Welcome to SLOP3089: Writing to Strangers#
Most cold email gets deleted unread. This course is about why, and how to write the ones that get read.
How the course runs#
- one-hour lecture (Mondays, 11am–12pm) plus a one-hour Weekly Sync, every week, for twelve weeks
- the lecture and its deck carry the teaching; the Weekly Sync is where you put that week’s idea to work on a real email
- graded CRS: pass/fail, does not count toward your GPA
How you’re assessed, at a glance#
- Weekly Syncs: attendance and completion across the twelve weeks
- Assignment 1
- Assignment 2
- you pass the course by passing Assignment 1, passing Assignment 2, and completing at least 8 of the 12 Weekly Syncs
- full detail on each is on the Assessment page
What’s expected each week#
Watch the lecture and read that week’s slides before your Weekly Sync. The sync assumes you’ve already seen the week’s idea. It’s where you apply it, not where you meet it for the first time.
Now, this week.
Week 1: Why Cold Email Works (At Least Sometimes)#
Most cold email gets deleted unread. This deck is about the exceptions.
What this lecture covers#
- the claim: what a cold email has to do, before anything else
- three documented cases where it worked
- a prediction exercise on the first one
- what the three cases have in common
- how the next eleven weeks are organised
The claim#
A cold email lives or dies on whether the reader can decide about it in a few seconds.
The reader owes the sender nothing, has fifty of these, and a few seconds each. Every failure named this semester is a specific way of losing that few seconds.
Three cases. One constraint.
Case one: Ghulati → Cuban#
Reconstructed from public reporting; wording is illustrative, not verbatim.
From: Dhruv Ghulati, Factmata
To: Mark Cuban
Subject: Factmata: fact-checking for ad-funded media, 15 minutes this week
Factmata catches false and misleading content moving through ad-funded platforms. We compete directly with the fact-checking tools publishers already use, and two news groups are piloting the product now.
(continued on the next slide)
Case one, continued#
I’d like fifteen minutes this week to walk you through where it stands: Tuesday 2pm or Thursday 10am ET.
No charm. A problem statement, named competitors, and an ask sized to two slots.
Predict, then watch#
Before the result: this pitch has no warm intro, no flattery, and no urgency language. Talk to your neighbour: does it land, or get ignored?
Case one: the result#
Result: a $500,000 investment.
Coverage at the time described the pitch as data-rich and low on drama. That’s an odd thing to say about a message that landed half a million dollars, until you notice that drama is exactly what a reader skimming fifty of these has no time for.
Case two: Janoch → investors#
A first, short pitch for Mapistry went nowhere. A second attempt, sent two years later, was longer and led with substance instead of charm.
From: Allie Janoch, Mapistry
To: [Investor]
Subject: Mapistry, two years on
Two years ago I sent you a shorter version of this and you passed. Here is what changed, and why the timing is different now.
Case two: the result#
Reported reply rate: 33% across the investors it went to.
Length wasn’t the variable that changed. What changed was whether the email gave the reader enough to decide with, and a longer email that does that beats a shorter one that doesn’t.
Cutting an email is not automatically the fix.
Case three: Field’s early Figma outreach#
Not a funding ask. Dylan Field emailed former colleagues directly to find Figma’s first users: people who already had a thin, real reason to care.
From: Dylan Field
To: [Former colleague]
Subject: Trying something new: want an early look?
I’m building a design tool that runs in the browser. You came to mind from the work you were doing when we overlapped. Up for a look this week?
The coldest emails that work often aren’t fully cold.
Talk to your neighbour#
One thing all three of these emails skip is ______.
Compare your answer with the person next to you before the next slide.
What the three have in common#
- the reader wasn’t persuaded, they were given enough to decide fast
- none of the three lean on charm to do the work
- each prices exactly what it’s asking the reader to do
Recap#
- the reader decided fast, under time pressure, rather than evaluating the pitch on its merits
- “enough to decide with, fast” is the bar every week after this one tests a specific way of failing
- eleven distinct failures follow, one per week, none repeating another