Category: Cold Emails

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#unfiltered #25 Meeting the Curiously Passionate and the Passionately Curious – The Why and The Where

travel, meeting people, rabbi sacks

“It’s the people not like us who make us grow.”

– Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks on The Tim Ferriss Show Ep. #455

I recently tuned into, at the time of writing this post, Tim Ferriss’ third most recent podcast episode, interviewing Rabbi Sacks. Although I’m a regular listener to the show, I wasn’t expecting much. I neither have a history of being religious nor spiritual – merely peripheral curiosity. Yet, I don’t hesitate for one second to say: It is, by far, one of the most insightful and enlightening podcast episodes I’ve heard in 2020. So, if you have a spare 1.5 hours, I highly recommend it, especially if you’re looking for a perspective shift on:

  • Leadership,
  • Seeking peer approval,
  • What a single cold “call”/visit could get you,
  • And the need for “cultural climate change” in the understanding between the balance of “I” and “we”.

And Rabbi Sacks masterfully weaves these concepts together. While my reaction will never do his insights justice, two other thoughts, each paired with their own story, I had to double click on:

“Good leaders create followers, great leaders create leaders.”

“What happens when you’re in a situation in which you have done something that has generated widespread disapproval? How do you deal with that?

“Win the respect of the people you respect.”

And I digress.

The Bubble

I’ve lived my entire life so far in the Bay Area, barring a few vacations and excursions here and there. I was born here. I went through 12 years of grade school here. 13 if you count kindergarten. And though I had the option of leaving the Bay for college, I ended up choosing a school here as well. Truth be told, I might as well have “Made in the Bay” stamped on my forehead.

I live in a bubble. But I know I breathe in one. Not just geographically, but educationally, racially, sexually, socioeconomically, and so on.

Being a shy introvert pre-adulthood didn’t help with broadening my perspective on life either. I still remember the days in high school when I dreaded the teacher calling on me. Clammy palms, cold sweat, rigid spine. I would never vocally question disagreement. Equally, I would rather be a people pleaser than cause what I deemed to be unnecessary friction. I was a seafood hors d’ouevres of perturbation.

So, by inspiration from a mentor, I took actionable steps to conquer my own demons. Meet one new person you’re extremely excited to meet every single week for a year.

While I still carry the artifacts of myself yesterday, learning to balance myself between the person I thought and think I needed to become and the person I was, I began my journey 6 years ago.

The Pop in the Bubble

I’d be fronting if I said I wasn’t scared shitless when I began. Though I don’t think everyone in the world has this dilemma, I’m confident I am not alone. I had and have all these scenarios playing in my head. A bunch of ‘what-ifs’. What if they think I’m too nosy? What if they don’t have time to respond? Or what if they hate me for bothering them?

They say it gets better over time. And they’re not wrong. But I still have that lingering, gnawing feeling whenever I click send or put myself out there. While, over the years, the fears never fully dissipated, I’ve learned to tango with discomfort. In the words of my mentor who inspired my journey:

“You’re never as good as they say you are, but you’re also not as bad as they say you are. And hell, you can’t even be bad if they don’t even know who you are.”

… which I believe he drew inspiration from Lou Holtz. Shortly after, I clicked the “Send” button at the bottom of my first ‘curiosity’ email. After all, like he said, what’s the worst that can happen? Getting ignored. And as such, I would be no better nor worse off than I was and am in that cross section in time. With that assurance, it eventually led me to find my cold email “template” and hosting social experiments, like Brunches with Strangers.

The Where

Over the past few weeks, a few new people asked me: “Where do you find these people to reach out to?” Although it’s not the first and I assume certainly not the last, I thought I’d share in the form of this post as a possible inspiration for how we can grow, if I were to paraphrase Rabbi Sacks.

While I don’t characterize myself as a voracious reader, I allot time every day and have found many of my Senseis in the form of literature and discourse – online and offline, printed and taped, and in-person and remote. Including:

  • Books
  • Online articles/press releases
  • Newsletters
  • YouTube videos
  • Movies
  • Podcasts
  • Webinars/fireside chats
  • Textbooks
  • And, other people

One level deeper

To look beyond my own horizon, I tune into Pocket‘s Discover tab, or a platform I’ve recently fallen in love with, Readocracy. You can check out what online reading I’ve been up to lately on my Readocracy profile. And I can’t wait, when I can start tracking the books I read and the podcasts I listen to on there. I’m also fortunate enough to have friends who read, write, listen, and socialize with different social and professional circles than I do and am in. And as I meet more people, the spectrum of topics and interests snowball upon each other, as we help each other see new perspectives – some of which we never thought were possible.

Admittedly, where I find who to reach out to is, by no means, special or esoteric. In topics, I look into ones I’m genuinely interested in, in that moment and predictably beyond, even if it’s only a month or two, as promiscuous as I might be for many. In my short phases of promiscuity, I nevertheless take deep dives. Deep, yet often, not long. At the same time, I have a small handful of evergreen interests, like:

  • The art and science of building relationships,
  • The art of creating irreplaceable memories,
  • Psychology and mental models,
  • Swimming and intense athleticism,
  • Art as a multi-faceted definition,
  • Startups,
  • Technology and what lies at its frontier,
  • The final frontier – outer space and its cosmological inhabitants,
  • And the future.

In people, I look for two things:

  1. Inflection points in their life. Oxymorons/ironies. Overt and covert contradictions.
    • If I were to make assumptions given their initial attributes (i.e. education, age, gender, geography, career, life choices/circumstances, etc.), would I have been able to predict where they are now?
    • Of course, in making these assumptions, it is also my responsibility to be aware and to tread carefully where I should. Unfortunately, ignorance is not an excuse. If I’m unsure, I err on the side of caution.
  2. Deep intellectual curiosity and passion. Whom I call the passionately curious and the curiously passionate.

In closing

While I’m prone to talking too much at times, during these moments, it is my duty and the highest form of respect I can offer, to listen. If I were to take it from a selfish note, I learn so much more when I listen. And in actively listening, and actively checking my biases, to respond with thoughtful questions.

So, I’ll close on more thing Rabbi Sacks said in his recent interview with Tim Ferriss:

“Safe space means that courteous discipline of respectful listening.”

Photo by Mantas Hesthaven on Unsplash

#unfiltered is a series where I share my raw thoughts and unfiltered commentary about anything and everything. It’s not designed to go down smoothly like the best cup of cappuccino you’ve ever had (although here‘s where I found mine), more like the lonely coffee bean still struggling to find its identity (which also may one day find its way into a more thesis-driven blogpost). Who knows? The possibilities are endless.

Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!

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When I Over-assume in a Cold Email

cold email, glasses, how to write a cold email

I was quite surprised at the unexpectedly positive response I received for my blogpost, My Cold Email “Template”, I wrote a month back. From DMs by you, my curious readers, and my friends. A great question some of you brought up was:

“What if I have to write a longer email to get my point across?”

It happens. As some of you may already know from this post and my Contact page, I don’t believe that all cold emails have to be short. I, myself, am guilty of writing longer messages sometimes just because I can’t figure out a shorter way to express my interest in that person in a cold email. Regardless, if I think they have the time to read it or not.

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#unfiltered #22 The Lesson I Learned from Purposefully Replying to Spam Emails – Persistence, The Attention Allocation, and a Little Hack I Use

phone booth, spam emails, communication, cold emails

A few days ago, I watched Yes Theory‘s recent heartwarming and inspiring video, Creating a Subscriber’s Viral Job Application. And if you have a spare 20, I highly recommend checking it out. Yesterday, I chatted with a friend about the influx of spam calls these days. So, I thought; now that’s a start of a #unfiltered blogpost.

As a warning, this post is slightly more eccentric than, admittedly, my average #unfiltered blog post.

Prefacing with spam

I used to write this newsletter, Friday Morning Coffee Break, back in college for one of the clubs I helped lead. (Now that I think about it, coffee seems to be the theme for my content drops.) So if any of you subscribers then are reading this post now, this anecdote will be a momentary skip down memory lane.

So, you see, I’m a huge fan of comedy. And 3 years back, when I first learned about James Veitch, I just had to try it out myself. Replying to spam emails. From Nigerian princes. Cold emails from ‘celebrities’. Confirmation emails that require replying to unsubscribe.

If you’re curious as to how he pulls it off, you can check out his Hilarious (yes with a capital ‘H’) TED talks: here, here, and here.

What I did

When I received:

Subject: Save a 80% Off meds delivered discretely to your door

Don’t miss this once in a lifetime chance to get 80% off of a lifetime supply of Viagra!
GotBanq

… my keyboard was ready.

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#unfiltered #20 You Will Be What You Eat, You Are What You Excrete – Leading vs Lagging Indicators, One of My Relationship-Building/Networking Practices

stars, starry night, networking tips

Yesterday evening, I sat in our backyard, sipping homemade lemonade and sketching out my weekly creative endeavor (why). Between sips and furtive glances upwards, I hoped to catch a glimpse of NEOWISE. But alas, I forgot to pray to the weather gods in the morning.

Disappointed, I packed up to head inside. As if by a stroke of fate, my phone buzzed. You know, this story would be more dramatic if my disappointment was telepathically transmitted to my friends. Tongue in cheek, I apologize if I got your hopes up. But, it was merely the influx of messages after my timed “Do Not Disturb” mode switched off. Yet one of these blips came from a good ol’ swim team pal into our group chat. Lo and behold – an HD cross section in time of the exact comet.

I propped my cell above my head, positioned just north of the horizon. And unable to hold my smile back, I stuck around for a while longer.

So what?

You’re probably wondering: How the hell does yesterday’s smile have to do with “You will be what you eat, you are what you excrete”. As the title of the post so kindly suggests. Trust me it does. Admittedly, probably not the greatest of blog post titles, but, hey, it rhymes. Which might be the lamest excuse you’ve heard this month. But I digress.

You will be what put in your body. You are already what comes out of your body. Literally. Well, I’m sure my cousins who are molecular cell biologists will point out some (or many) of the nuances I missed. But we don’t have to count the cards.

The same is true for your personality. You build your personality based on the inputs in your life from when you’re younger. Your personality is subsequently evidenced by what you say and do.

And, I can say the same for education, biases, and so on. For the purpose of this post, I’d like to underscore one other – relationship-building. Or as most others understand it, networking. But I have a mild allergic reaction to that nomination.

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#unfiltered #18 Naivety vs Curiosity – Asking Questions, How to Preface ‘Dumb’ Questions, Tactics from People Smarter than Me, The Questions during Founder-Investor Pitch

asking questions, naivete vs curiosity, how to ask questions

Friday last week, I jumped on a phone call with a founder who reached out to me after checking out my blog. In my deep fascination on how she found and learns from her mentors, she shed some light as to why she feels safe to ask stupid questions. The TL;DR of her answer – implicit trust, blended with mutual respect and admiration. That her mentors know that when she does ask a question, it’s out of curiosity and not willing ignorance – or naivety.

But on a wider scope, our conversation got me thinking and reflecting. How can we build psychological safety around questions that may seem dumb at first glace? And sometimes, even unwittingly, may seem foolish to the person answering. The characteristics of which, include:

  • A question whose answer is easily Google-able;
  • A question that the person answering may have heard too many times (and subsequently, may feel fatigue from answering again);
  • And, a question whose answer may seem like common sense. But common sense, arguably, is subjective. Take, for example, selling losses and holding gains in the stock market may be common sense to practiced public market investors, but may feel counter-intuitive to the average amateur trader.

We’re Human

But, if you’re like me, every so often, I ask a ‘dumb’ question. Or I feel the urge to ask it ’cause either I think the person I’m asking would provide a perspective I can’t find elsewhere or, simply, purely by accident. The latter of which happens, though I try not to, when I’m droning through a conversation. When my mind regresses to “How are you doing?” or the like.

To fix the latter, the simple solution is to be more cognizant and aware during conversations. For the former, I play with contextualization and exaggeration. Now, I should note that this isn’t a foolproof strategy and neither is it guaranteed to not make you look like a fool. You may still seem like one. But hopefully, if you’re still dying to know (and for some reason, you haven’t done your homework), you’re more likely to get an answer.

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My Cold Email “Template”

coffee, cold email template

First of all, I should preface. Though I find templates to be useful when you’re shooting for quantity over quality, I default to only using limited elements of one, if at all, when my goal is quality > quantity. The goal with 90% of my emails I have ever sent is where I’m punching above my weight class, be it –

  • Applying to college – writing a letter to the deans of respective schools to get a personal tour,
  • Asking for funding – from top-tier VCs and potential long-term partners,
  • Asking for advice – from VCs and seasoned founders, in the form of tactical and veteran mentorship,
  • Or, exploring perspectives. I’m pretty liberal in my scope here.

If you’re here reading this and are looking for a silver bullet. If you’re looking to be that John Wick walking away from a massive explosion behind you… well, I regret to let you know – I don’t have one. I wish, but I don’t. But to me, that’s what makes this black box of relationship building ever the more fascinating. Had it been easy, I would have gotten bored real fast. Unfortunately, I have a limited mental stamina for things that work because… well, they work.

Inspired and encouraged by my conversations with 4 amazing souls over the past week – a founder, product manager, startup mentor, and my mom, here are the tactics I learned after years of reaching out to folks that inspire me, specifically closing one a week since 6 years ago.

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An Underappreciated Way to Get a VC’s Attention

message, fundraising, investor list, how to get a VC's attention

It’s been a trying time for founders to fundraise in these turbulent times. On one end, you have investors who took a U-turn on plans to invest this year. On the other, you have investors still deploying or looking to deploy capital. The latter further breaks down into: (a) investors who are taking more calculated bets – raising the bar for the kind of startup that gets the capital, and (b) investors who find the opportunity to invest in the down markets. The latter cohort of the latter cohort seems to hold truer at and prior to the pre-seed stages among microfunds and angel groups.

The Tightening of the Market

Disregarding the investors who aren’t deploying capital anymore, it’s been harder than ever to raise. Here’s why:

  1. Anecdotally, more startups are looking to fundraise. Many have pushed up their fundraising schedules.
  2. The standard is much higher now than before. And that includes a stronger consideration for the problem you’re addressing. Is it anti-fragile? Is it recession-proof? If your numbers are down now, will they eventually ‘flip’ back on track post-quarantine?
  3. Valuations are taking a hit. Where before your startup may have been overvalued (especially in Silicon Valley), many startups are facing “more realistic” round sizes. And flat or down rounds are more prevalent.
  4. When investors can’t meet founders in-person, they’re resorting to data, data, data. Investors no longer have the luxury to benchmark a gut check over Zoom/email, as they would have in noticing micro-gestures and other situational context clues. Anecdotally, investors are spending much more time and putting much more weight on diligence than before.

And, that’s why founders, more than ever, should (re)consider fundraising strategies. This was something that I learned when I was on the operating side and at one point, working on the fundraising front for Localwise.

Much like when high school students apply for college, founders should have a three-tiered list – SMR, as I like to call it:

  • Safety,
  • Meet,
  • And, reach.

Safety

Safety investors are those that are definitely going to take the meeting. And will most likely invest in you (i.e. at the idea stage, this mostly comprises of family, friends, and colleagues, maybe even early fans via crowdfunding). Admittedly, they can only contribute small sums of money. Each check also carry little to no strategic weight on the cap table.

Meet

Meet investors are investors that will most likely take the first meeting, but you’ll need to do a little leg work to get them to invest. Many of these will most likely stick to being participants than leads in any round. They carry some strategic weight on the cap table – in the capacity of their network, their brand, or advice.

Reach

Your reach investors will be your greatest sponsors. The people who have the highest potential to get you hitting the ground running. These folks usually have crowded inboxes already. And you’ll need to figure out how to best reach them. Unless they reach out to you, you will most likely fall just short of their gold standard. But once you stget these onboard, your relationship will set you up for reaching your next milestone better than any other individual partnership. At the same time, they will be the ones who are most likely going to have true conviction behind your product, your market insight, and your team. They typically lead rounds, and carry great strategic value to your startup (i.e. top tier investors, SMEs, product leaders in your respective vertical). For lack of better words, your ‘dream girl’ or ‘guy’.

Your Priorities

When pitching (and practicing your pitch), go for a bottom-up approach. Safety, then meet, then finally reach. And ideally, by the time you’re pitching to your ‘dream girl’ or ‘guy’, you’d have refined your pitch that best fits their palate.

When prioritizing time and effort, go top-down. Since you have limited bandwidth, spend the most time doing diligence on your reach investors. Then meet. And if you still have time, safety.

Diligence and Reaching Out

During your diligence process, look at their team, their individual and collective experience. Is their partnership, especially the checkwriters, diverse? Were they former operators? Or career VCs? And based on what they have, what do you, as a founder, need the most right now? Also, to better understand the marriage you’ll be getting in to, talk to their portfolio startups and investors that have worked with them before. Pay special attention to the the venture bets that didn’t work out. Was there a break up? If there was, what was it like? How did the investor help them navigate tough times?

It’s easy to be positive and cohesive when things are working out, but how does that investor react when things aren’t going as expected?

After talking to the (ex-)portfolio founders, if you feel like they have a good grasp on what you’re working on and are excited for you, ask them for an intro. Focus on those founders who have gone through the idea maze in your respective vertical, or an adjacent one. If you’re defining a new vertical, or that investor has just never invested in your vertical, but has expressed public interest of pursuing investments in yours, ask founders who have the same or a similar business model to yours. After all, that’s going to be the kind of solid warm intro you want.

In Closing

Though there are other ways to get in front of investors (some more questionable and/or gutsy than others), including, but not limited to:

  • Warm intros from friend/mutualLinkedIn connection,
  • Cold email/DM,
  • Reaching out to a more junior team member (scout/analyst/associate/principal),
  • Presenting at accelerator/incubator Demo Days,
  • Presenting at a hot conference, like TC Disrupt or SXSW,
  • Volunteering at the same non-profit as them,
  • Auditing their lecture at Stanford,
  • Or, squeezing into their elevator (although most VC offices are pretty lateral)…

… anecdotally, it seems many founders overlook the means of getting an intro from a VC’s portfolio.

Photo by Marvinton from Pixabay

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Cold Emails – Addressing Elephants and Rock Hyraxes

cold email, elephant

Amidst this unpredictable pandemic, where people are sheltering in place and social distancing themselves. We’ve reached a new inflection point in the curve of virtualizing our worlds. And it just so happens that this is one of the best times to reach out via cold email.

I want to preface by saying this practice has largely worked for me when I reach out. But is neither representative of the population nor guarantees a reply.

The Lesser-known Rock Hyrax in the Room

When reaching out via cold email, the first thing I do is to address the elephant in the room. Outside of the “why are you reaching out to me” question that everyone has, the second most pertinent question, consciously or subconsciously, often is “how long will this take?” – the rock hyrax in the room.

Fun fact: Apparently, the rock hyrax is the elephant’s closest cousin. Frankly, I didn’t know that until I began writing this piece.

Most people who’ve spent some time honing their skills for cold emailing can answer the first question rather well. But, many miss the second.

Close cousins include:

  1. What does the time commitment look like to respond to the email? To address the ask meaningfully? What is my opportunity cost?
  2. How long will this relationship like?
  3. Can I get along with this person?
  4. Will this be an extension of work?

The most important frame of mind is to be honest. If it’s a sales call, it’s a sales call, not “expanding my network.” If you think it’s going to take half an hour to chat, say it. Don’t be nebulous. Set expectations and be forthcoming and candid from the get-go.

“So… why are you reaching out to me?”

And, I’ll leave no stone unturned. If you know the receiving end is busy, also address why they are the best candidate to answer your ask. Be specific. Whether you’re trying to close the first few clients in your pipeline or reaching out to learn, consider the answers to these questions:

  1. How did you find them?
  2. What about them makes you insatiably curious to reach out?
  3. Why they’re the best fit? What’s in it for them? What’s in it for you? (Note I ask “What’s in it for them” before I ask “What’s in it for you”)
  4. Have you spent time doing diligence? On the person? Industry? Topic?
  5. (Optional) Are there inflection points in their life/career/public presence that are unrelated to your ask, but you find oddly fascinating? Pick 1-2.
    1. Note: You should be approaching this question from a point of admiration, fascination, and/or genuine curiosity. If you have any malicious intent, don’t bother.

It just so happens that the same holds for rekindling old flames. Although it’s, by no means, a replacement for social interaction, hopefully it’ll keep the pan hot, when you do sautée after we start mingling at dinner parties again.

Photo by Geran de Klerk on Unsplash

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#unfiltered #6 The Quantum State of Advice РThe Marriage of the Schr̦dinger Equation and Cold Emails

quantum, schrodinger's cat, advice
Photo by Danilo Raphael Reyes on Unsplash

“The rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.”

– Warren Buffett

Although Mr. Buffett said that in relation to business, I find it equally true everywhere else. Just like the rearview mirror and the windshield, I want to denote the dichotomy between feedback and advice.

  • Feedback – given post-mortem, after-the-fact, help after peering into the rearview mirror
  • Advice – given “pre-mortem” or in an ad-hoc sense, help offered proactively, looking through the windshield.

As this title suggests, for this post, I’ll just be focusing on advice. And well, that may be as profound as this post will get, the rest is just a trip down my nerdy shower thoughts after watching this video about parallel worlds my equally nerdy friend sent me.

You have been warned…

The world right now

Well, you see, I work in an industry that thrives off of giving advice. Especially in these trying times when businesses are not only trying not to lay off their staff, many are working around how to stay afloat. My friends in culinary projected a 50% decline in occupancy rate, but at this point, have shifted entirely to to-go options and lowered their own salaries anywhere from 35% to 100%. My pals in D2C (direct-to-consumer), transportation, or travel have been punched in the gut. And, my entrepreneurial buddies are doubling down on cash preservation, rather than growth. The rule of thumb we’re telling founders to have at least as much runway to weather the next 18 months. So if that requires pushing up your fundraising schedule, then time to re-prioritize.

The nerd comes out

But after decades worth of receiving advice and years worth of giving advice, I learned something that seems like a no-brainer now. You see, the thing is advice is both right and wrong simultaneously. You can say it’s in a superposition of being right and wrong… at least until that advice is observed by its subsequent application and result.

Let’s take it a step further. Can we predict the probabilistic effect of advice on a given situation? Sure. So, let’s take a look at the Schrödinger equation.

Image result for schrodinger equation

There’s a few elements that stand out. |Ψ(t)> denotes a time-dependent function. And, H(t) denotes the sum of the kinetic and potential energies for all the particles in the system. In relevance with advice, the timeliness ( |Ψ(t)> ) of the advice matters – in relation to both where you are now and where you’re heading. The eigenvector of you. At the same time, it’s important to factor in your velocity now and everyone and everything else’s involved in the situation.

You might be wondering how come I didn’t analogize to the classical mechanics version of this equation: F=ma. Excellent observation! The reason is that the classical mechanics version doesn’t account for wave-like probabilistic outcomes. And advice and its relative observation by application doesn’t have a guaranteed outcome. Rather, it plays a hand in either increasing or decreasing the outcome of an event.

Here’s an example

One of the first lessons I learned, if not the very first piece of advice I got, when learning about ‘Cold Emails 101’ was:

“Limit your email to 3-5 sentences.”

Makes sense. I didn’t want to bombard the person I was reaching out to. I want to make it easy for them to read and reply to. But over the years, I learned that the real answer to email length is ‘It depends’. If you’re reaching out to someone who:

  • already has a lot of clutter in his/her inbox,
  • has expressed disdain or annoyance in reading emails,
  • doesn’t check his/her inbox often,
  • has a succinct personality (person-of-few-words),
  • or anything else that suggests they’re not going to bother with a long email,

… then send the 3-5 sentences. But if that person:

  • wants to see that you’ve spent your time doing your diligence (not a generic spray-and-pray email),
  • has a more extreme sense of self-worth,
  • is curious/open to flushed-out new ideas/perspectives,
  • enjoys a tale,
  • is a comedian,
  • or anything to suggest that a longer email may stand out to them,

… then craft a longer message. I was able to get in touch with some of the people I really admire by crafting lengthier emails. That said, there’s always a bit more nuance in all of this. Here’s a piece I wrote last year that may provide some context. And this is only probabilistically higher, holding all other variables constant.

Even so, there’s always more than two options. DM them on their most active social media platform. Get an intro. Send them meaningful content. Send a hand-written note by messenger hawk. Visit them in person, without unwanted trespassing. Go viral by making a lollipop with their face on it. Buy an extrasolar star and name it after them. The list is endless.

In sum, the advice of limiting the verbage of your emails is right and wrong at the same time. It merely depends on where the person you’re reaching out to is at and where they might be headed, as well as your own goals in life. And of course, as with any advice, limiting your sentences may boost or detract from the likelihood of a reply.

The disclaimer

As is the nature of an analogy, it breaks down when you get more granular. I should mention that I’m no astrophysicist (dealing with the macro) nor am I a quantum physicist (the micro). And I’m sure if any relevant occupation were to look into my analogy, there’d be tons of holes. I am merely a peripheral enthusiast.

quantum advice
My scribbles on paper which turned into this post.

#unfiltered is a series where I share my raw thoughts and unfiltered commentary about anything and everything. It’s not designed to go down smoothly like the best cup of cappuccino you’ve ever had (although here‘s where I found mine), more like the lonely coffee bean still struggling to find its identity (which also may one day find its way into a more thesis-driven blogpost). Who knows? The possibilities are endless.

Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups!

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#unfiltered #5 The Insider “Silicon Valley” TV Show – The Show, plus Thoughts on Eccentric Cold Emails and Crazy Startup Pitches

Tech satire.

I gotta say I love it! Memes. GIFS. YouTube vids. TikTok clips. The whole nine yards.

As a testament to how much I love satirical memes and GIFs, six years ago, when I was testing out “best” cold email methods, as a semi-random A/B test, I emailed half of the folks I reached out to, leading or ending with either a meme or GIF. The list ranged from authors to musicians to researchers to Fortune 500 executives to founders to professional stone skippers. And the results weren’t half bad. Out of 150 odd emails, about a 70% response rate. Half of which resulted in a follow-up exchange by email, call, or in-person. The other half were gracious enough to say time was not on their side.

So when I learned, from the most recent episode of Angel podcast, about David Cowan’s version, I just had to check it out. And I wish I had only discovered it sooner. Made by Director Martin Sweeney, and co-visionaries, Michael Fertik of Reputation.com and David Cowan of Bessemer Venture Partners, bubbleproof is tech hilarity… made by the folks who have tech day jobs. Though I still haven’t watched the 6 seasons and 53 episodes of the Silicon Valley TV series yet. Sorry, friends who keep recommending it.

I just finished episode 5, where they share a snapshot of comedic ideas and pitches – from lipid fuel technology to an Airbnb marketplace for prisoners. And not gonna lie, I had a good chuckle. But when the episode wrapped up and I finally had a chance to think in retrospect, those ideas could have been real pitches in some world out there. When I first started in venture, I met with my share of cancer cures predicated off of a happiness matrix and feces fuel and African gold brokers. In case you’re wondering, yes, I did get pitched those. The last one admittedly should have come through my spam folder.

In these next few weeks, while you’re WFH (work from home), if you’re curious about tech from the ironic perspective of those who live and breathe it every day, check the series out. Only 10 episodes. 7-15 minutes per. (And while you do that, maybe I’ll finally get around to watching Silicon Valley. But no promises.)

As a footnote, Bessemer also has a track record for being forthcoming and intellectually honest. I would highly recommend checking out their anti portfolio, that lists and explains not their biggest wins or losses, but their biggest ‘shoulda-coulda-woulda’s’.

#unfiltered is a series where I share my raw thoughts and unfiltered commentary about anything and everything. It’s not designed to go down smoothly like the best cup of cappuccino you’ve ever had (although here‘s where I found mine), more like the lonely coffee bean still struggling to find its identity (which also may one day find its way into a more thesis-driven blogpost). Who knows? The possibilities are endless.

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