the art of cold emails

"hi [name],

i'm a senior product manager with 8 years experience at flipkart and swiggy. i've led teams of 15+ and shipped products used by millions. i saw your recent series b announcement and would love to explore opportunities at your company. attached is my resume. looking forward to hearing from you."

professional? sure. effective? absolutely not.

read that email again.

count the "i"s in that email. seven. seven times you talked about yourself in four sentences. that's not a cold email man. that's verbal masturbation.

the founder reading this has 200 unread emails. they're debugging a production issue. their biggest customer just threatened to churn. and you want them to care about your eight years at flipkart? get over yourself.

you're playing the wrong game. you think this is about you. your achievements. your potential.

hiring is sales. and in sales? nobody gives a shit about the seller.

that standup update? sales. that slack message? sales.

you're selling every time you speak. when you convince your friend to try that new restaurant. when you negotiate your toddler into bedtime.

<aside>

btw the best recruiters are the best sales folks. case in point, mahesh. one of the best talent magnets in the country. he started in sales.

</aside>

but most are bad at sales.

because you think sales is beneath you. "i'm a product person, not a salesperson." "i build things, i don't sell them."

cool story. stay unemployed.

stop feeling weird about cold DMs you're not bothering anyone. you're offering value. if you approach it right.

job boards are spam, maximized think about it. one job posting. 5000 applications. your carefully crafted resume sits at position 3487 in a digital pile. they’re not reading everyone’s cv folks. cold email is a backdoor entry.

let’s learn the art of cold emails.

yes, because cold emails are an art. they’re not a science. they cannot be broken down into an equation. anyone telling you this is trying to sell you something.

what i am going to instead is get you change the way you think. once you change the way you see cold emails, you won’t need templates. so stay with me.

cool? cool.

i will cover 3 things who to message what to write where to send

1/ who to message

1/ hiring manager

basically your future boss. the person who feels the pain of not having you on their team. find them through org charts, titles or if they’re on the company website. on linkedin (look for "head of [your function]" at target company)

2/ hiring agencies

here boutique > large firms. they eat what they kill. your success is their success. so worth building relationships with.

3/ VC firms

they are the kingmakers. portfolio companies trust their recommendations. you should target either associates who are hungry to prove value or talent partners because it’s literally their job. every vc has talent partners that help their portfolio with filling key roles.

i used this method to reach out to blume’s talent partner (sanam) after i returned from san francisco. a single VC intro can open up 20 opportunities. (screenshot)

4/ communities you're part of

the shared context reduces friction. also expect the highest response rates. use your alumni networks i.e. school/college.

or professional communities (like growthx.)

2/ what to write

let me introduce you

to the most powerful framework i've ever seen. jobs to be done.

JTBD. remember these four letters. jobs to be done will save your career. i am not exagerating.

i discovered JTBD 12 yrs ago.

used it to land my first real job. used it to raise money. used it in product strategy. used it in performance reviews. hell, i use it to plan dinner parties.

here's the core insight

people don't buy products. they hire products to do jobs.