By Henry Su, Jen Yip, and Robby Huang
In the Renaissance Collective, we leverage our combined networks to find and connect you to exciting career opportunities. If you’d like a community member to connect you to an external opportunity, we ask you to write an email blurb that they can forward along with a short note of endorsement. In this 2-part blog, we explore why we write email blurbs, what we hope to achieve with a blurb, and what an effective email blurb should look like.
Part 1 (below) explores 1) why an email blurb is so important and 2) what you hope to accomplish in a blurb, along with some do’s and don’ts for great blurb writing.
Part 2 proposes a blurb structure that we’ve found to be effective in Renaissance Collective and provides several examples from our members.
Why is the email blurb so important?
In tech (especially the SF Bay Area), warm intros really matter. This is because the best opportunities flow through exclusive networks of people, many of whom have spent decades working together, investing in each other, and building long-term relationships. An intro from a trusted source can set you apart from thousands of applicants for a position.
Your blurb is your first impression on the reader and sets the tone and context for the rest of your conversations. There are several reasons why a well crafted blurb is important:
Your blurb is your pitch for why someone NEEDS to meet you. You want to make it easy for the receiver to say ‘yes.’ Make it clear how you fit into what they are trying to accomplish. Show them you understand their problems/mission/vision and how you can deliver value. Don’t simply reiterate everything you’ve done (which is already on your LinkedIn or resume) and expect them to connect the dots to figure out where you might fit into their organization. The more a person needs to think about why you can be helpful, the less likely it is that you’ll get an immediate ‘yes.’
As a business generalist, your writing is your calling card. Being able to write succinctly and clearly demonstrates the quality of your thinking.
These intros are not just about you: the quality of your writing also reflects on the person making the introduction. By extending their relationship to you, this person is putting their reputation on the line, and it’s important to make them look good by positioning yourself well. If you don’t put your best foot forward, you aren’t respecting the intro-er’s reputation, and may affect potential connections they can make in the future.
When you position yourself well, your writing strengthens the brand of Renaissance Collective. It not only reflects on you as a member of the community but also helps the community build trust with various players in the ecosystem (founders, investors, etc.) in the long term. Renaissance Collective represents a premium brand. Years from now, we expect you will still think of this as a professional network with which you’re proud to be affiliated!
2. What are you trying to accomplish in a blurb?
When you write your blurb, it’s important to keep your ultimate objective in mind. In general, the goal should be to secure a meeting with a key stakeholder who sits on the other side of the opportunity. Keep in mind that this key stakeholder might be several hops away from the person making the initial introduction. This has several implications for ‘do’s’ and ‘don’ts.’
DO:
Provide enough detail on who you are and your ‘ask’ so that someone reading without any prior context can quickly figure out how to help you.
Keep the blurb succinct and have a clear call-to-action (end on a question or with a clear, concise request). Assume your reader is very busy and receives many emails like this. Long essays listing your accomplishments are rarely received with the gravitas with which they were written.
If relevant, be as specific as possible about the role, company, and industry to show you’ve done your homework. Link to an existing job description if there is a relevant one posted publicly online. It also helps to make it clear why connecting to this specific person is mutually beneficial and that you’re uniquely excited to meet them, versus just a generic person at their company or in their industry or role.
Write like you would speak. Remove language that you wouldn’t say to someone. Big words and weirdly stilted sentences don’t impress anyone or make you sound important. That said, you should use complete sentences and avoid using passive voice. Aim for a conversational tone that you might use with a respected colleague.
Proofread for typos and spelling mistakes before sending it. This reflects on your attention to detail. The person making the warm intro shouldn’t have to do any additional work to make sure your email is clear, concise, and typo free.
Send the forwardable blurb in a CLEAN EMAIL. Here is the definition of a clean email. You want to make it very easy for the person who offered you a warm intro to connect you. Note: Assume the person making the warm intro is doing so in a mobile environment.
DON’T
Send a generic blurb with your background and accomplishments without a specific ask for a specific person at a specific company. We do not write and forward generic blurbs to our network.
Use overly informal or colloquial language, since the person reading your blurb likely doesn’t (yet!) have a warm relationship with you.
Copy and paste a blurb or parts of blurbs you’ve written before into your email without checking formatting, font size, and color. Chances are it will render funny -- copied text will often be an odd size and purple in color. Make sure there is no weird formatting in your email. Clean means it’s formatted to be forwardable. Use that ‘unformat’ text icon in Gmail to remove formatting.
Continue to Part 2 for examples of effective email blurbs
Thanks to David King, Marisa Cruz, Pierre-Loup Lelasseux, Vidushi Sharma, Nadia Eldeib, and Kali Borkoski for contributing thinking, writing, and editing to this piece. As with all our work at Renaissance Collective, every contributor brought his or her own unique insights and sharp thinking to this subject, making this piece stronger than any one of us could have written on our own.