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The perfect email

davidgcohen.com

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Re: The perfect email

#31

Post by PakG1 »

eta_carinae wrote: post #25
GlennFarrant wrote: post #13

Original email writer here. I generally agree with the comments about how it could have been improved. In hindsight, it was probably too wordy. My impression is that David processes emails more "deeply" than the average person, so I think he could handle the wordiness. Others would probably trash it more quickly. I did get a very thoughtful response from David which actually helped us immensely. As a result of taking…

> It took me a couple of hours to write the email. It always takes longer to write short emails, which is why so few people do it.

I tried to explain this just yesterday to a colleague who complains about my long emails. He said this obviously demonstrated I had no logic in my brain. It was an annoying day.

Re: The perfect email

#32

Post by epaga »

GlennFarrant wrote: post #13

Original email writer here. I generally agree with the comments about how it could have been improved. In hindsight, it was probably too wordy. My impression is that David processes emails more "deeply" than the average person, so I think he could handle the wordiness. Others would probably trash it more quickly. I did get a very thoughtful response from David which actually helped us immensely. As a result of taking…

Do you happen to recall what the subject line was? Seems like an important detail that has a big impact on first impression.

Re: The perfect email

#33

Post by GlennFarrant »

epaga wrote: post #32
GlennFarrant wrote: post #13

Original email writer here. I generally agree with the comments about how it could have been improved. In hindsight, it was probably too wordy. My impression is that David processes emails more "deeply" than the average person, so I think he could handle the wordiness. Others would probably trash it more quickly. I did get a very thoughtful response from David which actually helped us immensely. As a result of taking…

Do you happen to recall what the subject line was? Seems like an important detail that has a big impact on first impression.

The subject line was: "Real time location and status startup struggling with the Infrastructure vs Application decision"

Also, on reviewing the email, there was some formatting which may have helped the readability and draw attention to the central question. There was a fair amount of whitespace between the paragraphs and the main question was center-aligned and in bold.

Re: The perfect email

#34

Post by shanelja »

dmvaldman wrote: post #15
malandrew wrote: post #9

Good post. This is approximately what I've been doing for the last two weeks as I try to contact specific developers to come work at famo.us. I spend time researching them, including reading their github code, twitter and G+ streams, LinkedIn, personal blog etc. If I can't find a solid connection between what their experience and the things they love to do then that is a signed that I haven't researched enough or tha…

I'd consider working at famo.us. http://www.davidvaldman.com.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.c...

I don't understand why this was down-voted, the parent commenter clearly states that he is searching for employees and this comment states that he is interested in a job there.

Re: The perfect email

#35

Post by rrrene »

Swizec wrote: post #30
eta_carinae wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It took me a couple of hours to write the email. It always takes longer to write short emails, which is why so few people do it.

Writing a short email is easy. All it takes is actually knowing what you're trying to say.

IMHO, this is simply not true.

Practice makes perfect. Writing short, concise pieces of text that express your thoughts in an easily digestable is really hard, a challenge of its own (despite what you want to say) - it's like a form of "professional" art, that few master.

Re: The perfect email

#36

Post by brackin »

I used to run a marketplace business and much of my role was getting in touch with partners to get them on our service. Obviously the value we added was key but I started A/B testing email to see if it made much of a difference. I found that the shorter the email, the quicker the reply I'd receive. I worked it up to about a 50% improvement in the end. Honestly I just learned that people want you to get to the point, lay out the key facts and make it clear what you want.

If you know the person look at saving any niceties for after you've made your point. It doesn't look so false if you save any of this for after you've made your request and and you're actually interested in how their job is going.

Re: The perfect email

#37

Post by asmosoinio »

GlennFarrant wrote: post #33
epaga wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you happen to recall what the subject line was? Seems like an important detail that has a big impact on first impression.

The subject line was: "Real time location and status startup struggling with the Infrastructure vs Application decision" Also, on reviewing the email, there was some formatting which may have helped the readability and draw attention to the central question. There was a fair amount of whitespace between the paragraphs and the main question was center-aligned and in bold.

Sounds almost gimmicky, which it probably is not: Would you mind providing a screenshot of the email?

Re: The perfect email

#38

Post by ilija139 »

GlennFarrant wrote: post #33
epaga wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you happen to recall what the subject line was? Seems like an important detail that has a big impact on first impression.

The subject line was: "Real time location and status startup struggling with the Infrastructure vs Application decision" Also, on reviewing the email, there was some formatting which may have helped the readability and draw attention to the central question. There was a fair amount of whitespace between the paragraphs and the main question was center-aligned and in bold.

Completely out of context, but I have visited your website http://www.criticalarc.com/ and I was very surprised to see this pixelate image on the home page http://www.criticalarc.com/_content/index/slider/2.jpg.

Re: The perfect email

#39

Post by GFischer »

shanelja wrote: post #34
dmvaldman wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd consider working at famo.us. http://www.davidvaldman.com.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.c...

I don't understand why this was down-voted, the parent commenter clearly states that he is searching for employees and this comment states that he is interested in a job there.

Maybe the downvoter thinks he should have contacted the parent directly?

Edit: It's now back to positive, but I think HN could be improved by giving more private ways to contact people - the obvious way would be Private Messages, but this got me thinking about whether replies visible only to the OP and other posters in the thread would be a good solution - and yes, I know HN could implement a lot of other features before this one :) .

Re: The perfect email

#40

Post by GFischer »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #7

Basically: "He made it all about 'me' and that's the thing, as an investor, I love the most." In all seriousness if you truly want to know how to do something great, go to someone who has done something similar successfully before and soak up their knowledge. At the end of the day though, if you want someone you don't know who has never heard of you to invest in you, you have to stroke their ego a bit.

Indeed. In the words of Dale Carnegie:

“The royal road to a man’s heart is to talk to him about the things he treasures most.”

This email also exemplifies many of Carnegie's other maxims.

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