cold email

Definition

Unsolicited outreach to investors or customers who have no idea who you are and probably don't care. The digital equivalent of knocking on strangers' doors, with similar success rates.

Example Usage

I sent 200 cold emails to VCs and got three 'no thanks' replies—apparently a 1.5% response rate counts as success!

Origin

Sales terminology adapted to startup fundraising, parallel to 'cold calling' from traditional sales

Fun Fact

Studies show cold emails to VCs have a response rate below 2%, while warm introductions get over 40% response rates.

Source: Sales and startup fundraising terminology

Related Terms

Beginner

Traction

Evidence that people actually use your product, which is the startup world's version of proof of life. Investors ask about traction the way parents ask about grades -- they already suspect the answer is disappointing but want to hear you say it.

🚀 Startup / VC

Intermediate

Vesting

The process by which employees gradually earn their stock options over time, designed to keep people from taking the equity and running. It's a four-year golden handcuff that makes quitting feel like leaving money on the table, even when the money is imaginary.

🚀 Startup / VC

Beginner

monetize

The art of turning literally anything—your attention, your data, your grandmother's cookie recipe—into cold hard cash, typically by inserting ads or charging subscription fees. It's what happens when tech companies realize that 'free' products need to pay the bills somehow, usually by selling your eyeballs to advertisers. Essentially, if you're not paying for the product, someone's monetizing you.

🚀 Startup / VC

Advanced

control premium

The additional value investors pay for governance rights and control provisions beyond pure economics, willing to pay higher prices for board seats and veto powers. The surcharge for not trusting founders to run the company they founded.

🚀 Startup / VC

Advanced

double trigger acceleration

Vesting acceleration that requires two events—typically an acquisition plus termination—before unvested shares become immediately vested. Single trigger's more reasonable younger sibling.

🚀 Startup / VC

Advanced

synthetic exit

Restructuring that gives early investors and employees liquidity without selling the company, like a pressure release valve for cap table tension. An exit without the exit.

🚀 Startup / VC

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