Increase Your Reply Rate on Cold Emails to Me

The term “cold email” refers to emailing someone who you’ve never spoken to before.

There are lots of guides on writing cold emails. This one is a bit niche, as it’s about cold emailing a particular person: me. But I guarantee you that it’s the best guide you can find on this hyperspecific topic.

I’m publishing my guidelines under the Creative Commons BY-4.0 license, so you’re welcome to reuse or adapt them to guide people in emailing you.

I know this sounds obnoxious 🔗︎

Every time I see someone post a guide about how other people should interact with them, I roll my eyes and privately judge that person for being self-important.

I also get a lot of emails from people who probably spent 20+ minutes writing something that has no chance of motivating me to respond, so I’m hoping to save people from making fixable mistakes.

I do enjoy getting emails from readers. I’m not famous enough that I’m inundated with emails. I receive maybe 10 cold emails per month, and I respond to a handful depending on how busy I am.

Things that increase my chances of responding 🔗︎

Your email benefits me in some way 🔗︎

I know this sounds selfish, but it is the truth.

There are a few ways a cold email might benefit me:

• Offers an improvement on something I’ve written about.
• Solves a problem I have.
• You work on something that complements my business, and you see an opportunity for us to work together.
  • I don’t mean generic things you’d offer to any website like SEO consulting or cheap dev work.
  • I mean something like you see that I’m working on a book for developers, and you’re a publisher for developer-oriented books.

You’re also a bootstrapped founder 🔗︎

Meaning you’ve tried to run a business, not that you’ve idly thought about it a lot.

You don’t have to be a successful founder. If you’ve had 20 flops, that’s more interesting to me than someone who has a brilliant idea but hasn’t gotten around to working on it.

You write publicly 🔗︎

You have a blog or you’ve published books. It doesn’t have to be a popular blog or a beautiful blog or even a good blog. As long as you’re thinking of words wtih your human mind and typing them out with your human fingers, I’m interested.

YouTube also counts, but Twitter, BlueSky and other microblogging doesn’t. Neither do AI-generated blogs.

We’ve done something similar 🔗︎

If we have some similar history, like we worked at the same place, lived in the same city, or drank from the same water bottle, let me know. It’s always a bonus to hear from someone with overlapping experiences.

You ask an interesting question 🔗︎

Sometimes, it’s fun to respond to a reader email just because they’ve asked an interesting question I hadn’t considered, and I enjoy thinking about the answer.

Things that decrease my chances of responding 🔗︎

You immediately ask me to meet with you 🔗︎

I’m an introvert, and I spend most of my time writing or coding.

If you invite me to a 30-minute call, you might think that’s only asking me to set aside 30 minutes for you, but it’s more like 90. I like having long, unbroken blocks of time to work, so a 30-minute call takes time to prepare for and unwind from.

I do sometimes meet with people who cold email me, but it’s usually when there’s some opportunity for us to work together or there’s an obvious way we can help each other on a live call.

It’s fine to offer a call, but I’m more likely to respond if you also offer another path forward.

You’re asking something I’ve already answered in my blog 🔗︎

If you’re asking a question, first try searching the topic on a search engine and append site:mtlynch.io. You might get your answer instantly, and we’ll both save some time.

I don’t expect you to read every last word of my blog to know everything I’ve ever said. But if you ask me if I have any thoughts about code reviews, I’ll quickly archive that email. On the other hand, if you ask me something about how I use Docker, I don’t expect you to read every post where I mention Docker to see if I’ve answered your question.

Your email looks templated 🔗︎

If you just say, “I read your last article, and I enjoy your writing style,” it might be a sincere sentiment, but it’s also what 99% of spam I receive looks like, so I might mistake you for a bot.

If you’re reaching out because something I wrote resonated with you, that’s great! Just be a bit more specific about what you liked and why.

Your email looks AI-generated 🔗︎

We’re probably in the last few years where I can meaningfully distinguish a human-written email from an AI-generated email. While we’re still here, try to make your email as human-sounding as possible. If it sounds like something an AI chatbot would generate, try revising it to sound more like you.

You include a lot of details that need addressing 🔗︎

The easiest emails for me to respond to are when someone says they liked one of my posts. It brightens my day, and I can send a quick thank you.

When people include a lot of extra details, it makes it hard to give a quick thanks. Here’s a made up example:

Thanks for your post about unit testing! It taught me a lot.

That post really brightened my day because things are a bit blue here on the farm. Grandma Pauline has come down with smallpox again, and we’ve had to say goodbye to our beloved hamster, Emilio, due to the global pellet supply crisis.

I’d like to say thanks to an email like that, but I also don’t want to just ignore your grandma’s illness or your hamster tragedy, so I’ll probably just keep putting it off and then eventually archive it.

You insert trackers into your email 🔗︎

If you use an email service that injects hidden pixels or you use special links that track when I’ve clicked, I’m a lot less likely to respond.

I understand that it’s interesting to know who read and clicked your email, but it’s also invasive and sneaky to put hidden trackers in your email.

Things that I definitely won’t respond to 🔗︎

You’re asking for free, 1:1 tech support 🔗︎

If you’re emailing about an open-source project I’ve published, remember that open-source authors are not obligated to help you. If anything, you owe them a favor because they created something that you use.

If you need help with one of my projects, file an issue on GitHub or GitLab. If the project is archived or doesn’t offer a way to request support, I don’t support that project anymore.

If you have a question about a blog post that doesn’t have an accompanying source code repo, I’m more likely to respond if you instead leave your question as a comment on the relevant post. That way, if I respond to you, everyone else benefits. Also, someoene else may respond to you if I don’t have time.

You’re asking me to apply for a job 🔗︎

I love working for myself, so it’s nearly impossible that I’m interested in having an employer again.

If you’re really intent on offering me a job, this is basically the only intro that might get a positive response:

I’m going to pay you $1,000 in advance just to get on a call with me, and the salary is $1M/year in salary, excluding equity or options.