We often hear stories of founders chasing investors, grinding their way to get introductions, honing their pitches, and hearing hundreds of nos from VCs. Sometimes, though, it’s the other way around. Many startups that later became multibillion-dollar companies were courted by investors.

I started to cold-email CEOs of startups that had just raised ungodly sums from venture capital. I had a simple insight: most CEOs checked their own emails, and it was easy to guess their email addresses. What did I have to lose? Whenever I saw a company announce a big raise on TechCrunch, I’d figure out the CEO’s email and contact them. With the c