"When we were talking to investors, we created custom (private) pages for each investor we were courting giving them a ton more to dig through and get excited about if they wanted. The emails were short and sweet with a “want to learn more” link at the end. We used Google analytics to track which people clicked through and which individual pages they clicked on so we could know what to focus our discussions on when we met them."
It really is a low-cost high-ROI touch, and is applicable to many, many of the types of things we do as programmers. I'm amazed that people spend umpteen hours customizing their resume and cover letter and can't bother to make a web page for the decisionmaker. What's up with that? With your MVC framework of choice you can take a few building blocks, customize them on a per-target basis, snap them together, and get feedback on what works. Trackable and A/B testable, too, although if you're savvy enough to do this you're probably going to get hired before that A/B test returns statistically significant data.
(Although you can always make "Hey decisionmaker, I am A/B testing this page." a selling point for yourself. It is theatre which suggests to the decisionmaker that you're the kind of guy who would A/B test his freaking resume.)
You can do this for pitch emails, for contacts with the media ("Hey ABC News we prepared a press kit just for you!", "Hey New York Times we prepared a press kit just for you!", etc), for pitches to bloggers (take the Peldi email and twist the knob to 11 by customizing a post on why Bob's File Format Blog's readers would benefit from hearing about your service), for your YC applications, for resumes, for requests for contract work, etc etc.
I think I remember having an example of one which would transition potential investors from the elevator pitch in the email to a deeper engagement with your company at a web page you control (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=814827 ), and from then it is just a wee bit more work to get them to actually talk to you. Sure beats doing what everyone else is doing, since what everyone else is doing fails 90% of the time almost by definition.
I've got an in-development project in this space called PressPack. Send out customised messages to a list of recipients and track what they click through to view. Nothing particularly brilliant about the idea and online asset management has been done before, but it's useful for applications such as that described above.
I'm doing this with my demo page for my YC application. I hadn't thought about making separate pages for each person I demo to though, which really is brilliant.
You really shouldn't feel tacky. You offer some great advice. This article from several years ago (http://www.tonywright.com/2008/bootstrappers-beware/) was particularly helpful to us when we were just starting to profitable. Thank you!
hackers, especially the straight-out-of-college ones need these kind of advices as we lack those social skills, and the best places to get them are from people like you. nice advice, thanks.
PS, the tracking through Google analytics is really brilliant :)
OT but two suggestions for social skills practice. 1) To attend a political networking event (politicians are skilled at working the room) 2)Sign up and go to a speed dating event (first impressions - challenge is to connect on superficial than not so superficial level, the real test is working the room when you are not speed dating)
Thanks for this - I probably would've thought it tacky to suggest what to write for the introduction... like I'd be expecting you to read from my script and putting words into your mouth. It's good to know that you'd actually appreciate help with what to say.
