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Breaking Through the Noise

Overview

How sourcing professionals get a response from inboxes saturated with investor outreach. Both Ryan Murphy and Jake Colognesi agree this is one of the hardest problems in modern sourcing, and that generic, templated outreach is the fastest way to get ignored or flagged as spam.

Key Perspectives

  • Ryan Murphy argues the subject line is "such an overlooked part of the job" and personalizes every cold email. He leverages his Olympic background, advisory board experience, and franchise ownership as attention-grabbing hooks. When a recipient asks to unsubscribe, Ryan finds it "pretty funny" — evidence that his emails are genuinely being mistaken for automated spam, which he considers a compliment to his discipline about sending real one-off outreach. (Ep. 22)
  • Jake Colognesi emphasizes "put yourself in the shoes of the person who's receiving whatever message you're sending." He contrasts generic AUM-forward pitches with value-first outreach that demonstrates understanding of the founder's world. Jake also notes that in an AI-saturated era, "being as human as possible is oddly enough a differentiator" — and has even purchased a typewriter from France to send physical letters that stand out. (Ep. 20)
  • Karl Rectanus offers the founder's perspective as a recipient of PE outreach in Ep. 1. Karl received inbound from twice a month in 2018–2019 to three to four outreaches per day by 2022. The outreach that stood out demonstrated authentic sector expertise — PE professionals who could do "English to English translation" by speaking the education lexicon rather than leading with financial jargon. Firms that articulated a clear investment strategy ("we think this is the trend or this is where the market is going") felt more productive to engage with. Karl also valued when someone offered to visit in person: "My partner is going to be in town, would love to get 30 minutes." He created a short survey to screen inbound, achieving 90–95% completion rates — the act of completing it was itself a signal of genuine interest. (Ep. 1)
  • Rod Jimenez provides another founder's perspective in Ep. 4. As CEO of SHR Group, Rod received a steady flow of two to three PE inquiries per month — spiking to twenty in a week after major announcements — plus an equivalent number from investment bankers. His filtering was swift and binary: messages with wrong facts about SHR (calling it a "hotel management" or "PMS" company) were immediately deleted. Messages from firms with relevant portfolio companies or demonstrated familiarity with hospitality tech earned a response. What stood out most was Dan Herr's approach at Serent Capital — informed, patient, and grounded in real understanding of the competitive landscape — which led to an eighteen-month relationship before a deal materialized. Rod also flags automated drip campaigns as particularly frustrating. (Ep. 4)
  • Kate Hopkins provides the content-supply perspective in Ep. 2. Rather than focusing on the sender's personal approach, Kate argues that Portfolio Operations teams should create the differentiated material that arms sourcers: battle cards, scripted email sequences, data snacks drawn from portfolio benchmarking, and training. The most successful sourcer she worked with "was always asking me for ratios" because "I get really positive responses from founders when I give them really concrete things" — concrete data points like CSM-to-revenue ratios or developer-to-PM ratios that demonstrate genuine portfolio knowledge. Matt Rooney reinforces that "the ops team can help inform the BD professionals to just be more equipped at breaking through all that noise." (Ep. 2)
  • Bill Nunan provides the PE-backed CEO's perspective as a high-volume outreach recipient in Ep. 5. Bill receives 10 to 20 inbound sourcing emails per week and reports that despite rising volume, quality has not improved. The rare outreach that earns a callback demonstrates personal discovery — he cites a sourcer who researched his Maine lobstering background and "starts talking about sort of their love of the state of Maine" — or brings an industry insight he didn't already have. Bill notes that no sourcer has ever worked his network for a warm introduction, calling network-based outreach "an incredibly powerful tactic that we deploy in enterprise sales" that PE sourcers are leaving on the table. He occasionally coaches underperforming sourcers: "Let me give you some feedback on how to elicit a response in your sourcing activities." (Ep. 5)

Tactics Discussed

  • Personalized subject lines — Ryan writes a unique subject line for every outreach (Ep. 22)
  • Unique background leverage — Ryan uses Olympic credentials, advisory work, franchise ownership as entry points (Ep. 22)
  • Value-first content — Jake leads with competitive intelligence, benchmarking, candidate intros rather than AUM (Ep. 20)
  • Physical mail — Jake's French typewriter experiment for completely off-pattern outreach (Ep. 20)
  • Finding connection points — Both emphasize finding unexpected common ground in first conversations
  • Inbound screening survey — Karl sent a short questionnaire to every PE outreach; 90–95% completion rate served as both a filter and a signal of seriousness (Ep. 1)
  • Sector-native language — PE professionals who could "translate" financial lexicon into the founder's industry language stood out as authentic (Ep. 1)
  • In-person visits — Karl found opportunistic in-person meeting requests ("my partner is in town") significantly more compelling than transactional calls (Ep. 1)
  • Factual accuracy as table stakes — Rod deletes outreach that gets basic company facts wrong; accuracy is a minimum threshold, not a differentiator (Ep. 4)
  • Curiosity framing — Rod responds better to "we're curious about your space" than to stretched claims of sector expertise (Ep. 4)
  • Avoiding drip campaigns — Automated follow-up sequences frustrate founders and undermine credibility (Ep. 4)
  • Personal discovery beyond the deal — Bill Nunan responds to outreach that surfaces unexpected personal details (e.g., his lobstering background) rather than leading with deal terms (Ep. 5)
  • Network-based warm introductions — Bill notes this "incredibly powerful tactic" from enterprise sales is almost never used by PE sourcers reaching him (Ep. 5)
  • Demand gen best practices as outreach model — Bill argues PE sourcers should apply the same marketing and demand generation principles their portfolio companies use (Ep. 5)
  • Showing up in person — Bill says he would "carve out 15 minutes" for anyone from a reputable firm who showed up at his door, versus ignoring emails (Ep. 5)

Points of Agreement

  • Generic outreach fails completely; the bar for personalization has risen sharply
  • Unique background or personal hook beats credentials in cold outreach
  • AI-generated templates have made human, effortful outreach more valuable
  • Karl Rectanus confirms from the founder's seat what Murphy and Colognesi advocate from the sender's side: generic, financially-led outreach is immediately filtered out (Ep. 1)
  • Rod Jimenez independently confirms Karl's founder-side experience: wrong facts trigger instant deletion, and genuine curiosity or relevant portfolio knowledge is what earns a conversation (Ep. 4)
  • Bill Nunan extends the pattern to the PE-backed CEO inbox: volume has risen dramatically but quality has not, and the same personalization principles (discovery, relevance, network leverage) that work on founders work on operators (Ep. 5)

Episode Coverage

Episode Guest Angle
Ep. 1 Karl Rectanus Founder's perspective as outreach recipient: survey screening, sector language, in-person visits
Ep. 2 Kate Hopkins Content-supply side: ops teams creating battle cards, data snacks, and email sequences that arm sourcers
Ep. 4 Rod Jimenez Founder's inbox: filtering by accuracy, curiosity framing, drip campaign frustration
Ep. 5 Bill Nunan PE-backed CEO's inbox: 10–20 emails/week, personal discovery and network intros as differentiators
Ep. 20 Jake Colognesi Value-first outreach, human differentiation, typewriter letters
Ep. 22 Ryan Murphy Personalized subject lines, leveraging unique background, connection points