How Easy is it to Make a Decision?

People tend to complicate startups.

We think they're about funding and team and growth and features and the emotional side and opportunity cost and a zillion other things. But, if you zoom out, startups are simple. Either you’re able to get people’s attention in a way that kicks off a relationship, or you’re not. Everything part of your business is downstream from that moment — when a customer you don’t know hears why you exist in 10 words or 5 seconds or an image... do they care enough to change their behavior?

This is the only moment that matters, and most founders don't respect it enough.

It starts with a misunderstanding of the goal for your first interaction with a customer.

What’s the goal of, say, a cold email? Is it to describe what you do in as few words as possible? To let the customer know you exist so that the next time you email them the picture of you builds? To sell?

Nope.

The purpose of a cold email, or any cold interaction, is to help your customer make a decision. Specifically, “Is this for me?”

When humans see something new, that's the question we ask — “Is this for me?”

If it’s not, or if it's unclear whether it is or it isn't, we're happy. That's easier. We continue on with our day and never think of it again. Your job is to force them to pay attention.

Here’s an example:

A company sent me a cold email this morning pitching their risk management company — meant for VCs, which they apparently thought I was:

This is objectively kinda well-written I guess, and I appreciate the bold font that lets me know what’s important, but…what is this? There’s more after this paragraph, but I’m far past gone by now. I deleted after paragraph number one, because as I was reading I asked the question, "Is this for me?" and I had no idea.

This is an extraordinarily easy email to delete. So, I deleted it.

Here's another email I got a few minutes later:

This email is fantastic. It's the exact opposite of the previous one. It's a filter — if you do X, keep reading. If you don't, delete. And if you do match the criteria in the filter, it's hard to delete. Because someone made something for you.

A specific question, like the one above, works well as a first sentence.

“Do you use Airtable to manage your community directory?” implies that they know we have a “community,” really a membership, but I’m working to make it more community-y, so, my answer to the question, “Is this for me,” is: “It sure might be, because I use Airtable and have a community.” So, I read on.

The classic entrepreneur fear here is: What if you send this email to people who don't use Airtable, but they might eventually be good customers? Maybe if they switched to Airtable they’d buy your thing, so saying do they already use it loses them?

That type of thinking is fear-based — be strict in who you're for, and leave the people you aren't for out.

That doesn't mean you can't test 5 different emails with 5 different decision filters, but don't mix them. Don't compromise, or your customer won't be able to make a decision.

Your cold emails, even when you’re at the late interview stage, should be set up to help the customer make a decision in the first line — “Is this for me, specifically, or not?” The more specific you are in the first line, the more your conversion rate will go up. And, I’ve found it looks like this:

Email specificity % → response %

65% specific (and below) → 0% response

75% specific → 1% response

85% specific → 1.5% response

95% specific → +10% response

People respond to “hell yes” and “hell yes” only. So, if you want to speak with sales managers who are trying to help increase morale, here’s how the first line looks :

65% → I’m building a tool to help sales managers grow.

75% → Sales managers like you are swamped.

85% → A huge challenge for sales managers is keeping up morale.

95% → You’ve tried LevelEleven to gamify sales for your team, sent them all to SalesX in Vegas, and even host quarterly retreats at Airbnbs — but morale just isn’t improving.

Help the person make the decision — “Did I use that software and attend that conference and rent Airbnbs? Or, do I wish I was that sort of person?”

You’ll get far more people saying “what the heck is this?” but the right people are 10x more likely to respond.

When you send an email, put yourself in your customers’ shoes — is it easy to know if it’s for them?