This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Daniel Min, the chief marketing officer at viral AI “cheating” startup Cluely. He’s based in New York City. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
When I was 18, people would tell me to reach out to as many people as possible because they would view me as young and eager, and they would want to take a chance on me.
So I did a lot of outreach that looked like the kind of messages I receive now: “Hey, I’m 18. I really admire the work that you do. Would love to just hop on a 15-minute chat with you and learn more about you.”
I’m not surprised I was ghosted most of the time.
There’s a difference between wanting to hop on a chat and wanting a job from someone, but even the people I was just trying to chat with would not respond to me most of the time — and it’s because of two main things.
15-minute chats are taxing
First, I realized that 15-minute chats are incredibly taxing and they ruin my workflow.
The second thing I realized is that when I would reach out for jobs, I would communicate that I didn’t know what I was good at. I would say things like, “I’m willing to do anything. I’m willing to work for free.” Most of the time they would ghost me because my message showed that I had no idea what I was doing.
I thought they would think I’m an eager young buck, who’s just trying my best and who’s willing to work hard. Now that I’m on the other side, I know that if I took a chance on that student who’s willing to do anything, it would take me a lot of work to onboard them, and probably cause me more pain.
I know that what they want out of this experience is to learn from me. So I would need to invest time, and I don’t want to hire somebody and give them a poor experience.
I used to think it was risk-free for someone to take a chance on me. But over time, I realized it’s high risk because they’re going to invest significant amounts of time.
The ideal reach-out
I have a soft spot for students who say that they’re kind of lost and thinking about going into a startup. I’ll always at least respond to them and say, “hey, keep your head up, and try this thing.”
If you want to send better outreach, first, tell me what you can do. Two, don’t tell me what you want to learn; show me how you can help me. And three, if you don’t have the skills yet, develop them and reach out again.
I haven’t responded to a lot of cold outreaches, but I’ll take calls here and there, usually if it’s through warm intros. I’ve told about 20 people that if they post every day for 60 days and send me a message, I will look over their content.
Not a single person has ever done that. If they’re not willing to put in 60 days worth of work into something they really care about, why is it worth it? I want to know that if I hop on a call with someone and give them advice, they’re going to run far with it.
That’s pretty much exactly what my editor did for me. He made a whole YouTube video demonstrating that he really cares and that he’s watched every single one of my videos. I asked him to edit an example video and create a Google Doc of things he thinks I could film better, and he wrote a six-page document with timestamps on exactly what I should do.
After that, I knew he was somebody who goes above and beyond. I hired him as my part-time editor at the time, and when I joined Cluely, one of my negotiation points was that he needed to be there with me. He’s no longer my editor, but now he’s a full-time employee at the startup. His journey is inspiring because he took a shot and showed he could provide value.
Maybe someone isn’t great yet when they reach out, but I want to know that if I put hours of effort into someone, they’ll learn quickly and become great.
It’s also effective to send links if you’re doing a cold outreach. Someone could say they generated 50 million views and I wouldn’t believe them. If they send me a link — which hopefully isn’t malware — I will always click on it. If I was to look for a job right now, I would link everything I’ve done.
