Cold email to a founder
Written to their week, not their title
Founders read their own inbox and have no patience for a pitch. A three-step sequence in plain language, written to their week, not their title.
TYPE
Cold email sequence
SITUATION
Cold, no trigger
PERSONA
Founder or CEO
SHAPE
Three steps, six emails
When to use it
Use this when the person you’re writing to runs the company: a founder, a CEO, an owner. At a smaller company they’re often the buyer, and they read their own inbox, so your email lands next to their investors, their customers, and their team.
That’s the bar. A founder will give a cold email a few seconds, and they’ll spend them deciding whether you understand what their business needs right now. Write to that, in plain words, and keep it short.
How founders read differently
They care about revenue first, and about costs when the saving is big enough to matter. Efficiency on its own is a manager’s argument.
Plain language beats expertise. Terminology shows a specialist you’re one of them. To a founder it reads as a pitch. Write the way you’d say it across a table.
Timing decides more than copy. The same email lands or doesn’t depending on what their week looks like. You can’t control that, but you can write something that still makes sense when it arrives.
THE COPY
Three emails over a week. The subject stays the same on every step, so the sequence reads as one conversation. Every email ends with your signature and a one-line opt-out (“If this isn’t relevant, just let me know and I won’t reach out again.”).
SUBJECT
[one to three words, lowercase, the topic in their words], for example revenue, hiring, or sales team.
Step 1
Day 1
Each asks one question, in the first line, and the rest of the email backs it up. The pair tests the argument: their time against their numbers.
Step 2
Day 3
The pair tests what's new: a result from another founder against how little of their time it takes.
Step 3
Day 7
The shortest email. The pair tests who owns it against when.
Want this running
on your account?
We run outbound for B2B companies and build the system underneath it, which you own. First campaigns live in two weeks.
What to personalize
Line | Weak | Strong |
The opening question | “Are you struggling to find time?” | “Is every sales email still on your plate at {{companyName}}?” |
The number | “Is this costing you money?” | “Are two empty sales seats costing you about $60,000 in pipeline a quarter?” |
Their effort | “It’s very easy to get started.” | “One call to start, then 20 minutes a month.” |
The routing question | “Who handles this at your company?” | “Is this something you’d own yourself, or is there someone on the team I should talk to?” |
Get their stage right before anything else. A founder of a five-person company and a founder of a 200-person company live different weeks, and an email that mixes them up gets deleted on the first line.
Why it works
It opens on their week. “Is this still on your plate?” lands harder with a founder than anything about their title. It’s about the hours, and they know exactly which hours you mean.
One question, up front. Two questions in a short email leave them unsure which to answer. One question in the first line is the reply you’re asking for, and everything after it gives them a reason to answer.
The money is in their terms. A sum worked out from their size reads as thinking. A percentage from a report reads as a pitch.
Step 2 answers the real objection. A founder’s first worry is rarely price; it’s how much of their time this will eat. Variation B answers it before they ask.
Step 3 routes, or asks about timing. Founders delegate, so “is this yours?” is a real question at a growing company. And because timing decides so much with founders, asking “now or later?” gets you an answer you can use either way.
Common mistakes
Opening with “Most founders…”. It files them into a category before you’ve said a word about them. Open with a question about their week instead.
Writing to the title. “As a founder, you know how hard it is…” tells them you know their job title and nothing else.
Flattery as an opener. “Love what you’re building at {{companyName}}” is the line every founder skips.
Mentioning the funding round. It picked them for the list; it doesn’t belong in the email. The just-raised-funding template (#11) is built on that idea.
Specialist jargon. Pipeline velocity, ICP, and TAM might be your words. They usually aren’t theirs.
A generic pitch. If the email would work for any founder at any company, it won’t work for this one.
The wrong person. A founder who handed sales to a head of sales two years ago will notice that you didn’t check.
The method behind this template: How we write cold email sequences.
More templates
More on cold email
→
B2B cold email sequence template
The three-step sequence we start every cold campaign from, with two variations per step and the reasoning behind each line.
Three steps, six emails
Cold email follow-up
A follow-up that brings something new instead of "just checking in", in three variations: proof, a different angle, and a smaller question.
One email, three variations
Sales breakup email
The last email asks who owns the problem instead of making them feel guilty. Three variations, the breakups we skip, and what to do with the replies.
One email, three variations
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