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"There Are Two Ways to Do Cold Emails" with HyperGrowth Partners Founder Guillaume Cabane

20VC with Harry StebbingsGuillaume Cabane, Harry Stebbings
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Core Outreach Framework

  • Successful cold outreach to unknown prospects relies on two primary drivers:
    • True Value: The communication provides specific, actionable insights about the recipient's business that they missed.
    • Reciprocity/Humanity: The message feels authentically human, compelling a response through social obligation or shared interest.

Strategy 1: Delivering "True Value" via Negative Comment Detection

  • Use Case: Targeting merchants on high-traffic platforms like Instagram and TikTok who have negative customer comments on their posts that go unanswered.
  • Execution:
    • Automated scraping and detection of negative comments on brand posts.
    • Alerts sent to the merchant owner or marketing leader with specific timestamps (e.g., "no response for 48 hours").
    • Messages avoid self-promotion, focusing solely on the uncovered issue to allow easy verification.
  • Performance & Economics:
    • Response rates reached 10–12%, approximately 5x the standard rate for high-quality cold emails.
    • Acquisition Cost (CAC): Zero marginal cost after the initial engineering investment; scripts run at near-zero expense.
    • Scalability: Moves from manual testing of hundreds of contacts to full automation once response rates are validated.
    • Competitive Moat: Creates a "green ocean" strategy with zero competition and no paid acquisition spend.

Strategy 2: Leveraging "Reciprocity" via Hyper-Personalized Social Hooks

  • Use Case: Reaching difficult audiences, specifically CFOs at financial platforms (e.g., Ramp), where scraping business data is less effective.
  • Execution (Ramp Example):
    • Scrapes CFO LinkedIn profiles to identify US college education.
    • Cross-references college data with upcoming sports matchups.
    • Sends an email featuring a simplified betting proposition (e.g., "I will bet $50 your team will lose; if I win, I get a 20-minute call").
  • Psychological Drivers:
    • The specificity of the data (college and opponent) and the "free bet" mechanism create an illusion of deep human research.
    • Recipients feel compelled to reply due to the social friction of ignoring a personal wager or shared passion.
  • Performance:
    • Achieved response rates of 12–15%.
    • Validation testing involved manual sending to hundreds of prospects before engineering investment.
    • The process is automated but designed to bypass automation detection.