1/ Earlier, I was chatting w/someone about the math of cold emails. TLDR if you write a large number of *good* emails then you will get good results.
There are three groups of people:
1) never reply to any cold email
2) rarely reply to cold emails
3) very open to cold emails
There are three groups of people:
1) never reply to any cold email
2) rarely reply to cold emails
3) very open to cold emails
2/ Right off the bat, maybe 75% of cold emails are ignored because the person you're writing to is in the first two groups.
3/ For the remaining 25%, the reply rate depends on the quality your email. The better the email, the higher the reply rate. If you have an above average email, maybe half of the receptive group replies; if your email is stellar, almost everyone replies.
4/ Finally, the busier or higher profile the recipient, the better your email has to be. Cold emailing an engineer at a small tech company? Not too hard. VP at a large tech company? That's harder. Bill Gates? Good freaking luck.
5/ Eventually, everything comes down to numbers and effort. If you spend 20 minutes writing a great email, the reply rate might be 20%. If you spend 1 minute sending a generic email, the reply rate might be 1%. Either way it can take an hour or two of work to get one good reply.
6/ This is a legit time investment, but if you're fundraising or looking for mentors or trying to land customers, the ROI is worth it. The key is to not get discouraged if you have to send 10-15 good emails before you get one reply. If you keep trying, your efforts will pay off.
