{"id":47466,"date":"2023-10-20T15:53:47","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:53:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/how-to-write-your-first-email-to-a-potential-investor-five-things-you-have-to-include-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:53:47","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:53:47","slug":"how-to-write-your-first-email-to-a-potential-investor-five-things-you-have-to-include-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/how-to-write-your-first-email-to-a-potential-investor-five-things-you-have-to-include-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"How to write your first email to a potential investor: Five things you have to include – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

The first email you send to a potential investor is one the most important things you\u2019ll do as a startup founder, and also one of the most difficult.<\/p>\n

The email pitch needs to draw the investor in quickly, concisely explain your company and be attractive enough to score an actual meeting.<\/p>\n

500 Startups partner Elizabeth Yin has written a very useful blog post about what needs to be included in an ideal email deck to investors, recommending that it only includes five slides that take 10-30 seconds to skim read.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe purpose of your email deck is just to get a meeting,\u201d Yin writes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not to try to convince me that I should invest. That comes later.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yin then outlines the five key things that need to be included in any early-stage startup\u2019s email pitch to an investor.<\/p>\n

1. The problem it is addressing<\/h3>\n

The investor says that far too many founders tend to \u201cglance over\u201d this aspect, despite it being the most important bit for an investor.<\/p>\n

The problem should be written in a way that gets an investor excited about the corresponding opportunity, a sense that you\u2019ve thought about this issue, and demonstrate strong communication skills, Yin says.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s important to keep it simple – this slide should only be one or two sentences.<\/p>\n

2. How your startup solves the problem<\/h3>\n

\u201cI see too many companies attempt to address all their features with this slide,\u201d Yin says.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust make it simple.\u201d<\/p>\n

She says the easiest way to do this is to just take the investor through the user experience, which can be as simple as step 1, step 2, step 3.<\/p>\n

3. Your startup\u2019s traction<\/h3>\n

Yin says this is a commonly misunderstood aspect of the email pitch, and one that is often missed out.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost companies who send me decks don\u2019t include a traction slide,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s because people are embarrassed that they are not very far along or they actually haven\u2019t yet tested the waters.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nothing to be embarrassed by. I\u2019m a seed investor \u2013 what would I expect?\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead of having to show thousands of paying users, a founder should instead focus on what they\u2019ve learned from their customers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is something that every company should be able to do quickly even without a product,\u201d Yin says.<\/p>\n

This could include what customer acquisition channels have been used, the cost to get users and retention of these users.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe traction slide needs to give me some idea that this is a product that people want and more important, how badly,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

4. Your team<\/h3>\n

There\u2019s no need to list your entire team in a first email, and Yin says you should just include the founders, notable advisors and their experience and accomplishments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis slide is fairly straightforward,\u201d she says..<\/p>\n

5. The market you are operating in<\/h3>\n

While some founders might spend hours closely analysing the market and finding statistics, Ying says it really doesn\u2019t need to be that complex.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t need to do a crazy analysis on this slide,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would be okay with a slide with just one big number in the middle in size 108 font.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just need to get a sense that this could be worth a lot and get conviction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once you\u2019ve done all that, there\u2019s one easier thing that you have to do: make sure you include your contact details.<\/p>\n

You can read Yin\u2019s full piece here.<\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em> Facebook,<\/em> Twitter,<\/em>LinkedIn <\/em>and <\/em>SoundCloud.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first email you send to a potential investor is one the most important things you\u2019ll do as a startup<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58529,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47466"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}