Day 3 of cold-ish outreach to founders: >20 cold DMs → 1 reply + lead. >4 cold emails → 1 reply. progress. got an idea: create content about every project I cold DM. fun challenge and it kills the “no momentum” excuse for not posting….i mean i need to be in motion first to get motion right?😂

since posting a ton of "career advice" content, i'm getting an influx of DMs that are indicating an area many of you are struggling with: how to do cold outreach effectively if you're having trouble getting people to respond to DMs, here's what I'd recommend: 1) establish relevance/value quickly in any cold outreach, you have to understand that people have their guard up. i think about how i act when I get approached on the streets of manhattan i may actually be interested in what you have to say, but my default is to have my defenses up and not engage. when you're in a cold DM, it's the same thing give a compliment on something the person wrote. mentioned some shared life experience (e.g., alumni, role, etc). help give the recipient a reason to not filter out your message 2) have a clear, appropriate ask you want to make it as easy as possible for the person to respond to you. this involves framing your message so it's easy to understand and it's clear what the message is about maybe you're just sharing that their content resonates. maybe you're asking for a referral. maybe you're trying to have a chat with them. make that clear and don't hide it in a wall of text additionally, the "ask" needs to be "appropriate" is this person even able to help you? is it costly for them to help you? any easy way to get ghosted is to ask for something that is way beyond what the recipient is comfortable with doing. the easier option then becomes to not reply which kills the interaction 3) avoid eliciting a "hard no" whenever possible cold outreach is effectively trying to build a relationship from thin air. relationships naturally build over time with familiarity, so a good rule of thumb is to create the space for a relationship to continue over time asking for a favor "too big" for the relationship too early is an easy way to trigger a "hard no," which can be difficult to recover from i get this sometimes when people ask me for coffee or a referral right off the first message before we've established any rapport or familiarity i'm very happy to do both of these things, but not before I know it will be worth both of our time instead, ask for smaller things. elicit smaller levels of investment and build up as the relationship develops. as you get more accustomed to doing this, you'll have a better sense for what the other person is ready for --- this stuff isn't straightforward, but these principles are what separate people that successfully connect with people cold and those that get ghosted try applying these next time you're sliding into the DMs and lmk how it works out