Cold Emails for Indie Hackers

Read any book or listen to any podcast on growth and one thing is constant - you need to talk to your customers. There's countless resources on cold emailing when you've got an established customer base and a rock solid product... but what if you're not there yet?

If your product is an idea, pre-MVP, just launched or you don't even have an idea yet - then this guide is for you. Follow these four simple steps to harness your outreach:

Find who to email
Write good quality emails
Follow up
Repeat

1. Find who to email

You can write bad emails and fail to follow up - but it all starts here. Finding someone to email can be exhausting and frustrating, but lets look at the minimum viable tips to get good quality leads:

Understand your demographic

You'll need to have a target audience before you can start looking for people to contact. If you're pre-idea ("what should I build?") then think of a niche which interests you (agriculture, nail salons, packaging, law etc) to target. If you're building a product, you should have an idea of the sorts of people (and companies!) you're targeting.

Anyone is better than no one

If you don't know the best individual to contact within an organisation, it doesn't matter. It's common to avoid reaching out because you can't find the right target. Anyone at your target company is better than no one - in section two (Write good quality emails) we'll cover how to hedge your bets and write an email that should get to the right person.

⭐️ Actually finding an email address

I built Contact Coconut (https://contactcoconut.com) because like you, I struggled to find the contact details of people I needed to cold email. All you need is the website address for your target company and it'll look really hard and automatically find associated emails. Give it a go, it's free to try and no signup needed.

2. Write good quality emails

There's lots of resources and templates for what makes a "good quality" cold email. When I'm reaching out to people I have never spoken with, I always follow the same rules:

The reader has no obligation to spend time reading my email
Don't promise the reader something I can't deliver
Don't send a generic email and expect a sincere reply
Be as flexible as possible as I'm the one that needs this the most

With those rules I end up writing tailored emails that have a tangible impact on the reader. Most resources would suggest automating the whole process with a CRM and delivery tool, using templates for the organisation name etc. That's great if you're sending extremely high volumes of emails and you're content with a very low reply rate. But we're indie hackers and can do things that don't scale - adding a personal touch to each email is a sure fire way to get the readers attention. Everyone understands what a generic email is these days - especially if you're in B2B.

Let's take a look at a few templates for the different stages of being an Indie Hacker. Unlike other resources, these templates don't assume you have more traction than you do - which always frustrates me ("I'm also working with xxx", "XXX told me to reach out", "we're the most popular XXX this year" etc).

Pre-Idea/Idea Template

You're just starting out, have an idea of your niche and wanting to do some idea validation. You might be looking to see if there's Product Market Fit with an idea you're excited about. For example, If I'm reaching out to a local builder to see what problems of theirs I can solve:

[Subject]
Jenny, a builders biggest problem?

[Body]
Hi Jenny,

I'm James, a local (🏄‍♂️ amazing surfing weather last week!) software developer working with a few Sunshine Coast builders to make their lives easier.

I'd love to have quick chat about how Acme Building handles their projects and what for you, as a builder, is the biggest pain point?

Builders can be time poor - I'm happy to chat however works for you: over a phone call (04000000000), in person (I'll shout a coffee!), over video call or I can even email you a list of questions.

Just reply to this email with your preferred way to chat and we'll go from there.

Cheers,

James

Why this email works:

✅ It's personalised to Jenny. If I didn't know the builders name, I'd just omit it - but it loses a personal touch.

✅ Even though we don't know each other, we have something in common - we live in the same area.

✅ I understand she's a builder and might not be tech savvy - "software developer" is generic and not my actual role, but conveys what it needs to.

✅ I respect her time and offer her a few ways to contact me, including going 'above and beyond' and buying a coffee. I give her my number, so if she wants to initiate she can. I don't send her a Calendly link because again, I understand she might not be tech savvy.

Pre-MVP

You've built a product but you're nervous - is this product market fit? what features do I need to be viable? what does my pricing look like? should I have built a phone app instead?

Even if you should have answered these questions before you built anything, as Indie Hackers, sometimes we don't follow "the rules" and need to play catch up. If I've just built an app that helps developers track the uptime of their apps:

[Subject]
George, how was the impact of your last downtime event?

[Body]
Hi George,

I'm James and I'm building ProductX to help you and Acme Software react to outages faster than ever.

I noticed you had downtime last week - I've read a few of Acme's outage reports but I'd love to learn more about how you and the team initially react. I'll keep the chat to under 10 mins - simply book a time here (Calendly link) that works for you.

Dev ops is important but you might not have time to change your process right now but if you are, take a look at http://app.com!

Looking forward to the chat,

James

Why this email works:

✅ The subject conveys that I know a detail about the organisation that isn't generic. The first sentence tells the reader what we're here to do.

✅ I make it clear that I've tried to answer my own questions (by reading outage reports) without wasting his time.

✅ I respect his time - The target is technical, I supply a Calendly link so they can book a time that suits them with the expectations of a 10 minute chat. I'm not expecting him to sign up and implement my app but I give him the option to.

✅ The CTA is clear, I'm looking forward to the chat.

3. Follow up

It's really easy to skip this step. You send your initial email and you just keep sending emails to new leads. With just 1 follow up, you can increase how many readers open your cold emails by up to 10%. Follow up with the following tips:

Always reply to your previous email, don't send a new one
Keep it short and reference your previous email ('Just following up on the email I sent late last week')
Don't repeat what you initially said, just a short summary
Make the CTA clear
If this is your last follow up, make that clear so you don't annoy the reader

4. Repeat

The last step is critical - repeat. Set your expectations low early. Cold emails are cold for a reason and even seasoned veterans get low open rates and lower conversion rates. If you're just starting out, it will take you a while to tune your email etiquette and language, so you need to expect to email many potential customers with very few replies.

Don't just send a batch of 10 emails and expect a few replies. My tips to keep up the cold emailing:

Have routine instead of big batches. "1 email a day" is ~30 a month. "10 a week" is ~40 a month etc. Set a consistent goal.
Maintain a list of who you want to contact. For every contact you reach out to, spend 5 mins looking for a new one. This breaks up researching vs. reaching out.
This is a core requirement as an Indie Hacker. Think of it as a part of your "job". It's not just a 'nice to have' - it should be as important as development.

Let me know any success stories or pain points from cold emailing as an Indie Hacker and don't forget to head to Contact Coconut for people to email!