# Cold Outreach Agent Skill

> Craft compelling cold emails and LinkedIn messages that get replies from prospects, partners, and investors. This skill helps founders transform cold outreach into warm connections with personalized, high-impact communication.

- Canonical: https://nanoskill.ai/skills/cold-outreach
- Markdown: https://nanoskill.ai/skills/cold-outreach.md
- Author: shawnpang
- Published: 2026-05-23T00:22:42.187Z
- Updated: 2026-07-25T04:33:33.840Z
- Language: en
- Source type: github
- Popularity signal: 131

## Sources

- https://github.com/shawnpang/startup-founder-skills

## Install

```shell
npx skills add https://github.com/shawnpang/startup-founder-skills/tree/main/skills/cold-outreach
```

## About

The Cold Outreach skill empowers founders to master the art of connecting with new prospects, partners, and investors through highly effective cold emails and LinkedIn messages. By transforming generic outreach into personalized, value-driven conversations, this skill helps you cut through the noise and secure crucial meetings. It guides you in leveraging research signals and strategic messaging to build relationships with people who don't yet know you, driving growth and opening new opportunities for your startup.

This skill streamlines the entire cold outreach process, from gathering essential context about your target to drafting multi-touch sequences. It integrates contextual research, such as recent news and LinkedIn activity, to ensure every message is tailored and relevant. You'll receive not just a message, but a complete strategy including connection requests, primary messages, and follow-up sequences, all designed to maximize engagement and reply rates.

Founders can utilize this skill for a variety of scenarios, whether it's securing initial customer meetings, attracting angel investors, or forging strategic partnerships. It emphasizes writing principles that resonate with peers, focusing on the recipient's world and offering low-friction calls to action. With built-in self-critique mechanisms, it ensures your cold outreach is always optimized for impact, helping you avoid common pitfalls and leverage your unique founder advantages.

## Key features

- **Personalized Message Generation**: Automatically generates highly personalized cold outreach messages for email and LinkedIn by leveraging research signals about the prospect, moving beyond generic templates.
- **Multi-Touch Sequence Drafting**: Develops a complete cold outreach sequence, including initial messages and strategic follow-ups with new angles, designed to maximize engagement and reply rates.
- **Contextual Research Integration**: Incorporates recent news, LinkedIn activity, and company growth data to make each cold outreach message feel relevant and tailored to the recipient's world.
- **Founder-Specific Advantages**: Leverages unique founder credibility to craft messages that resonate more deeply, leading to 2-3x higher reply rates compared to traditional sales outreach.
- **Self-Critique and Optimization**: Includes a self-critique pass to ensure personalization is effective and messages are concise, peer-like, and focused on the prospect's needs rather than vendor pitches.

## Use cases

- **Drafting Cold Emails to Investors**: Founders can use this skill to create personalized cold emails to potential investors, highlighting relevant research signals and a compelling value proposition to secure meetings.
- **Crafting LinkedIn Outreach to Prospects**: Generate effective LinkedIn connection requests and follow-up messages for targeting potential customers or strategic partners, ensuring each message is tailored and avoids generic pitches.
- **Developing Outbound Campaigns for Sales**: Build multi-touch cold outreach campaigns for sales prospecting, allowing for varied personalization tiers from fully custom to volume-based approaches depending on available research.
- **Improving Reply Rates for Unresponsive Contacts**: When existing cold outreach isn't yielding results, this skill helps re-strategize and draft new messages based on best practices, focusing on the prospect's world and low-friction calls to action.

## Result preview

Explore a real personalized cold email sequence powered by this Skill.

![A screenshot of an email outreach template titled '#1 -- Initial Outreach'. The layout uses blue section headers, including an 'OUTREACH' label, and contains a sales email draft discussing an AI roadmap, HubSpot AI tools, CRM engagement, buying signals, and outreach timing.](https://file.nanoskill.ai/cold-email-outcome-1)

![A screenshot of an email sequence template titled 'Email #2 -- Follow-up #1'. The layout features green section headers, including a 'FOLLOW-UP #1' banner. The email draft contains a quick follow-up message discussing HubSpot’s enterprise AI strategy, enterprise buying processes, CRM pipeline growth, inbound leads, and an offer to share benchmark reports. A notes section at the bottom provides optimization suggestions and explains the purpose of the benchmark report as a value-driven follow-up asset.](https://file.nanoskill.ai/cold-email-oucome-2)

![A screenshot of an email outreach campaign implementation guide. The content outlines recommended send times for B2B prospects, sender name and email domain best practices, tracking considerations, and warnings against high-volume spray-and-pray outreach. A highlighted blue metrics box at the bottom provides benchmark performance targets, including open rates, reply rates, and optimization advice for subject lines and email copy through A/B testing.](https://file.nanoskill.ai/cold-email-outcome-3)

## Result walkthrough

### Install

Add the skill to your agent

![A screenshot of an AI assistant terminal conversation showing the installation of a GitHub-hosted skill package called 'cold-outreach'. The assistant explains the installation process, including adding the repository as a skill source, creating symbolic links for compatibility, configuring security scan reporting, and verifying that the skill is properly installed and accessible through the Hermes agent environment. The final status message confirms successful installation and readiness for use.](https://file.nanoskill.ai/cold-email-7.png)

### Outreach Task

Describe your product and target audience

![A screenshot of an AI assistant workflow for generating a cold outreach campaign for HubSpot. A blue task panel outlines objectives such as researching HubSpot’s recent developments, creating a personalized cold email sequence, drafting multiple follow-up emails, and producing a professionally designed PDF report. Below, the assistant logs its progress, including loading the outreach skill, gathering company information, handling web access limitations, extracting key facts about HubSpot’s AI initiatives and enterprise expansion, and preparing a Python-based process to generate a polished outreach report with optimization recommendations.](https://file.nanoskill.ai/cold-email-8.png)

### Review Campaign

Get personalized emails and outreach sequences

![A screenshot of an email outreach template titled '#1 -- Initial Outreach'. The layout uses blue section headers, including an 'OUTREACH' label, and contains a sales email draft discussing an AI roadmap, HubSpot AI tools, CRM engagement, buying signals, and outreach timing.](https://file.nanoskill.ai/cold-email-9.png)

## Skill definition

# Cold Outreach

## When to Use
Activate when a founder needs to write cold emails or LinkedIn messages to prospects, potential customers, investors, or strategic contacts. Also use when the user says "nobody replies to my emails," "how do I reach out to X," "write me a cold email," or "help with outbound."

## Context Required
From `startup-context` or the user:
- **Target prospect** — Name, role, company, and why them specifically
- **Research signals** — Recent news (funding, launches, hires), LinkedIn activity, company growth data, or role/industry context
- **Sender positioning** — Who you are, what you offer, your unique credibility
- **Platform** — Email, LinkedIn, or both
- **Batch size** — Single prospect or multi-prospect campaign

Work with whatever the user provides. A strong research signal and clear value prop is enough to draft. Note what would strengthen the message but do not block on missing inputs.

## Workflow
1. **Gather context** — Read startup-context if available. Ask for missing info on prospect, value prop, and proof points.
2. **Research the prospect** — Conduct web searches for recent signals. The core principle: 10 minutes of research transforms a cold message into a warm one. Rank signals by strength:
   - **Tier 1 (strongest):** Recent news — funding rounds, product launches, key hires
   - **Tier 2:** LinkedIn activity — posts, comments, job changes
   - **Tier 3:** Company growth signals — hiring trends, tech stack changes
   - **Tier 4 (weakest):** Role/industry awareness only
3. **Assign personalization tier** — Based on research signals found:
   - **Tier 1 (custom):** Named signals across multiple research sources — fully personalized message
   - **Tier 2 (templated + personalized):** Company info and role context — template with personalized elements
   - **Tier 3 (volume template):** No signals found — use volume approach with strong value prop
4. **Select mode based on scope:**
   - **Quick:** Single connection request + follow-up for one prospect
   - **Standard:** Four-touch sequence for a prospect (default)
   - **Deep:** Multi-prospect system with A/B variant messages
5. **Draft the sequence** — Write messages following the structure and rules below.
6. **Self-critique pass** — Before delivering, validate that personalization connects to the problem. If you remove the personalized opening and the message still makes sense, the personalization is not working. Rewrite.

## Output Format
Deliver all of the following:
- **Connection request** (LinkedIn, max 300 characters) or **Subject line** (email, 2-4 words, lowercase)
- **Primary message** — the full outreach text (emails under 125 words, InMails under 500 characters)
- **Follow-up sequence** — with timing and a new angle per touch
- **Personalization notes** — what to customize per recipient if sending to multiple prospects
- **Tier label** — which personalization tier this message uses and why

## Frameworks & Best Practices

### The Core Principle
The word "cold" is the problem. Every message should feel like it comes from someone who understands the prospect's world. Research is what makes that possible.

### Message Structure
- **Connection request (LinkedIn):** Max 300 characters. Reference something specific. Never pitch in the request.
- **First message (24-48 hours after connection):** "Thanks for connecting" + bridge to a research signal + value statement + question. Keep it conversational.
- **Follow-up 1 (Day 7):** Introduce a new angle — different problem, proof point, or insight.
- **Follow-up 2 (Day 14):** Share something valuable (article, data, framework) with a soft reconnect.
- **Break-up (Day 21):** Professional close — "Closing the loop. If timing is ever right, I'm here."

### Writing Principles
- **Write like a peer, not a vendor.** Use contractions. If it sounds like marketing copy, rewrite it.
- **Every sentence must earn its place.** If it does not move toward a reply, cut it.
- **Lead with their world, not yours.** "You/your" should dominate over "I/we."
- **One ask, low friction.** Interest-based CTAs ("Worth exploring?") beat meeting requests.
- **Every message must reference a specific research signal** or explicitly default to Tier 3. This is a hard rule.

### Email Frameworks
- **Observation-Problem-Proof-Ask** — You noticed X, which usually means Y challenge. We helped Z with that. Interested?
- **Trigger-Insight-Ask** — Congrats on X. That usually creates Y challenge. We have helped similar companies. Curious?
- **Story-Bridge-Ask** — [Similar company] had [problem]. They [solved it this way]. Relevant to you?

### Subject Lines
- 2-4 words, lowercase, no punctuation tricks
- Should look like an internal email ("quick question," "re: [their company]")
- No product pitches, no urgency, no emojis

### What to Avoid
- Opening with "I hope this finds you well" or "My name is X and I work at Y"
- Jargon: "synergy," "leverage," "best-in-class," "leading provider"
- Feature dumps — one proof point beats ten features
- HTML formatting, images, or multiple links in cold emails
- Fake "Re:" or "Fwd:" subject lines
- Asking for 30-minute calls in first touch
- Sending identical templates with only the name swapped
- Pitching in a LinkedIn connection request

### Founder-Specific Advantages
- Founder-to-founder or founder-to-exec emails get 2-3x higher reply rates
- Lead with "I built this because..." — more compelling than "our company offers..."
- Offer what reps cannot: personal onboarding, product roadmap input, advisory relationships

## Related Skills
- `lead-scoring` — use to prioritize which prospects to reach out to first
- `sales-script` — use when the outreach lands a meeting and you need a discovery call or demo script

## Examples

**Example prompt:** "I need to reach out to VP Engineering at mid-market SaaS companies about our API monitoring tool. We reduced downtime by 73% for Acme Corp."

**Good email output (Standard mode, Tier 2):**
> Subject: api alerts
>
> Hi [Name],
>
> Saw your team just shipped the new payments integration — nice work. Launches like that usually surface a wave of edge-case API failures that are tough to catch with standard monitoring.
>
> We built a tool that catches those failures before customers notice. Acme Corp cut their API downtime by 73% in the first month.
>
> Worth a quick look?

**Good LinkedIn connection request:**
> Hi [Name] — saw the payments launch. We help engineering teams catch API failures before customers do. Would love to connect.

**Follow-up (Day 7, new angle):**
> Hi [Name], quick thought — after launches like yours, the #1 issue teams tell us about isn't downtime, it's the silent failures that slip through alerts. Happy to share what patterns we see across 50+ engineering teams if useful.

## FAQ

### What is cold outreach and why is it important for founders?

Cold outreach involves contacting individuals who don't know you, typically via email or LinkedIn, to introduce your product, service, or partnership opportunity. For founders, it's crucial for customer acquisition, investor relations, and strategic partnerships, enabling growth and market validation.

### How does this skill personalize cold outreach messages?

The skill gathers context like the prospect's name, role, company, and recent activities (funding, launches, LinkedIn posts). It then uses this information to assign a personalization tier and draft messages that specifically reference these signals, making the outreach feel warm and relevant.

### What kind of information do I need to provide for effective cold outreach?

You should provide details about the target prospect (name, role, company), any research signals you have (news, LinkedIn activity), your sender positioning (who you are, what you offer), the preferred platform (email/LinkedIn), and the batch size (single or multi-prospect campaign).

### Can this skill help with both email and LinkedIn cold outreach?

Yes, this skill is designed to generate content for both cold emails and LinkedIn messages, including connection requests, primary messages, and follow-up sequences, tailored to the character limits and best practices of each platform.

### What are the key principles for writing effective cold outreach messages?

Key principles include writing like a peer, not a vendor; ensuring every sentence earns its place; leading with the prospect's world ('You/your' focus); having one low-friction ask; and always referencing a specific research signal or clearly defaulting to a volume approach.

### Does this skill provide follow-up messages for cold outreach?

Yes, the skill drafts a complete follow-up sequence with suggested timing and a new angle for each touchpoint, designed to maintain engagement and increase the likelihood of a reply without being overly persistent.