Yes, warm intros are the best way to approach investors and should ideally be your Plan A. But what if you can’t get one of those?

As I’ve discussed in the past, cold emails can work well, too, and while it takes a bit of research to put together a good list of investors, it can be done pretty easily. As someone who researches and writes for a living, though, I under-estimated how hard writing the actual email itself can be for people who don’t write all day, every day.

When working with a pitch coaching client recently, I offered to share my screen and show how I do investor research and draft cold emails. The client was sufficiently surprised with my process that it served as a reminder that not everyone knows how to prospect and create cold emails. This article will hopefully help!

So! In this article, I’ll show how you can write relevant, targeted emails that make investors lean in and pay attention. Trust me, this approach really works: At some of my previous startups, I had response rates of over 80% to some of these emails.

Can’t you just use a template? Well, no, not really. Or rather, not fully. Put yourself in the shoes of a VC: A lot of the time, you’ll get utterly generic emails that are just there to pitch with no regard to whether you’re even remotely interested. Before you are ready to start sending cold emails, ensure that you truly understand how VCs work and what a VC investment thesis is. Once you’ve got a firm grasp of those two concepts, you’ll know why emails need to be customized to their audience.

Here’s how to ensure the email goes to the right place, and what it needs to say: