065. Cold Emails – Is this For Me? Is This Interesting?

VC Minute
There are three things that I'm looking for in a cold email. 1) What is this business? 2) Is this for me? 3) is this interesting?

VC Minute – quick advice to help startup founders fundraise better.

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Now for question number two, is this for me?

Most funds have specific areas that they’re investing in. And if you’re not within one of those areas, they’re probably just going to delete your email. But, Hey, it was a cold email. What did you expect? It’s the funds where you are a fit that you want to get their attention, and you want to pre-qualify yourself in their mind.

The things that most venture funds are pre-qualifying investments against include industry geography, round size, and round stage. Just hit on those points right away. For example, we’re seed stage consumer FinTech company based in Denver, Colorado raising $2 million. Fantastic. Get that right up front.

Now I know what the business is, and I know that this is for me. Now it’s time to make it interesting.

Start off with some frame-breaker stats. You bootstrapped your way to half a million in ARR in less than two years. Or you’ve got 10,000 DAUs and you haven’t even launched yet. Or you signed the Mayo Clinic to a pilot. Get your eye catching data points in here so that somebody gets interested and they want to reach out to you for a meeting.

Also include data about yourself. You’ve been in this industry for 12 years, you know this problem inside and out, you experienced this problem firsthand? Your team includes person X, Y, and Z, and here’s the link to our profiles for more. Make it interesting. Make it compelling.

You’re not trying to get a check. You’re just trying to get the meeting.

Hopefully this helps you craft a better cold email. But really what you should be spending time on is scouring your network to find warm intros.

Nothing goes so far as a warm introduction.


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Rich Maloy
Rich Maloy

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We are in the business of helping young companies grow through seed investment and access to our network of leaders and industry experts.  People first. 

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