digest
Short Summary
Main recommendation: Send investors a cold email they can read in 60 seconds or less, sent from a company address with your name, that describes what your company does before asking for anything. Keep the goal to getting a reply and starting a back-and-forth, not an immediate meeting or check. Michael Seibel says he tries to reply to all cold emails he receives, which makes these practices practical for founders.
Key Points
- The email should be readable in 60 seconds or less, because long emails are often saved for later and forgotten.
- Lead with raw facts: the problem, your solution, traction or launch status, market size, whether you have co-founders and can write code, and any controversial insight you hold.
- Avoid story-driven openings about how the idea came about, and avoid industry jargon, since investors may not know your field's terms.
- Send from a company email address with your name, since investors use tools like Rapportive or Superhuman that show sender information only for real addresses.
- Describe what the company does before requesting a meeting; asking for an in-person hour first puts the investor on the back foot and reduces your leverage.
Details Worth Noting
- Concrete instructions:
- Write the email, then read it aloud to yourself or record yourself reading it to check whether it fits in about 60 seconds.
- Include these items, in plain language: the problem, your solution, whether you have launched or have any growth, estimated market size, co-founder status and coding ability, and any controversial view others may not share.
- Send from your company email address with your name in it, not a personal address, an info@ address, or an unnamed alias.
- Attaching a deck is fine but not required; if you do, use a common Silicon Valley format. Seibel suggests searching "Airbnb seed fundraising deck" and copying the structure of a successful startup deck, not the style used in your previous industry such as finance or marketing.
- Track email opens to confirm the investor actually saw your message.
- Send one email and wait. Once the investor has read it, they have decided whether to reply now or later, so repeated quick follow-ups are unnecessary.
- The goal of the first email is a reply and a conversation, not a meeting, phone call, or investment commitment.
- Investors vary in how they like to start engagements, so pushing for an in-person meeting can make them uncomfortable.
- Seibel says that when investors are interested, they will ask for more information themselves, which gives founders leverage.
Bottom Line
Treat the cold email as a short, plain-language hook that earns a reply, and let the investor pull for more detail rather than asking them to commit time or money up front.
