If investors aren’t responding to your meeting requests, this is probably the reason.
A founder I was chatting with at a startup networking event asked if I’d be willing to meet with him and discuss his venture in more detail. “Of course,” I told him. “Send me an email and we’ll schedule a time to talk.”
A few hours later, I received his email:
Hi, Aaron! I’m following up on our conversation at the event tonight where you said you’d be willing to meet with me to discuss my startup. You asked me to email you to schedule the meeting. Thanks!
As soon as I read the email, I sighed and rolled my eyes. He made the same mistake I used to make back when I first started fundraising for my startups and was trying to get meetings. It’s the easiest way to screw up an email to investors because it makes you look like an inexperienced amateur who doesn’t understand the fundraising process.
The problem with the email I’ve described from the founder I met at a local networking event — and the problem with so many emails just like his to people who are much bigger startup investors than me — is that he was creating extra work. To be clear, I don’t mean he was creating extra work by asking for a meeting. After all, I’d already agreed to meet with him. However, I didn’t agree to spend tons of time sending scheduling emails back and forth with him. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what he was making me do by not proposing a specific meeting time.
Simply put, when you send an email asking to meet with someone and don’t propose specific times to meet, you’re creating extra emails, and extra emails create lots of work. To understand what I mean, think about what needed to happen in order for me to reply to the email from the founder I’d met at my startup networking event. Here are the likely steps:
Step #1: I had to check my calendar and find availability.
Step #2: I had to send an email proposing times.
Step #3: I had to block the proposed times on my calendar so nobody else filled them
Those steps are already unnecessary and annoying since the founder could have simply proposed times in his original email. But let’s imagine I got lucky and one of the times I proposed worked. Here’s what would happen next:
Step #4: He’d send a response email agreeing to one of the times I proposed.
Step #5: I’d have to create a calendar reminder for myself.
Step #6: I’d have to delete any calendar holds I’d made
Step #7: I’d have to send an email response confirming our meeting
None of those steps are particularly onerous, but they’re certainly annoying. Even worse, those are the things I’d have to do if I was lucky. But what if I wasn’t lucky? What if the times I proposed didn’t work for him? Here’s what would have to happen next:
Step #4: The person I emailed would respond saying those times don’t work.
Step #6: I’d have to delete any previous holds I’d placed on my calendar.
Step #7: I’d have to find new times and create new holds on my calendar.
Step #8: I’d have to send an email proposing new times.
Step #9: If the person could make one of my newly proposed times, I’d still have to do all the steps I’ve described above to confirm the meeting. If not, I’d have to go through this entire process again.
Are you starting to see the problem? A simple scheduling email can lead to dozens more emails, and that doesn’t even account for the fact that we didn’t choose a place to meet, which, in itself, can be an entirely different type of nuisance.
Regardless, the point I’m trying to make is that, if not executed properly, a simple “can we meet?” email will create lots more emails, and all those additional emails are annoying.
Being annoying is rarely a good thing, but you definitely don’t want to annoy someone you’re trying to raise lots of money from, do you?
In the case of the entrepreneur who wanted to meet with me, I’d already talked with him for a while and built a strong enough connection with him that, despite his poor email, I felt obligated to schedule a time to meet with him. In other words, the frustration his email created wasn’t enough friction to prevent the meeting from happening.
But what happens when you email someone with lots of demands on their time who doesn’t care about you? What happens when you cold email an investor who doesn’t even know you?
In that case, the last thing you want to do is send an email that frustrates or annoys the person or creates some sort of friction that prevents the person from responding. Luckily, avoiding this problem is simple. All you need to do is send meeting requests that include potential meeting times.
For example, the entrepreneur who emailed me should have edited his email to read more like this:
Hi, Aaron! I’m following up on our conversation at the event tonight where you said you’d be willing to meet with me to discuss my startup. How does next Thursday at 2:00 pm or Friday at 10:00 am work for you? We can meet at the coffee shop near your office if that’s convenient for you. Thanks!
Do you see how much easier that email is to respond to? All it took was including meeting times in the email itself.
It’s a simple tactic that I guarantee will make your emails better and make you appear like a much more competent entrepreneur. Even if the person can’t meet at the times you’re proposing, just by including times you’re signaling to recipients that you understand the demands on their time and trying to be as sensitive to those demands as possible.
I promise, the VCs receiving your emails will appreciate your awareness of their schedules, they’ll be more likely to respond, and, more importantly, they’ll be more excited about the potential of investing in someone who understands the importance and value of time.