
How I Raised $350k as a Solo Founder using these 4 Email Templates - revorad
http://library.toutapp.com/posts/how-i-raised-350k-as-a-solo-founder-using-these-4-email-templates
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DevX101
I love how this post both educates and serves as a great ad for your product.
Kudos.

How far along was your product when you were raising? Were you making any
significant revenue at the time?

~~~
Tawheed
We were making a little bit of revenue.

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kordless
I hate getting emails that ask me for two or three time blocks that work for
me. Be respectful of people's time and just pick a few times that work for
you. If they don't work for them, they'll usually tell you what does pretty
quick.

~~~
jackpirate
I honestly never know the best combination of polite and authoritativeness to
to schedule meetings over email. Are you suggesting that people should a
specific time and see if it works for the other person? (i.e. "I'll give you a
call at 3PM on Monday if you'd like to talk more") or that he should have just
asked the person to pick the best time for them, and then he could adjust his
schedule around it. I normally opt for the second when I'm dealing with
someone I don't know very well.

The only thing that bothered me about the way he did it was that he
capitalized the TWO. This makes it looks like he thinks the VCs are retarded.
(Maybe if most VCs think other VCs are retarded, this could have helped his
case :)

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sunir
Hey jackpirate,

I see you are trying to figure out the best way to schedule business meetings.
I do this all the time as Chief Handshaker at FreshBooks. Are you free Monday
at 2pm CST to discuss this? I can call you at 321-555-1212.

    
    
      Cheers,
      Sunir Shah, Chief Handshaker, FreshBooks
      (416) 481-6946 x224
      http://www.freshbooks.com/team/sunir
      http://twitter.com/sunir
    

I stated the problem and my reason for talking to you. Then chose a time in
your timezone (I guessed in this case) and I declared who is calling whom and
by what means. I always prefer to call you at your number in case I am running
late.

If you accept, I'll send you a meeting invite. I used to not send meeting
invites but I found that in 15% of the cases people don't mark meetings in
their own calendars.

My signature includes my contact information as well, which is useful later in
the deal cycle. Don't make your phone number a mystery.

~~~
jackpirate
That's a great basic outline, and I agree with all the little touches you add,
such as making it clear who is calling whom, and that your number is clearly
visible in any case.

My only problem is who should suggest the first meeting time/place. By
suggesting it yourself, you are assuming a position of seniority in the
relationship that may not be appropriate, and project the image that their
time is not as valuable as yours. I personally only suggest a time if I have
reason to believe that the other person will be available then. For example,
"Would you like to talk about XXX over coffee after the conference we'll both
be at?" Otherwise, I let them know that I will make myself available whenever
is convenient for them.

~~~
sunir
If someone is really more important than you, they will get really frustrated
if they have waste time driving the tiddly bits of the relationship.

I cut down useless steps so I didn't waste time. I remained polite; I asked
for the time, I didn't make it an order. I drove to an action to move the
relationship forward. That's respect.

If they aren't available at the time you ask, they will take command and
respond with times they are available. Then you defer.

~~~
jackpirate
I agree with all of that, I just think both options equally meet those
objective criteria. The only difference is how the recipient perceives the
message. I think it's largely a difference in culture between academia (my
realm) and business.

A professor, for example, might assume that you have particular reasons for
selecting the time slot you have and wonder whether he should clear room in
his schedule to meet your expectations. In this case, selecting an exact time
before hand provides a minor inconvenience to him.

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InfinityX0
This is absolutely brilliant. Incredibly well executed. I have never seen a
post at once hybridize promotion and great content so well.

~~~
DerekH
Would you like to write a few templates for the library? Maybe around SEO or
similar topics?

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socialmediaking
I recommend using a free service called SpyPig to include an invisible image
in the email that will notify you when the email is opened (if images are
enabled). I usually wait about 10 minutes after the notification and call the
client or lead and ask them if they had a minute to check my email. They
usually say something like "Yeah you have perfect timing, I just took a look
at it..." It's a pretty slick little trick <http://www.spypig.com/> Good luck!

~~~
jat850
How does that get around a number of email clients flagging the warning that
'this email contains links to external images' or things of that nature?
(Gmail does it, Thunderbird does it, I'm sure most modern email clients have
that).

To me that would come across as, at best, annoying and at worst, suspicious.

~~~
lftl
Instead of an invisible tracking image make it part of your signature, like a
company logo or something similar.

~~~
wnight
You'd need to give it a distinct filename or something, but it's otherwise
fairly reasonable. But I still wouldn't see it because I've got all external
images turned off. And then you'd either need a redundant text sig or risk
clients not having your phone number, etc.

I email clients a passworded URL they can download documents from instead of
attaching the documents. Partly so I can send someone files of any size and
without attachment screening, and partly for delivery tracking.

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nostromo
I'd suggest removing the all-caps in those emails. It seems like it's just the
author's style, but it can be a bit jarring when read without that context.

~~~
Tawheed
Thats good feedback, you should add that to the comments in the page so that
others can benefit from it! We want these templates to be organic.

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budu3
I think it's a great time to be a founder but at the same time I'm also
worried about the exuberance that the current market place is showing when a
sole founder can raise $350k by sending out a ~10 line email.

~~~
Tawheed
I apologize if I gave the wrong idea, but these 4 email templates will not get
you funded. It took a tremendous amount of hustle and hard work and about
three months of fundraising -- you have to put in the sweat.

These templates just helped me manage the process better.

~~~
iqster
It also seems like you had a working demo at that point. How far along was the
prototype? Was it a mostly working v1? Or a few iterations worth of work.

Thanks for the article! Quite informative.

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MetaMan
So you raised finance for a business based on an app which can be used
(amongst other things) to raise finance for an app?

:-)

~~~
skrebbel
He designed the app around this blog post.

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ed209
Reality check: the portion of the process these emails cover are not going to
make or break a deal.

What would be more useful is detail on "During the fundraising process, I met
a ton of investors both through soft introductions, straight out stalking and
also through AngelList."

Once you have someones attention, the rest is down to whether they like you
and the idea, no amount of email templates will solve that.

So come on TK, give us some detail on how you got in front of those investors
in the first place ;)

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fuzzythinker
Side note, I find your right panel bouncing up and down extremely annoying. If
you don't want it to be hidden when scroll, why don't you set it as fixed?

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alexro
So, before raising capital you were an ordinary founder, but now you are a
"fouder". Nice job!

</kidding>

see: "I'M A HACKER, HUSTLER AND DESIGNER. FOUDER AT TOUTAPP.

~~~
josefresco
I can forgive him.. I too get 'page blindness' and miss obvious typos.

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tnorthcutt
To be fair, the email templates were ancillary to your execution, drive, and
skills. Of course, they weren't ancillary to your product, in a very meta way
:).

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techcofounder
awesome!

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Hisoka
Is the target audience for your product entrepreneurs, or salespeople in the
enterprise?

~~~
Tawheed
Pretty much.

