Dissecting The Ingredients of Successful Cold Emails

Cold emails, if done right can lead to mutually beneficial relationships.

Here are 3 cold emails that resulted in millions of $ of funding and new business relationships.

1. Ilya Sermin, CEO and Founder of Datanyze

Ilya Sermin, 29 year-old CEO and founder of Datanyze wrote cold emails to a few dozen sales executive, asking for feedback on his product. Nearly half of the people responded to Ilya. One of those people was Ben Sardella, then the VP of KISSmetrics. After a few correspondence, Ben became the first customer for Datanyze, and he even ended up joining Datanyze later. Read the full story here.

Here’s Ilya’s email

1. Targeted — Ilya sent the emails to highly targeted list of sales executives. Typical response rate to cold emails sent to addresses purchased from lists are 1–2%. Ilya’s response rate was close to 50%.
2. Relevant — Ilya asked if Ben as the VP of Sales for KISSmetrics want to know customers of its competitor, Mixpanel.
3. Personal— Ilya requested for feedback and positioned his request from a first time entrepreneur asking for feedback from Ben, who is as an expert. Praise never hurt. Everyone loves positive praises.

2) Brian Wong, Founder and CEO of Kiip

Brian Wong, 22 years old founder and CEO of Kiip wrote a cold email to Ken Chenault, CEO of American Express to pitch his product. Several conversations later, American Express venture invested in Kiip. Read the full story here.

Here’s Brian’s email:

Brian’s cold email to Ken Chenault

1. Targeted — Brian did his research and he targeted American Express as he knows they would be interested in understanding rewards.
2. Relevant — Brian shared his perspective on how rewards layer work in the mobile space and gaming space. Does American Express understand it? Will Ken, the CEO of American Express be interested to know more?
3. Personal— Brian used praises. “You are inspiring. You’ve brought allure to points that people fight tooth and nail for. Would make my year.” Again praises never hurt.
4. Establish his own credibility — He gave a link to an article from Entrepreneur magazine that covered Kiip and himself to establish his credibility.

3) Shane Snow, Author of SmartCuts

Shane Snow cold emailed Adam Grant, Wharton professor for advice when he started writing on his book ‘Smartcuts’. as he started work on his book. Not only did Grant reply to Shane’s email, but a meaningful relationship ensued from it.

Here’s Shane’s email

What all three have achieved were remarkable. But the outcome could have been very different, if they did not hit that send button.