Recipient Research

Recipient research

Source: points/cold-email-rules.md (rule 1 — know something about the person and exploit it).

Why this exists

Konrad's first rule of cold outreach: research is non-negotiable. People drop personal details in 20-minute podcast interviews. Recent blog posts. Portfolio company pages. Conference talks. The specificity is what separates a real email from a template.

You have 15 seconds when the recipient opens your email. Three concrete personal details earn those 15 seconds. A LinkedIn summary doesn't.

What to find

For every cold-email target, build a dossier with these sections:

1. Public role and trajectory

• Current title and company
• Last 2–3 roles and how long they stayed (signals: founder vs. operator, builder vs. acquirer)
• The pivot points — what made them leave each role, what made them join the next
• Anything they've publicly said about why they're at the current job

2. Public writing and speaking

• Substack, Medium, personal blog, company blog
• Podcasts they've appeared on (especially long-form — 60+ minutes)
• Conference talks on YouTube
• Twitter/X — pinned tweets, recent threads
• LinkedIn posts (ignore the corporate ones; surface the personal ones)
• Books they've recommended or written

3. Distinctive personal details

This is the gold. Pull anything that is:

• A specific anecdote they've told publicly (the year, the place, the name)
• An unusual hobby (Ironman, jiu-jitsu, beekeeping, jazz piano)
• A geographic origin or move (immigrated from X, grew up in Y)
• A formative experience (military service, an early failure, a mentor)
• A strong opinion (especially one that's contrarian or unexpected)
• A specific number they've cited about their work

4. Their current focus / what they're hunting for

• If a VC: their portfolio, their public thesis, what they've said they want to fund
• If a CEO: hiring posts, their company's strategic moves, recent product launches
• If a hiring manager: open roles on their team, public posts about culture or hiring bar
• If a journalist: their last 5 stories, what they're sourcing for next

5. Mutual contacts and "wing-people"

• LinkedIn 2nd-degree connections — flag the ones you've actually engaged with
• Anyone in the user's network who has worked with the target
• Anyone who's interviewed them, written about them, or been quoted alongside them

6. Recent news (Google News non-negotiable)

• Last 30 days of their name in the press
• Last 90 days of their company in the press
• Anything they've publicly reacted to on social

What to skip

• Generic résumé items (the LinkedIn header is in their LinkedIn header — don't repeat it back to them)
• Anything that would make them think "yeah, I know"
• Anything that requires a paid Rocket Reach / Apollo lookup unless the user explicitly authorizes it

Output format

# Dossier: <Name>

## Headline
<One-sentence positioning — what's interesting and current about this person>

## Trajectory
<2–3 bullet career arc, signaling read>

## Three things they've said publicly
1. <Specific quote or anecdote, with source link>
2. <…>
3. <…>

## What they seem to want right now
<Read of their current focus, with citation>

## Hooks for "like you" lines
- <Specific, genuine, NOT generic>
- <…>

## Mutual contacts
- <Name — the user's actual relationship to them>

## Recent news (last 30 days)
- <Date · headline · why it matters>

## Three subject-line candidates
- "<Personal, timely, unusual>"
- "<…>"
- "<…>"

## Flags / risks
- <Anything potentially sensitive — recent firing, public controversy, job change in flight>

How to use

1. User gives you a target name + (optional) company + (optional) link to LinkedIn or website.
2. Run the WebSearch and WebFetch tools to pull from the sources listed above.
3. Build the dossier. Cite every claim with a link.
4. If you find a thin profile (very limited public footprint), say so explicitly — don't pad. Recommend asking for a warm intro instead.
5. Hand the dossier to cold-email-coach (or use it directly to draft).

Companion skills

• connection-finder — turns the dossier into specific "like you" hooks
• fun-angle — finds the humor / unusual detail you can lead with
• cold-email-coach — drafts the email