’d love to work with you” - doesn’t tell me what you want from me - yuck. “We’d love to bring you on as a board member. We have an angel investor lined up, but she feels we need someone experienced in consumer internet on our board. Also, we need introductions to venture capitalists and we’ve targeted 10 major pizza chains who we’d like to work with and we think you could help us get meetings at a higher level in those organizations.” - yay, maybe I can help with that.
Nothing drives people crazier than an email where someone sends over a lot of information but doesn’t say what they’d like you to do. I often respond to those immediately by asking: What do you want me to do? Do you want me introduce you to someone? Do you want me to read your blog post and give you feedback? Do you want me to respond with whether I’ll be able to attend an event? Be clear and say it explicitly up front.
Say what drew you to them in the first place. Be specific and name an article that made a difference to you. Again, be honest. Don’t say you like something, just to please. Here is an example. In a recent pitch I wrote * The reason why I’m so excited about reading your work is because: 1. You write because you want to write. 2. You write what you want to write about. 3. You write with both depth and elegance
Be reasonable with your request. Last 2 lines should be focused on What is the final action you want from your reader?
- “Please don’t tell me to go to your startup’s website and give you feedback. To actually give your product or website a thorough review and analyze it in a way that is useful actually takes a lot of work. “
- If I can respond to something in less than two minutes, I’ll do it immediately. What do you want feedback on? The business model? The color of your button? The text? Be specific and reasonable. If you want someone’s feedback on something, be concrete and ask a specific question that can be answered in a few minutes.Please don’t expect the reader to do the work to figure out what you want them to do. I consider that lazy. Don’t ask “What do you think we could do to get more customers?”
  - Here’s an example of one of the bigger tasks people often ask me to do for them:

Hi Mattan,

(redacted) here. You don’t know me, but your post on getting accepted to YC fired me up just now.

Having just submitted a late application to YC myself (as a single non-technical founder) I was curious if you might give me some feedback on my application. It hasn’t been rejected yet. And my company’s been featured in Popular Mechanics (attached), Fox Business (video link) and has 300+ paying customers…so I’d like to believe I have a shot. But getting a YC alum’s opinion would be really eye-opening. (then they attached their 1000+ word application)

On the same note, don’t email someone asking to pick their brain about something. “Brain picking” meetings are extremely exhausting because they don’t have a concrete goal and you spend most of the time trying to figure it out. Usually they’re a sign that the person emailing isn’t really sure what they want, they just want to meet in person.

I was wondering if my cofounder and I could take you to dinner/lunch, we’d love to tell you what we’re working on and pick your brain.

Bad:

I just got done watching your presentation on computer programming I’m 14 and wanted to learn it’s something I’ve always wanted to do. Could you please help me in any way possible I really want you to respond.

Good:

Hi Mattan,

I’m 14 and want to learn about programming. What’s the #1 resource you’d recommend?

How It Benefits Them

Show me why I should take the time to help you I’m very very active in my charity work, but your startup is not a charity. (If it is, then omit this last one… but I’m already advising too many so I probably can’t take on more right now!) :-) “We thought you’d enjoy meeting young entrepreneurs” - bzzzzt. I DO enjoy meeting young entrepreneurs, I do it all the time as a matter of routine at conferences and through friends and so on. But if you’d like more than a friendly pat on the back and encouragement, then treat me like a businessperson - let’s find something that’s mutually agreeable. “If you could join us as an advisor, we’d be able to compensate you with stock options in a quantity appropriate to our stage of development.” - yay.
Research the other person. If you are a blogger wanting to land a guest post, study the ‘About’ page and read many of his or her blog articles. The same goes for wanting a job. What are they interested in? What topic might be of interest to them? What is their passion at the moment?
Focus on how you can help the person you are writing to. Are they going on holiday and might need guest posts? Are they expanding their business and might need new staff members? Would their blog benefit from your proposed theme? Have they written a book that you could promote?
State what’s in it for them. Why might they like to offer you a guest post, article, or job? Sometimes it’s difficult to find something to say. Here are two recent examples: “I’m sure this will be a very useful article. It will provide a roadmap to a happier life for your readers.” In one instance, I didn’t know what to say. So I said: “What’s in it for you? Well, maybe just the sheer thrill of it!” It worked!

A free sample of your product, or a 15 minute call to learn more about how you can help them, are not valuable to the people you want to network with. They’re busy and they don’t need discounts, so both of these are totally wrong.

Instead, ask yourself:

Is there something you’re good at (for example, design or conversion optimization) that they might not be experts at, and can you offer them free help on their site or a side project?
Can you send them ideas for improving their business that they haven’t thought of? James Altucher (http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2014/05/the-ultimate-guide-for-becoming-an-idea-machine/) comes up with 10 ideas a day, and when he was getting started would often send them to companies for free. That’s how he landed many of his paying clients.
Are there people that you know that the person in question would like to meet? Can you make a warm introduction?
Are there books or products (not yours) that the person could get a lot of value from? Noah Kagan (https://twitter.com/noahkagan), a master networker, used to send people Ex-Officio underwear.

Tone: Confident, Straightforward, Respectful

The key to a successful pitch is honesty and respect. Your pitch you are building a bridge to another human being. And that bridge can only carry weight if it is built with integrity. Remember that you are an equal human being. Acknowledge also that the person you are writing to has more experience, knowledge, or success. Your tone should be confident, straightforward, and respectful.

Avoid toadying. For example, don’t say things like, “I’d be humbled if you would grant me…” or similar phrases. Instead, say things like, “It would give me much pleasure to write for your favorite blog”, or, “I’d be delighted to hear from you.”

Use humor. See if you can make them smile. Expect to be successful. A positive frame of mind will give you a strong voice. If you believe in yourself, the other person will believe in you too. After all, confidence is infectious.

23 January 2019

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