Email Framework #6: Founder Outreach

Cold email is a founder’s not-so-secret secret weapon for building connections, gathering data, and collecting insights from target users. With the right approach and enough research, founders can reach out to target users and experienced professionals without sounding pushy.

Here’s a closer look at the Founder Outreach email framework and how founders can use it to start conversations while they prepare to launch their product.

What is the Founder Outreach email framework?

The Founder Outreach email framework is a structured way for founders to personalize high-impact cold emails. Like other email approaches, this framework helps founders quickly write and send emails for a specific purpose.

But what makes the Founder Outreach framework different from other classic email frameworks is its focus. Many frameworks like the AIDA model or the Justin Michael Method emphasize a problem-solution approach with a strong pitch.

For Founder Outreach emails, this isn’t the case. The Founder Outreach framework focuses more on forging relationships and building trust. This makes these emails feel less transactional, which in turn improves your chances of engagement. 

What are the core elements of the Founder Outreach framework?

The Founder Outreach email framework has several core elements for effective sales emails.

Personalization 

Founder Outreach emails include personalization throughout the content, from the salutation to the postscript. The body of the email is tailored to their industry and pain, while the postscript features individual-level personalization.

Introduction

Unlike many other email frameworks, Founder Outreach emails have a brief introduction that shares who you are and why you’re worth listening to. Some good achievements to help you establish credibility are any notable partnerships with highly recognizable names or brands, successful ventures, and media recognition.

In a perfect world, your achievements will have some relation to your current goal. For instance, if you previously built and sold a business, and now you’re working on solving founder-led sales pains.

Industry understanding

In addition to highlighting the lead’s pain, Founder Outreach emails show you understand their industry and can either offer insights or a solution.

This can take the form of mentioning a common problem or pain they might be facing, such as improving efficiency or scaling operations. You should also ground this understanding within the context of their own business. After all, small & medium businesses don’t experience the same issues as enterprises (though they might share a few).

To soften your approach, you can pose a question to bring up the topic.

Direct & concise language

While the Founder Outreach approach includes a few elements that many other sales emails don’t (e.g. introduction), your email should avoid beating around the bush.

Keep your intro as short as possible – just enough to say your name, your company, and your credibility. Then get into the meat of the email, which is stating what you want, what value you can offer, and your call to action.

Everything should be clear and concise.

When to use the Founder Outreach framework in sales outreach

Here are some instances when the Founder Outreach framework is preferable to other approaches:

• Starting conversations – Founder outreach encourages engagement and discussions, and experienced professionals are frequently open to speaking with founders.
• Building trust and connections – Founder outreach helps founders create and foster a network of people and companies that they can use in the future for references, knowledge-sharing, and even sales.
• Gathering feedback and insights – Founder outreach offers a channel for founders to ask questions, get expert feedback, and use the data collected to build and refine their solution, as well as craft their buyer personas and sales personas.
• Leveraging your background – Founder-led sales relies on the founder for success, and your background can become a conversation starter if you don’t have enough insights for your solution or you need more time to build an MVP.

Founder Outreach emails can also be used to support the creation of a waitlist of people who want to try and test your solution. 

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Founder Outreach framework example

Here’s an example of an email you might write according to the Founder Outreach framework.

You can also find this framework in AiSDR’s framework library. All you need to do is tell the AI about your ideal customer, and AiSDR will handle all the prospecting, research, and email writing and personalization for you using this framework.

General framework

Founder outreach doesn’t rely on standard email templates. Instead, they follow a general structure.

This is how the email structure typically breaks down.

Email example

Here is a possible email based on the Founder Outreach email framework.