Cover Letter for Startups
April 5, 2022 - 4 min read
Imagine you work at a startup. Suppose it's your job to hire a software engineer. You already have a million different things to do as part of your job, and on top of that, you now have to hire someone from start to finish.
You put up a job post on your website and a few job boards online and after the first day, you have 32 applications in your inbox. You sit down to go through them, you open the first one and you see this:
Hi,
My name is Jim, I think my skills would be a really good fit for your company. Please see my resume attached.
-Jim
My name is Jim, I think my skills would be a really good fit for your company. Please see my resume attached.
-Jim
Does it make you think Jim would actually be a good fit for your company? Does this make you want to hire Jim? Does it make you want to dig in and learn more rather than continue on to the next 31 applications?
No way.
Who is Jim? Why does he think he would be a good fit? What position is he even applying for? Jim probably copy/pasted this to 100 different companies and none of them will be impressed by it or click to see his resume.
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Your Secret Weapon
If you’re applying for a job at a startup, the cover letter is your secret weapon to getting an interview.
No one will read your cover letter at big companies like Google and Meta; they receive far too many applications, so it will only be processed by an algorithm that will look for specific keywords. You have no way to stand out from the crowd.
But startups are different.
While there are many startup jobs available (coolstartupjobs has over 8,000 jobs listed right now), each individual startup receives a fairly small number of applications by comparison. Your cover letter will definitely be read by a human being, and there’s a chance it may even be read by one of the founders of the company.
So you know your cover letter will be read by a real-live human being. How can you make it so that human being decides to give you an interview?
Standing Out
The most important thing you can do is write a custom cover letter for each startup you apply to. If you write a generic cover letter that looks like every single other cover letter they receive, the reader will just move to the next application.
You want your cover letter to be different from the others. And the easiest way to do that is tailor your cover letter to the startup you’re applying to with specific information about the startup.
How can you make your cover letter different? Let's go through some easy steps to figure it out.
Step 1: Find Companies You Want to Apply to
Since you are customizing your letter to each startup you're applying to, you're going to need an initial list of startups that you think might be interesting to work for.
You can read various startup news sites like techcrunch or hacker news to try and find companies you think are interesting.
coolstartupjobs also has a startup rankings list that is helpful; startups are ranked by their growth in job posts, so you know the companies at the top of the rankings are growing quickly. Growing companies are ones that are more likely to make your stock options worth something some day.
Step 2: Google for news stories about each company
Once you have your list of startups you want to apply to, you’ll want to find a couple of nuggets of information to use for each in your cover letter. This does not need to take a long time. Just search for the company name in google (you can use the URL of the company to search if the company name is too generic) and see what you can find.
These types of information are great:
- Fundraising: "I saw on techcrunch that you just raised your Series B"
- Mission: "I really like how your company is taking on big banks; ever since my bank messed up my car loan, I’ve been interested in improving financial technology."
- News: "I just read on hacker news that you got Amazon as a customer, congratulations!"
- Content: "I just watched a talk from your founder about the future of indoor agriculture."
Try to find 2 pieces of information for each startup, if possible.
Step 3: Reference a Specific Job Post
The person reading your cover letter knows nothing about you; they don't know if you're a software engineer, or a marketer, or a salesperson. You need to specifically mention which role you're applying to, as well as why you think you might be a good fit.
Don’t just say you’d be a good fit for the company; tell why you’d be a good fit. It’s kind of like making a dating app profile: you can’t just say you’re funny; you have to show that you’re funny by telling a joke.
Putting it all Together
OK, those 3 steps weren't too bad! How might our original applicant, Jim, put these 3 steps together?
Hi,
My name is Jim; I read that <Your Company> recently raised your Series A round, congratulations! I'm an engineer looking to join a growing startup, and I believe I’m a great fit for the Full-Stack Engineer position you have posted on your website. I previously worked for <Prior Company> which is in the same industry as yours, and I’m very familiar with your tech stack; I used typescript and kubernetes in my prior role like you are using.
My resume is attached, I'd love to learn more about the role soon.
-Jim
My name is Jim; I read that <Your Company> recently raised your Series A round, congratulations! I'm an engineer looking to join a growing startup, and I believe I’m a great fit for the Full-Stack Engineer position you have posted on your website. I previously worked for <Prior Company> which is in the same industry as yours, and I’m very familiar with your tech stack; I used typescript and kubernetes in my prior role like you are using.
My resume is attached, I'd love to learn more about the role soon.
-Jim
Now we're talking! Jim identified this company as one he wanted to work for from his research, looked for news about the company, and referenced the specific job post in this cover letter. A cover letter like this is much more likely to get a response.
One thing to add: you can include a generic portion in the cover letter describing your experience in more detail. Just make sure you include it after the custom portion. You want to hook the reader with the custom portion, then you can give your personal sales pitch about yourself.
You now have all the tools to write a cover letter for a startup job that will get a response. Good luck with the job search! And remember to check out the startup rankings list here at coolstartupjobs if you're looking for interesting companies to work for!
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