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8 min read
May 29, 2018
Everything you’ve read has probably told you that to get a meeting with a VC you need to get an introduction. This is only partly true. An intro is going to increase your odds tremendously, but what if you can’t get an intro? What if you want to meet with Mrs. X, and you can’t find anyone to introduce you to her? Common wisdom might say to keep digging, keep networking and find someone to make that intro, but why not try emailing Mrs. X? It isn’t going to hurt, as long as your email isn’t awful. Even if Mrs. X doesn’t respond, you can still keep networking, hoping you’ll find someone to make that introduction to her.
But how do you write a great email, something that grabs Mrs. X’s attention when she is skimming through her inbox in a Lyft?
Let’s start with how not to do it. Although I eventually convinced Jason Lemkin (from SaaStr) to invest in Mapistry, my first attempt to get a meeting with Jason went unanswered. I had been following Jason’s writing on SaaStr for a while, so when I saw he was speaking at UC Berkeley, I jumped at the chance to see him speak.
I remember a moment in the course of the event when Jason, or one of the other VC’s on the stage, suggested that audience members volunteer to do their elevator pitches and get feedback from the speakers. Pitching would have been a great way to get Jason’s attention, but I chickened out. Instead, I waited around afterward with the hoard of people surrounding him and asked him a short, probably unmemorable, question and then followed up with this email:
My first email to Jason. He didn’t respond.
On the plus side, I made the email somewhat personal and mentioned something that he had talked about during the event. But a lot is missing. I didn’t explain what Mapistry does, I alluded to it, but didn’t provide a clear explanation. In the second paragraph, I was pretty self-deprecating, which looking back at, I hate. I didn’t brag about our progress; I mentioned our MRR but essentially said “our traction is pretty lame, and I’m sure you wouldn’t want to talk to me now,” which might be true, but why did I say it? Finally, my ask is awful. “Can I reach out to you in a few months…” That isn’t an actionable ask. Plus, I didn’t follow up in a few months! Overall the email comes off as unconfident and vague.
Two years later, I was ready to make a real pitch. I had worked on my confidence, my social anxiety (I wouldn’t pass up that opportunity to do an elevator pitch again), and Mapistry had made a ton of progress. But I still didn’t have anyone to make that warm introduction to Jason, whom I really wanted Jason to invest in Mapistry. I was looking for an investor who would be an engaged, valuable mentor. I thought the best way to achieve this was to find an investor who had started a successful startup earlier in their career (this is less common than you might think). After reading and listening to Jason through the SaaStr community for a couple years, I found his advice more valuable than anyone else I followed. So once again, I thought I’d try to cold email him (if it hadn’t worked I would have tried to track him down at an event, but it would have been tough.)
I started by putting together a template email that I used whenever I was emailing an investor cold. I shared this template with lots of mentors and got feedback. This was not a quick email I threw together. I spent hours and hours honing the template.
Next, for each investor I emailed, whether it was an intro or cold, I modified the template to personalize it for them. For Jason, who was my number one choice for an investor, I spent a couple of hours researching and putting together the later part of the email. Here is the final product:
