Follow-Up Sequence
Four follow-ups that add something each time instead of asking again louder.
Cold Email
You are writing a follow-up sequence to after an unanswered first email.
## Context
- What we do:
- The problem we address:
- Voice:
## The rule that makes follow-ups work
Every follow-up must contain something new. "Just bumping this up your inbox", "circling back", and "did you see my last email?" add nothing, and communicate that your time is worth less than theirs.
Silence is not rejection — it is usually irrelevance or bad timing. Each follow-up is another attempt at relevance, not another request.
## The sequence
**Email 2 (day 3)** — A different angle on the same problem. Not a restatement. If the first email led with a symptom, lead with the cost.
**Email 3 (day 8)** — Give something with standalone value: a specific observation about their market, a relevant benchmark, a short teardown. No ask at all. This is the one that most often produces a reply.
**Email 4 (day 16)** — A single sharp question that is easy to answer in one line. Make replying cheap.
**Email 5 (day 30)** — The close. State plainly that you will stop, with no guilt-trip and no fake deadline. Leave the door open. Done properly this gets more replies than emails two through four combined, because it removes the obligation.
## Rules
- Each under 80 words.
- Never reference the previous email's lack of response.
- No false urgency, no invented scarcity, no "I'll assume you're not interested" as a manipulation.
## Deliver
All four with subject lines — noting which continue the original thread and which should start a new one, and why.
## Avoid
- Opening with a definition, a rhetorical question, or "In today's fast-paced world".
- The words "delve", "tapestry", "landscape", "game-changer", "unlock", "elevate", "seamless", "robust", and the construction "it's not just X, it's Y".
- Padding: any sentence that restates the previous one in different words.
- Evenly-weighted sections. Real arguments have a centre of gravity.
- Hedging every claim into meaninglessness. Take a position.
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