

The perfect email - ColinWright
http://www.davidgcohen.com/2011/03/06/the-perfect-email/

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GlennFarrant
Original email writer here. I generally agree with the comments about how it
could have been improved. In hindsight, it was probably too wordy. My
impression is that David processes emails more "deeply" than the average
person, so I think he could handle the wordiness. Others would probably trash
it more quickly. I did get a very thoughtful response from David which
actually helped us immensely. As a result of taking the path he suggested
we've now got a great business going, and the main problem is hanging on to
the rocketship it has become. Obviously, a high-class problem to have.

It took me a couple of hours to write the email. Definitely time well spent.

~~~
eta_carinae
> It took me a couple of hours to write the email.

It always takes longer to write short emails, which is why so few people do
it.

~~~
Swizec
Writing a short email is easy. All it takes is _actually_ knowing what you're
trying to say.

~~~
rrrene
IMHO, this is simply not true.

Practice makes perfect. Writing short, concise pieces of text that express
your thoughts in an easily digestable is really hard, a challenge of its own
(despite _what_ you want to say) - it's like a form of "professional" art,
that few master.

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engtech
The key to getting attention is to talk to someone about something they are
interested in -- and everyone is interested in themselves.

Reading the email, it really felt as if it was from someone who already knew
the OP well. If I'd read something like that about myself I would have
question my first impression that this was a stranger -- surely we'd had
coffee or something at some point? Met at a conference?

In the same way that mimicking body language influences someone, the email was
couched in all kinds of casual point about "this is how we are alike".

Hit them right in the tribal monkey brain.

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AndrewKemendo
Basically: "He made it all about 'me' and that's the thing, as an investor, I
love the most."

In all seriousness if you truly want to know how to do something great, go to
someone who has done something similar successfully before and soak up their
knowledge. At the end of the day though, if you want someone you don't know
who has never heard of you to invest in you, you have to stroke their ego a
bit.

~~~
GFischer
Indeed. In the words of Dale Carnegie:

“The royal road to a man’s heart is to talk to him about the things he
treasures most.”

This email also exemplifies many of Carnegie's other maxims.

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andrew_wc_brown
I wouldn't call it perfect. You have to shift through all the verbiage to find
the points you want. I think that email could have been refactored to half the
length.

Busy people want short emails.

I'd be interested in knowing what the subject line was for the email.

~~~
redguava
If the intended recipient thought it was perfect, then he achieved his goal.

We all have different preferences for emails we received, clearly he nailed it
for his target.

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bluetidepro
As someone who is often very nervous about sending "cold" emails to this
degree, I really appreciate that you/David posted this.

It really helps paint a better picture of what a good easy-going email should
look like, in this case/scenario. I feel like I often over think more
"important" emails like this and re-write them over and over. It's good to
finally know that if I'm just more myself, it will probably stick out more
than if I try to sound like a robot and someone I am not.

Thanks again! :)

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brackin
I used to run a marketplace business and much of my role was getting in touch
with partners to get them on our service. Obviously the value we added was key
but I started A/B testing email to see if it made much of a difference. I
found that the shorter the email, the quicker the reply I'd receive. I worked
it up to about a 50% improvement in the end. Honestly I just learned that
people want you to get to the point, lay out the key facts and make it clear
what you want.

If you know the person look at saving any niceties for after you've made your
point. It doesn't look so false if you save any of this for after you've made
your request and and you're actually interested in how their job is going.

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malandrew
Good post. This is approximately what I've been doing for the last two weeks
as I try to contact specific developers to come work at famo.us. I spend time
researching them, including reading their github code, twitter and G+ streams,
LinkedIn, personal blog etc.

If I can't find a solid connection between what their experience and the
things they love to do then that is a signed that I haven't researched enough
or that there really isn't a fit and that I shouldn't bother them and waste
their time.

My favorite quote about email comes from Seth Godin:

"I don't want to get email from anybody. I want to get me-mail"

~~~
dmvaldman
I'd consider working at famo.us.

[http://www.davidvaldman.com.s3-website-us-
east-1.amazonaws.c...](http://www.davidvaldman.com.s3-website-us-
east-1.amazonaws.com/)

~~~
shanelja
I don't understand why this was down-voted, the parent commenter clearly
states that he is searching for employees and this comment states that he is
interested in a job there.

~~~
GFischer
Maybe the downvoter thinks he should have contacted the parent directly?

Edit: It's now back to positive, but I think HN could be improved by giving
more private ways to contact people - the obvious way would be Private
Messages, but this got me thinking about whether replies visible only to the
OP and other posters in the thread would be a good solution - and yes, I know
HN could implement a lot of other features before this one :) .

~~~
shanelja
I actually disagree, I think the public medium by which we can see every
interaction is what makes this place so good, if you want to be needlessly
bitchy, you need to do it in public where everyone else can see it.

It keeps us in check and thinking carefully about our comments and stops a lot
of degradation of standards, with regards to quality of comments.

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pestaa
Before sending my emails to co-workers and clients I check the first word of
each paragraph. The mistake I tend to make is to start each sentence with "I"
(not a native speaker).

Here, we have "I, We, I, Basically, I, As and Hey", and in the middle of the
text there are far _far_ more "I"s and "we"s than I find somewhat acceptable,
either. Perhaps the rate is this bad in comparison to my language where the
subject is given implicitly in affixes?

Regardless, how emails like this one can be seen as focused on the reader when
you know less about the target audience?

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isalmon
I'm only guessing here, but I think that most of the angel investors that I
know will trash such an email after reading the first sentence and seeing how
much more they still have to read.

~~~
sudonim
There's a magical formula to not make that happen.

You write a sentence that makes the person want to read the next one.

Even busy people like to read interesting emails.

~~~
TillE
Sure, but this email starts off poorly.

"We’re starting CriticalArc and we’re focussed on providing solutions to
problems that depend on streaming status and location in real time."

Ever since the 90s, the word "solutions" just makes my eyes glaze over. To be
fair, it gets interesting after that, but this is not a good way to introduce
your company.

~~~
malkarouri
For me, that was an especially good starting statement, though with no
cliffhanger as such.

It reflected the emailer's intention to not waste my time. Tells me who they
are, and tells me it's not a sort of long-winded spam. Sure, I have skimmed it
(glazed over?) and came back to it later after reading other parts of the
email. But it gave me the option to bail out while promising interesting
things if I am interested.

------
joshfraser
Before I hit "send" on an important email, I always try and stop for a second
and put myself in the recipients shoes. If I was receiving this email, how
would it make me feel? Would it make me want to respond?

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mojuba
And now I too am very curious what the response was, particularly whether
location-based services are being over- or underestimated at the moment.

~~~
GlennFarrant
The response was that he generally advises startups in our situation to "dog
food it" (i.e. build a solution on it first). That was the main feedback and
it has worked out great for us. We have a high-value offering based on the
platform as a result...and a long feature and product roadmap ahead of us.

On the topic of location-based services being over/underestimated there wasn't
a clear reply from David. Our experience has been that there are great
opportunities in solving problems for enterprise customers using mobile and
location-based services. I can't really speak for the B2C opportunity.

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Eduard
"Groupon clones"... lol, this definitely is so 2011.

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photorized
Isn't "advice" code for "money" these days?

Did he invest?

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rdl
IMO this is too long, also not clear enough.

Single sentence per line. Or two small ones.

Clear ask on its own line, correct?

Thanks, Startup Founder

Startup Name and URL

email / phone

~~~
jasonshen
While I agree in general that shorter emails are preferable - longer emails
draw you in more and can really show that the sender has thought things
through, thus making you more open to reciprocating.

~~~
rdl
That's why you include a URL. Otherwise, maybe put 3 lines up top, and more
info below which could stand on its own.

I don't get anywhere near as much email as a professional investor, but unless
it's from someone I know and actually want to hear from, or someone paying me,
if it goes on for more than 3 lines without being compelling, I just hit
delete.

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chris_wot
It's actually summer in Australia from between December to February...

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somecallmechief
Just look at the site: davidgcohen.com. The email (and subsequent link) is a
pure ruse. No one with any technical competence would email such a person.

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schusterfluke
That email is way, way too long.

