Why Most Founder Outreach Fails (and How to Fix It)

Every week, my inbox fills with cold outreach from founders. Some are thoughtful, sharp, and immediately spark curiosity. Others — most, if I’m honest — read like product brochures.

The pattern is strikingly similar. A founder introduces themselves, lists a bunch of features, sprinkles in a lofty claim ( “I truly believe we’ll be the #1 app with 1.5M subscribers in five years”), and then asks for a call.

Here’s the problem: belief isn’t evidence. And features don’t differentiate.

The Low-Signal Email

It usually looks something like this:

Subject: Introducing NutriSnap

Hi, I’m Daniel, founder of NutriSnap, an AI-powered nutrition app. With NutriSnap you can:

- Take a photo of your meal and get calorie counts
- Receive personalised diet advice
- Track activity and hydration
- Join a community of like-minded people

I truly believe NutriSnap will become the #1 health and wellness app in the US, with over1M paying subscribers in the first five years. We’re preparing a $2M Seed Round and launching our beta in Los Angeles. I’d love to schedule a call to share our vision.

Best,
Daniel

Polite? Yes. Well-meaning? Definitely. But also low-signal.

• It’s just a feature list.
• It relies on belief-based claims without evidence. The projections aren’t backed by any credible plan, which makes them sound like wishful thinking.
• It offers no clue why this founder is the right person to solve the problem.
• It skips over the distribution challenge (the graveyard of most consumer apps).

In short, it asks the investor to make a leap of faith.

What High-Signal Looks Like

Now let’s contrast that with a stronger email:

Subject: Ex-Strava & Headspace team tackling food tracking with 15k users at launch

Hi Andy,

I’m Daniel, founder of NutriSnap. Before this, I was Engineering Manager for the app team at Strava, where I scaled the mobile product to support 80M users worldwide. My co-founder Alicia was the founding growth marketer at Headspace, helping to scale subscriptions past 1M paying users.

We’re tackling one of the hardest problems in consumer health: food tracking. Most nutrition apps expect users to log every ingredient by hand. Unsurprisingly, 80% give up within two weeks. That’s the churn loop we’re breaking. NutriSnap uses computer vision (my speciality) to log meals instantly from a photo, reducing friction and keeping people engaged.

We’re launching in Los Angeles next month with partnerships across two dozen local fitness studios, giving us direct access to over 15,000 potential users on day one. Our rollout playbook lets us add ~5 new studio partners each week, putting us on track for 100+ venues by year-end — and a repeatable model we can scale city by city.

We’re raising a $2M Seed Round to expand engineering and scale distribution. I’d love to walk you through the model and early partnerships. Would Tuesday or Thursday work for a 20-minute call?

Best,
Daniel

Why This Version Works

• It leads with team credibility. Daniel and Alicia have both done highly relevant things before.
• It defines the problem clearly and makes it visceral (“80% give up within two weeks”).
• It positions the solution simply, tied to Daniel’s personal speciality.
• It shows a credible distribution plan (partnerships = 15k users at launch, scaling by 5 new venues each week).
• It ends with a clear, confident ask.

Why This Matters

Founders often think the product is the star of the show. It isn’t.

The product is the ticket to entry-the proof you can build. But what investors are really looking for is whether you can get people to care. That comes down to:

• Team: have you shown you can execute?
• Problem: is it real, painful, urgent?
• Market: do you know how to reach and convert customers?
• Traction: even small wins or partnerships matter more than vision alone.

As the old saying goes: first-time founders focus on product; second-time founders focus on distribution.

The Takeaway

If your outreach email looks like a features list with a side of belief, you’re signalling inexperience. If it highlights the team, the problem, the strategy, and the evidence, you’re signalling that you understand what it really takes to build a company.

The best products don’t win just because they exist. They win because the right team gets them into the hands of people who care.

Originally published at https://andybudd.com.