

Boston Founders: Does this seem offensive to you? Or are people just busy? - pain_perdu

So I'm moving down to Cambridge in a few days, initially to participate in the Startup Institute [http://boston.startupinstitute.com/]  and subsequently to [hopefully] start building something of my own.  In advance of the course, I thought it might be prudent to reach out to a handful (10) of local startups that piqued my interest to see if any might be willing to let me do a tour.  I was surprised when out of the 10, only 2 replied (after 2 days I even tried pinging a reminder via twitter...but no response), and of the two, only 1 was willing to accommodate the request.<p>So my question is two-fold:  Did I say something wrong in the message below?  And regardless, if anyone in the area would be cool with providing a quick tour of their startup next week, I would love to hear from you!!!  You can reach me via colin at charliesfreewheels dot ca<p>The original e-mail I sent to the ten startups is at http://i.imgur.com/XNicms4.png
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geophile
I've been a founder or early employee at several Boston startups. Had I
received this, I probably would have responded but blown you off. Here's why:

\- Your note is too long.

\- I don't care about your scheduling details. I'm doing you a favor (in the
best case). The right question is when would it be convenient for me.

\- There are plenty of networking events to meet founders, hear their stories,
and get inspired. Go to them.

\- A noob sales/business development guy is of low value.

\- A non-tech evangelist for a tech company is useless. (I've been doing
database and storage startups. The view of a consumer company might be
different.)

\- Your ultimate goal is to leave and do your own thing. While that's true of
many people, saying that is not a good move. And it isn't even a good idea.
Your goal should be to work your ass off for any startup that will take you
(assuming you think they have a chance of success), and learn what you can.

tl;dr: It isn't all about you.

~~~
ohyes
It also kind of reads like a spam/form letter.

Better(?):

"Hi, I'm Colin, I'm moving to the Boston area and really interested in your
start-up because..." Then talk about their technologies and ask any questions
you have. Make it as little about you as possible, as people generally like to
talk about themselves and their obsessions. Just act interested and engage.

Don't even ask to tour the office, there is no point until you are well on
your way to a job offer and ready to meet the team. Start-up offices are not
interesting. ("Here's the whiteboard and our server room. Tom sits here to do
code stuff").

Next step would be coffee, but only ask if you are genuinely interested and
have ideas about the stuff that you've been talking about.

It's a little like dating, you want to be mutually interesting. In that same
way unless you are really hot/smart/interesting (i.e. extremely talented
developer, for example), you will strike out a lot.

------
benologist
Your email's too long and people are too busy.

~~~
pain_perdu
this sounds about right.

