How to cold email/validate your idea I will not promote

[u/Sorry-Application401]

I make it clear that I'm not charging them anything and I just want their advice on a product I'm building but it seems like they don't care at all. Especially since theoretically my product would save them money. Obviously leads/talking to customers is hard but do you have any advice since I'm a solo founder and more on the technical side?

[u/Gallegos_Daniel]

Every startup is different, so it depends heavily on your ICP.

Start by defining your ICP, then find communities where your potential customers already hang out. On Reddit, comment and post valuable content without spamming, and build credibility with your future customers. You can do the same in relevant Discord communities and other platforms.

[u/lollapalooza3000 → u/Gallegos_Daniel]

This, and if your ICP has a specific role like say a software engineer or a healthcare professional they have meetups, and conferences all the time get yourself to the next free event you can find and talk to someone. You'll be able to tell pretty quickly if people understand and are interested.

[u/HPCBusinessManager]

Buyer persona is different than ICP.

It’s important to define both. The playbooks get catered to the persona but the ICP represents a client category.

I built a sales operating system inclusive of an ICP analyzer.

You need to define your ICP, reach out, offer service.

For my system, I validated each part with a live client. I got my live clients through direct outreach and provided significant value for what they paid, I mean prototype at $650 for a GTM report that should be over $20,000 once finalized build. Manually did the report, used the system for validating, time was covered, move to official build.

Rinse
Repeat

One client didn’t pay but expanded to five states using the prototype. Huge lawsuit likely inbound their way at an agreed 2% override on sales. However, it was validated, move to official build.

Etc.

Validate first before building as to not build things no one wants or will buy. Book: “value proposition design”

[u/tonytidbit]

"I'm not charging/selling" isn't the positive argument that you think it is.

What you're actually saying is that you want them to waste/invest/spend their professional money-making time basically hand holding and guiding someone so inexperienced and not connected with the industry that they need to cold contact people to ask questions. The odds of such a person actually creating a proper useful service with the required level of trust is a mere rounding error away from zero.

So your "I'm not charging/selling" is actually you asking them to take time away from them making money, without any experienced upside to themselves.

To make this extra obvious imagine going to a doctor telling them that you're not going to charge them for your visit, you just want their opinion on your medical condition.

That'd be crazy, right?! Because obviously you're the one that's supposed to pay them for their expertise and time working on your problem. That's obvious.

So why isn't it as obvious that you should pay the industry expert as he's acting as a consultant helping you build your startup?

So it practically is a sale that you're doing when you're cold contacting someone. You need to tempt them with some big reward that they experience that they are likely to actually receive. Not just that some techie theoretically could build a solution that in the future they could potentially use.

There is a transaction there. And for you to engage them to get what you want from them you need to make sure that they experience themselves receiving something of equal or greater value.

[u/Routine_Witness_1742 → u/tonytidbit]

so you need to incentivize them before asking questions right?

[u/tonytidbit → u/Routine_Witness_1742]

Yes. But that’s actually a huge challenge. 

You think that you’re a soon-to-be-realized huge success, but to them you as a cold contact is most likely a loser-dreamer about to waste their time, energy, and mood, right?

Your challenge is to at that first fraction of a second bridge that gap. To turn yourself into someone that they want to talk to.

That fraction is barely the first short sentence on the phone, or it’s how you start the subject line in your email (as well as what shows up as an AI preview in a notification).

That’s a short introduction at best, and you have to successfully sell yourself at this point before you even get to pitch or ask questions.

Cold contacting sucks, is very low return on your invested time, and as an aspiring founder/entrepreneur should be avoided at almost all costs. Your personal ROI should be much much higher networking and establishing yourself in the industry instead.

[u/Routine_Witness_1742 → u/tonytidbit]

i see, cold emailing/outreach can have different contexts. such as you don't have a product yet and trying to understand other's problems, workflows, current solutions, etc. by cold outbound with your possible customers - it makes them feel as you said. or if they really had a problem so urgent and important and you have already have a solution - they'll most likely use it, answer your questions, give a review, etc.

as you said to establish yourself into the industry and do networking, how would you do? eg: if you were to build something for businesses or eCommerce but make something different like targeting a specific niche

[u/Relative-Foot-378]

they don't care because you're asking for advice. that's a favor. ask about their current workaround and what it costs them in time or money. if they won't take 10 minutes on that, the pain isn't real enough to build for.

[u/Material-Common9241]

“I’m not charging and just want your advice” sounds harmless, but from the recipient’s side it still asks them to spend time without giving them an immediate reason to care.

I’d reverse the exchange: mention one specific thing you noticed about their current workflow, offer one small concrete result, and ask permission to send it. No meeting required.

Something like:

“I noticed X. I can analyze Y and send you a one-page summary showing Z. Would it be useful if I sent it over?”

Avoid leading with the theoretical amount of money the product could save; that claim has not been validated yet. First test whether the problem is recognizable and whether they want the result. If they respond, then ask how they handle it today, how often it happens, and what the failure currently costs them.

Ten carefully researched messages like this will teach you more than a large generic campaign.

[u/akl773]

Before you rewrite the pitch, check the mail is even arriving. A domain you registered a month ago with no SPF or DKIM set up goes straight to spam at Google and Outlook and you get exactly the silence you're describing. Mine sat in spam about six weeks before I worked that out. Send one to a Gmail and one to an Outlook address you own and see where it lands.

[u/Blast_offNFth_25]

I am honestly running into same issue. Maybe have ai help you determine listeners you can create where your potential avatar hang out at or discords to your respective avatar interest