It might seem incredible that an unsolicited email from a startup founder to an investor they’ve never met could result in a response, let alone a multimillion-dollar deal, but it does happen. I know because we've made investments this way, including one of the most valuable companies in the Storm portfolio, which came to us through a cold email. In this post, I'll explain the qualities that can make a cold email successful—at least for me.
Now that you've reduced your investor list down from the entirety of all venture investors, you start to have more time to personalize your message. Don't try to literally make it personal; you don't know me, and I don't know you. However, you can tailor your message in a way that lets me know you've put a little work into convincing me to read on. The best bit of homework you can do for this is to look at what your target investor has put their money behind already. Look for companies in their portfolio that are relevant to your business, or other CEOs they've invested in. In Storm's case, maybe you've read something someone here at the firm has put online or watched one of my videos; maybe something resonated that you want to mention or generated some questions you want to ask. Adding touches like this make a difference in an investor's willingness to respond. To be clear: I'm not talking about flattery or stoking an investor's ego, but displaying an interest that shows you've done just a bit of homework.
Target your email appropriately
If you're thinking about blasting out a mass email to every investor you can find an address for, you're wasting your own time, not to mention that of any potential investors. If I see a message that I can tell has been sent or Bcc’d to 3000 other investors, I'll probably delete it without reading, as I imagine you would too.
We all get a ton of email and drawing from my own inbox as an example, I get a shocking number of emails from entrepreneurs who shouldn't have targeted me for whatever reason. For starters, it's no secret that my focus is B2B SaaS; if you're working on a life sciences or consumer product business, I wouldn’t know how to build that business, and I'm certainly not the right fit. This advice isn't limited to a specific sector, either—it also applies to the stage of your business. If you're just a team with a prototype or an idea and no revenue, you need a seed investor who gets involved pre-revenue. Again, it's no secret that the seed stage isn't my game: Storm is generally looking for