Investor Outreach — Cold Email Tips
There’s no doubt that cold outreach has a low response rate, but even in 2023, founders can still find success. The key is to be strategic about it. We’ve compiled some tips to help startups draft cold emails to angel and VC investors. Here are some leading considerations for content and style:
🔹 Optimize for open rates. Computers, phones and tablets often show the name, subject line and part of the 1st line of the email body. Here’s your first chance to win. Include an eye-grabbing subject that demonstrates what’s in it for them. Be clear, be direct, be honest, be brief.
🔹 Make it personal. If you don’t want to read a “To whom it may concern” letter, why would you write one? Take a moment to figure out your audience and make sure it’s addressed to the right person so it feels uniquely customized.
🔹 Who I am vs Why I’m here. The debate rages on: should you begin by introducing yourself and follow with a pitch-deck-like data point about your industry, or start with the attention-grabbing data point and follow with an introduction? The jury is still out, so consider what works for you. For our money, we like grabbing attention in the subject, then creating a brief intro that very quickly segues into “why we’re here”.
🔹 Include traction metrics. Founders sometimes forget they’re selling an investment opportunity, not the product itself. Everything about the body of the email should support why an investment here will create an outsized return and nothing does that more successfully than demonstrating that you’re already on your way.
🔹 Get to the point FAST. Remember when we wrote “be clear, be direct”. As soon as you can, be sure to mention (a) how much you’re raising, (b) the type of round, and (c) briefly describe what it will be used for.
🔹 Show you’ve done your research. Mind you this requires that you’ve done your research, but imagine someone writes to you and says, “I caught your LinkedIn post on (X) and connected with it for reasons (Y).” It goes a long way if you can pull a social media post, interview snippet or article they drafted and connect it to your company (either product, mission, or strategy). The more recent the better, but even if it’s old, you can hopefully connect its relevance to today’s ecosystem (the more things change the more they stay the same).
🔹 Don’t forget your ask. The conversion metric for this kind of outreach is a first meeting (it’s not open or response rates). Make sure ask for one.
🔹 Add your contact information. Ensure your email signature is in EVERY email so nobody has to look up your contact number. You want to reduce friction for the person you’re writing to, and it’s somewhat common for an email thread to be forwarded to another colleague and there’s no guarantee they’ll grab your original message.
🔹 Avoid buzzwords, adverbs, and apologies. There is no place for words like pivot, ninja, rockstar, or disruption. Unless you’re a woman in pursuit of their full potential by taking risks, seeking challenges and asserting themselves in professional settings, you are NOT leaning in, so let’s not use that term either. Unfortunately, words like extremely, actually, really, and truly don’t add what you think they do. If your sentence reads EXACTLY the same without them, don’t use them. And remove any “comma but” statements (I know you’re busy, but… & I hate to bother you, but… — UGH!!!)
🔹 Don’t forget the attachment. We’re firm believers in “controlling the narrative”, so we want you to hold on to your pitch deck until you can get a meeting, but we also respect your audiences need for context, so try to distill your deck down to a one pager (get in touch if you’d like help here). It’s nice for your audience to have something to look at it, even if you’re holding back the pitch deck for the meeting.