Why this audience is different
A VP of Sales will forgive a slightly generic message because they write them too. A CTO won’t. Technical leaders spend their day distinguishing between things that work and things that sound like they work, and a template opener fails that test in about two seconds.
The other thing to know: many technical leaders are not the buyer, they’re the veto. Getting a polite non-answer from a CTO is often worse than not messaging them at all, because it closes the account.
Template 1: the hiring signal
Hi {first name}, saw you’re hiring two backend engineers and a platform lead. Usually means something’s growing faster than the team. I work on {five plain words}, so I’ll be interested to watch how it goes.
Why it works: hiring is public, factual and implies a real constraint. It makes no claim about their business.
Template 2: the thing they wrote
Hi {first name}, your write-up on moving off {technology} was the clearest explanation of that trade-off I’ve read. We hit the same wall last year and went the other way, for worse reasons. Would be good to be connected.
Why it works: it proves you read it, and admitting you did something worse is disarming. Only send this if you actually read it.
Template 3: the honest sales note
Hi {first name}, this is a sales message, so I’ll be quick. We built {thing} for teams doing {specific job}. If that’s not a problem you have, ignore me entirely and no hard feelings. If it is, I’d value ten minutes.
Why it works: transparency is disproportionately effective with technical audiences. You’re respecting their time by not pretending.
Template 4: the peer introduction
Hi {first name}, {mutual name} suggested you’d be the right person to talk to about {specific technical area}. Happy to be pointed elsewhere if not. Either way, good to connect.
Why it works: named referral plus an explicit escape route. The escape route is what makes it land.
Template 5: the specific question
Hi {first name}, quick one you can ignore: when you rolled out {thing}, did you keep {specific decision} or move away from it? Asking because we’re deciding the same thing and your setup looks closest to ours.
Why it works: it asks for expertise rather than attention. Engineers answer questions about their own work more often than they respond to pitches.
What to avoid
“I help companies like yours”. “Quick question” as an opener when it isn’t. Any mention of synergy, transformation or unlocking. Emojis. Anything that reads as written by a tool, which is ironic given what we sell, and exactly why the ICP filter writes the opener from the actual profile rather than a template.
After they accept
Don’t pitch. A short voice note works here too, but keep it even shorter than usual and make the ask smaller: fifteen minutes, a specific question, no demo.