Here are some tips from Edith Harbaugh, resident Angel Fundraising expert, Class 8, on how to reach out:
All personal contacts were people who I would have been happy to get coffee with, even if they didn't invest, as I valued their advice/opinion. I would keep it much shorter & less sales-y, as so many people read their emails on mobile. My main goal was to get the coffee meeting, as when people reference-checked me, my contacts would have favorable things to say.
Here are the basic formats I used:
"Hi Anne, How are you? Would love to catch up with you and reconnect. After 4 years at TripIt as Director of Product & Analytics, I just left to found my own company www.launchdarkly.com, which allows teams with web & mobile applications to dark launch features.
Would love to get coffee - I'm in SF but am often down in Palo Alto for meetings.
Best,
Edith"
"Hi Ed,
How are you? I started my own company, LaunchDarkly, with my college friend. Great fun so far - Flite is using us to control their feature flags! The TripIt Exec Team (Will Aldrich & Nancy Ramamurthi) are angel investing.
We're here in the city - I'd love to get coffee with you & catch up.
Best,
Edith Harbaugh”