

Standing invitation: if you want to talk software, I want to talk to you - karterk
http://www.kalzumeus.com/standing-invitation/

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karterk
Sharing my personal experience in reaching out to random people:

A few months back, after reading lots of posts on HN here of people sharing
their experience in "cold emailing" people, I reached out to quite a few
people on the web - people whom I thought would be able to offer valuable
insights on some thing I'm building. And, I was surprised how many people
actually diligently replied to my email, and spent a lot of time offering
suggestions etc.

A few things I learned in the process:

* Making the email as short and as highly targeted as possible made a difference (anecdotal, not measured)

* When somebody replied saying that they will look into it in a day or so, I did not immediately reply back saying "Thank you" etc. Instead I waited for a day or two and then replied. The second email actually served as a gentle reminder and I got a response immediately after that.

* In many cases, I specifically looked for people looking at a specific problem which what I was building helped to alleviate. This naturally increased the response rates.

* Lastly, people are generally wary of people selling things. So, I suggest genuinely trying to seek people's insights and guidance rather than directly sell them your idea. If people liked your idea, they themselves will go out of their way to do that.

And for what it's worth, I am going to shamelessly use this opportunity to
offer the same: if you are looking for design related feedback on what you are
building, say hello (email in profile!)

~~~
graeme
This really, really works, and these are great tips.

A couple of other factors:

* Write when someone is less likely to be flooded with other emails.

This is obvious but non-trivial. We are most likely to want to email people
when they are busiest, because they have recently done something to get
everyone's attention.

* Do some research to figure out the best means of communication. For Patrick, and for most people, it's email.

On the other hand, Nassim Taleb, an author, despises email. He is very active
on his Facebook page.

And, a good chunk of the work I did last year stemmed from a cold call to a
company's receptionist. They are small, and so I was only one step away from
the person who could instantly make a decision. If an email would have been
better, she would have told me so rather than passing the phone over.

You probably already know who the 3-5 people are in your field who could make
a difference to your work. It only takes 5-30 minutes to write a good email,
and there's no downside.

So go say hi.

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patio11
So I wasn't expecting this to get on the front page of HN (which was, in
hindsight, stupid): my mental model was just "I'll put this on my blog's
navigation bar so that over the coming years people will know about it" rather
than "Man, I totally don't know what I'm going to do on Thursday. I know,
maybe I'll get folks to send me a lot of email."

My priority inbox is hovering at around 100 right now. I'm getting to them as
time permits. n.b. I also have a busy schedule today so I don't think I will
clear this queue.

This isn't a time-bounded offer from me, this is just a formalization of the
policy that I've had for six years. If I don't get back to you, I'll still be
in this industry tomorrow, in April, in 2013, etc, so feel free to send it to
me again.

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cperciva
This all applies to me, except s/patrick@/cperciva@/, s/patio11/cperciva/, and
s/Central Japan/Vancouver, Canada/.

I'll add another tip, though: Make sure that you say something which tells me
why you're emailing _me_. I've been getting a lot of "I got your address off
HN" email lately and most of it looks like it was probably spammed to every
account they could find -- those emails go straight into the junk folder.

~~~
edwinnathaniel
Woohoo! Vancouver represents!

Thank you for your invitation Colin, questions coming up as soon as I have
time to write them!

~~~
cperciva
I don't know if I can give any particularly Vancouver-relevant advice, but I'm
happy to help.

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deepandmeaning
Thank you Patrick. At present I run a niche email marketing company. It can be
rather isolating and my social circle or friends find it challenging to offer
support/insight/help.

Reading blog posts (and comments on HN) from open, insightful, and yes
inspirational people such as yourself has been great. I've often thought how
wonderful it would be to meet or otherwise meaningfully communicate with those
I respect and admire - and have made an effort in the last year to get out to
Meetups (such as the Hacker News one in London last week). I've considered
setting up my own sort of 'pay it forward' network; generally it's easier to
provide meaningful insight or analysis into others issues, than it is to move
forward on ones own.

I just wanted to let you know that your offer is greatly appreciated. I
sincerely look forward to speaking or meeting with you.

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michael_dorfman
That's a wonderful offer, Patrick. Your generosity (with your time and
knowledge) is, as always, inspiring.

~~~
patio11
It's really nothing other than what I've done since forever.

(n.b. I won't say $PARTICULAR_PERSON would do this without their permission
first, but there are very many people in our industry who have this policy or
fairly close variants of it. They just don't spell it out in detail on their
websites. Since I have recent experience in the land of "Essentially everyone
who I'd like to talk to is too busy to talk to me" delusions I thought I'd
make it explicit.)

~~~
GFischer
I want to thank you too :) . You've been very supportive of everyone in HN,
and give insightful answers to even obscure threads like my aborted attempt at
a micropayments startup :)

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revorad
I've emailed Patrick a few times asking for help. He's always super nice and
helpful. I had the pleasure of meeting him last year and he is a really down
to earth geek.

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jseims
I'm starting to work on a platform for people to explicitly state who they
want to connect with, and to handle the social flow from "hello stranger" to
"let's talk".

Anyone interested in helping out, please message me (josh at tristara dot
com).

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davewasthere
My respect for Patrick goes up yet another notch. Which is weird because I
thought it was already as high as it could go.

Hoping to get to Nagoya someday in the not too distant future.

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sjwalter
"I’m easy to spot: tall geeky guy with glasses wearing (90%+ probability) a
red Twilio jacket."

That's really funny. I got one of those same jackets for speaking at Twilio
Conference (btw, your session was great!) and it barely leaves my back. My
wife doesn't like it because I'm always wearing it when she does the laundry
so it's difficult to schedule its laundering.

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drblast
Patrick, I'm going to email you in a month when the initial flood of emails
you're going to get dies down. I don't have much to offer except possibly
interesting conversation about software and educational software in
particular.

This comment is more a reminder for me than anything. :-)

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Kaostricks
I like the Generic Tips .

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awt
Please upvote this comment if you'd like patio11 (Patrick McKenzie) to someday
write a book on any topic he chooses. This is something I'd gladly pay for.

~~~
awt
I'm going to let this stand, even though it's costing me Karma.

