You’re reading an excerpt of The Holloway Guide to Raising Venture Capital, a book by Andy Sparks and over 55 other contributors. A current and comprehensive resource for entrepreneurs, with technical detail, practical knowledge, real-world scenarios, and pitfalls to avoid. Purchase the book to support the author and the ad-free Holloway reading experience. You get instant digital access, over 770 links and references, commentary and future updates, and a high-quality PDF download.
Most founders just want someone to tell them exactly what their first email should look like, and we sympathize. We do suggest taking a look at some email templates like these from entrepreneur Alejandro Cremades to get a sense of ideal length and structure, but if you copy and paste email templates from around the web, your messages are going to look like everyone else’s. Here we provide a few guidelines for building a great email, but remember to be concise, sincere, personal, and use your real voice to make your email stand out. Most importantly, focus on your audience. Think of all the information you collect when creating a target list of investors as a tool to increase the chances of an investor seeing you as a trustworthy individual who is working on something compelling.