Every resource founders actually use, in one library.

What founders use most, ranked by how many answers lean on it.

1. Once you have a verified address, these are ready to adapt templates from a CRM built specifically for small sales teams,... Close Template · 10 minute read · Starting Up 15 Best Cold Email Templates That Actually Get Replies Steli Efti
2. Ferrazzi's core argument is that the people worth reaching are found through relationships, not databases, so a connector who... Keith Ferrazzi Book · about 370 pages · Starting Up Never Eat Alone Keith Ferrazzi
3. Video · about 10 minutes · Starting Up No Replies? Increase response rates using THIS cold email template Steli Efti
4. A grounded conversation about when cold email is even worth the effort of finding an address for. Steli's rule of thumb is deal... Startups For the Rest of Us Podcast · about 35 minutes · Starting Up Episode 202: Outbound Sales for Startups with Guest Steli Efti Steli Efti
5. A blunt, contrarian counterpoint from working founders and investors: several commenters argue you shouldn't be hunting down a... Hacker News Thread · Starting Up How to write cold emails to investors Hacker News
6. Plain-language breakdown of every cold email metric (open, reply, positive reply, bounce) and what actually separates a healthy... Hunter.io Article · Starting Up Cold Email Metrics Hunter.io
7. A short, practical checklist for raising reply rates once you already know your baseline is low. It walks through list size,... Hunter.io Article · Starting Up Improve Your Reply Rate Hunter.io
8. Real platform-wide data across millions of sends, kept current, so you can see where your own numbers sit against a large... Woodpecker Article · Starting Up Cold Email Statistics Based on Sending Over 20M Cold Emails Woodpecker
9. Written by a working copywriter who tracks her own reply and conversion rates on real cold pitches, so the advice comes with... Copyhackers Article · Starting Up How to Cold Pitch Effectively and Ethically Bree Weber
10. Lemlist sends huge volumes of cold email through its platform and publishes some of the more specific length and... lemlist Article · Starting Up Outreach secrets: How to increase your reply rates lemlist
11. This is the exact question our short answer addresses, asked and answered directly by a B2B investor and operator who reads a... SaaStr Article · Starting Up Dear SaaStr: Is It OK To Have a 5% Response Rate in My Personalized Cold Emails? Jason Lemkin
12. This one flips the script: a CIO who actually receives startup outreach explains what makes him respond versus delete. Hearing... The Neon Show Podcast · Starting Up What Startups Can Learn from a $1.7B Co. Chief Information Officer (ft. Karthik Chakkarapani, Zuora) Karthik Chakkarapani (guest)
13. A clear, simply written framing of the reply-rate tiers, broken, average, good, elite, that is easy to hold your own numbers... Apollo.io Article · Starting Up What Is a Good Reply Rate for Cold Outreach in 2026? Apollo.io
14. This is an actual draft cold email, picked apart line by line by other founders in the comments, which makes it more useful... Indie Hackers Thread · 10 min read · Starting Up The Cold Email I'd Send to Get My First 10 Customers Indie Hackers
15. Short, practical, and written for a founder with nothing to show yet, which is the exact reader we have in mind. It is written... Hustle Fund Article · 8 min read · Starting Up 5 Cold Email Suggestions from an Expert Hustle Fund
16. A founder walks through the actual iteration: a first version of the email that flopped, the specific objections they heard... Starter Story Article · 10 min read · Starting Up How We Got Hundreds of Customers Through Creative Cold Emailing Starter Story
17. A practical piece written for the Indian startup context, with the FreeCharge origin story as its centerpiece: an early cold... YourStory Article · 8 min read · Starting Up The Art of Cold Emailing: Every Startup's Gateway to Marketing YourStory
18. Barry documents personally emailing bloggers he had researched individually, offering to migrate their email lists by hand for... Nathan Barry Essay · 15 min read · Starting Up Growing ConvertKit to $5,020 in Monthly Recurring Revenue Nathan Barry
19. Fred Wilson has read tens of thousands of cold and warm pitches as an investor, and this short post is his honest account of... AVC (Fred Wilson's blog) Essay · ~3 min read · Starting Up How to Get Your Emails Read Fred Wilson
20. Steli Efti has coached hundreds of early-stage founders through outbound sales, and this free guide states plainly that no one... Close Book · 31 lessons, roughly an hour · Starting Up SaaS Sales for Startup Founders Steli Efti
21. Sajith Pai, a VC at Blume Ventures, wrote publicly about being put off when a founder outsources their own pitch email to a... LinkedIn Thread · 2 min read · Starting Up Always puzzled when I get pitch emails cold from a non-founder Sajith Pai
22. Video · Starting Up Cold Email is Changing Alex Berman
23. This is the closest thing to a canonical answer to your exact fear: writing to someone who seems too important to reply to you.... Harvard Business Review Article · Starting Up Tips for Cold-Emailing Intimidatingly Powerful People Peter Sims
24. Josh Braun's 4T framework (Trigger, Think, Third-party credibility, Talk) is a repeatable structure for writing an email that... Josh Braun Article · Starting Up Let's Write a Good 4-T Cold Email Josh Braun

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