Have a plan of attack; structure your outreach comm’s and stick to it. Don’t just go in cold. Leverage your existing network & that of your company’s investors. This is where your founders can add real value. LinkedIn is your best tool – sounds obvious but it is really powerful and the premium product offers a utility @-replying to someone is also useful but should be used in moderation Cold emails – it’s an art, not a science [ask students what makes for a good cold email, write answers on whiteboard] Brevity above all else Make yourself valuable and the pitch clear TAILOR THE PITCH; really easy to spot generic mass emails It’s all about getting your foot in the door You can call in and ask for someone who you know has left the company, and then get directed to their replacement Cadence of follow-ups: take at least a week between; have new things to report / offer every time (example: Mozilla reaching out to me); offer the false negative [Exercise: have students pair up or work individually on drafting a cold email for one of the proposed scenarios. Review as a class] Regarding tailoring the pitch: “ It would take a few minutes of work for the sales rep to know that. But the standard compensation structure for a sales guy doesn’t incent finesse. It’s a numbers game, so a few minutes spent tailoring a cold email is a few minutes lost. Business development is different. Cultivating a partnership - a unique mutually beneficial relationship - requires an intimate understanding of the other party. Steve & I spend countless doing our research before making any contact with a prospective partner, regardless of it they’re a big company like MTV or a scrappy startup. We live and breathe their product so that it’s as familiar to us as GroupMe is. We read everything and anything we can to understand the company’s mission, culture, history, goals, and strategy. We talk to everyone we can. Doing that gives us the best chance of pitching the right partnership from the start, and if that’s off the mark, of adapting on the fly. You can never have enough information.”
Have a plan of attack; structure your outreach comm’s and stick to it. Don’t just go in cold. Leverage your existing network & that of your company’s investors. This is where your founders can add real value. LinkedIn is your best tool – sounds obvious but it is really powerful and the premium product offers a utility @-replying to someone is also useful but should be used in moderation Cold emails – it’s an art, not a science [ask students what makes for a good cold email, write answers on whiteboard] Brevity above all else Make yourself valuable and the pitch clear TAILOR THE PITCH; really easy to spot generic mass emails It’s all about getting your foot in the door You can call in and ask for someone who you know has left the company, and then get directed to their replacement Cadence of follow-ups: take at least a week between; have new things to report / offer every time (example: Mozilla reaching out to me); offer the false negative [Exercise: have students pair up or work individually on drafting a cold email for one of the proposed scenarios. Review as a class] Regarding tailoring the pitch: “ It would take a few minutes of work for the sales rep to know that. But the standard compensation structure for a sales guy doesn’t incent finesse. It’s a numbers game, so a few minutes spent tailoring a cold email is a few minutes lost. Business development is different. Cultivating a partnership - a unique mutually beneficial relationship - requires an intimate understanding of the other party. Steve & I spend countless doing our research before making any contact with a prospective partner, regardless of it they’re a big company like MTV or a scrappy startup. We live and breathe their product so that it’s as familiar to us as GroupMe is. We read everything and anything we can to understand the company’s mission, culture, history, goals, and strategy. We talk to everyone we can. Doing that gives us the best chance of pitching the right partnership from the start, and if that’s off the mark, of adapting on the fly. You can never have enough information.”
Have a plan of attack; structure your outreach comm’s and stick to it. Don’t just go in cold. Leverage your existing network & that of your company’s investors. This is where your founders can add real value. LinkedIn is your best tool – sounds obvious but it is really powerful and the premium product offers a utility @-replying to someone is also useful but should be used in moderation Cold emails – it’s an art, not a science [ask students what makes for a good cold email, write answers on whiteboard] Brevity above all else Make yourself valuable and the pitch clear TAILOR THE PITCH; really easy to spot generic mass emails It’s all about getting your foot in the door You can call in and ask for someone who you know has left the company, and then get directed to their replacement Cadence of follow-ups: take at least a week between; have new things to report / offer every time (example: Mozilla reaching out to me); offer the false negative [Exercise: have students pair up or work individually on drafting a cold email for one of the proposed scenarios. Review as a class] Regarding tailoring the pitch: “ It would take a few minutes of work for the sales rep to know that. But the standard compensation structure for a sales guy doesn’t incent finesse. It’s a numbers game, so a few minutes spent tailoring a cold email is a few minutes lost. Business development is different. Cultivating a partnership - a unique mutually beneficial relationship - requires an intimate understanding of the other party. Steve & I spend countless doing our research before making any contact with a prospective partner, regardless of it they’re a big company like MTV or a scrappy startup. We live and breathe their product so that it’s as familiar to us as GroupMe is. We read everything and anything we can to understand the company’s mission, culture, history, goals, and strategy. We talk to everyone we can. Doing that gives us the best chance of pitching the right partnership from the start, and if that’s off the mark, of adapting on the fly. You can never have enough information.”
Have a plan of attack; structure your outreach comm’s and stick to it. Don’t just go in cold. Leverage your existing network & that of your company’s investors. This is where your founders can add real value. LinkedIn is your best tool – sounds obvious but it is really powerful and the premium product offers a utility @-replying to someone is also useful but should be used in moderation Cold emails – it’s an art, not a science [ask students what makes for a good cold email, write answers on whiteboard] Brevity above all else Make yourself valuable and the pitch clear TAILOR THE PITCH; really easy to spot generic mass emails It’s all about getting your foot in the door You can call in and ask for someone who you know has left the company, and then get directed to their replacement Cadence of follow-ups: take at least a week between; have new things to report / offer every time (example: Mozilla reaching out to me); offer the false negative [Exercise: have students pair up or work individually on drafting a cold email for one of the proposed scenarios. Review as a class] Regarding tailoring the pitch: “ It would take a few minutes of work for the sales rep to know that. But the standard compensation structure for a sales guy doesn’t incent finesse. It’s a numbers game, so a few minutes spent tailoring a cold email is a few minutes lost. Business development is different. Cultivating a partnership - a unique mutually beneficial relationship - requires an intimate understanding of the other party. Steve & I spend countless doing our research before making any contact with a prospective partner, regardless of it they’re a big company like MTV or a scrappy startup. We live and breathe their product so that it’s as familiar to us as GroupMe is. We read everything and anything we can to understand the company’s mission, culture, history, goals, and strategy. We talk to everyone we can. Doing that gives us the best chance of pitching the right partnership from the start, and if that’s off the mark, of adapting on the fly. You can never have enough information.”
Have a plan of attack; structure your outreach comm’s and stick to it. Don’t just go in cold. Leverage your existing network & that of your company’s investors. This is where your founders can add real value. LinkedIn is your best tool – sounds obvious but it is really powerful and the premium product offers a utility @-replying to someone is also useful but should be used in moderation Cold emails – it’s an art, not a science [ask students what makes for a good cold email, write answers on whiteboard] Brevity above all else Make yourself valuable and the pitch clear TAILOR THE PITCH; really easy to spot generic mass emails It’s all about getting your foot in the door You can call in and ask for someone who you know has left the company, and then get directed to their replacement Cadence of follow-ups: take at least a week between; have new things to report / offer every time (example: Mozilla reaching out to me); offer the false negative [Exercise: have students pair up or work individually on drafting a cold email for one of the proposed scenarios. Review as a class] Regarding tailoring the pitch: “ It would take a few minutes of work for the sales rep to know that. But the standard compensation structure for a sales guy doesn’t incent finesse. It’s a numbers game, so a few minutes spent tailoring a cold email is a few minutes lost. Business development is different. Cultivating a partnership - a unique mutually beneficial relationship - requires an intimate understanding of the other party. Steve & I spend countless doing our research before making any contact with a prospective partner, regardless of it they’re a big company like MTV or a scrappy startup. We live and breathe their product so that it’s as familiar to us as GroupMe is. We read everything and anything we can to understand the company’s mission, culture, history, goals, and strategy. We talk to everyone we can. Doing that gives us the best chance of pitching the right partnership from the start, and if that’s off the mark, of adapting on the fly. You can never have enough information.”
