The Entrepreneur Forum | Financial Freedom | Starting a Business | Motivation | Money | Success

Welcome to the only entrepreneur forum dedicated to building life-changing wealth.

Build a Fastlane business. Earn real financial freedom. Join free.

Join over 80,000 entrepreneurs who have rejected the paradigm of mediocrity and said "NO!" to underpaid jobs, ascetic frugality, and suffocating savings rituals— learn how to build a Fastlane business that pays both freedom and lifestyle affluence.

Free registration at the forum removes this block.

A general purpose email address for idea testing/research

Idea threads

JWM

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
147%
Apr 14, 2018
81
119
Australia
Hi all

As someone with many ideas floating around in my head, as I'm sure a lot of you do to, I find myself wondering what the best practice is when it comes to an email address.

During the research and validation phase of an idea, sometimes 2 at a time, emailing people is a common task and having a professional looking email address is important.

Without coming up with a business name and securing the URL so I can have the business email, what other options are there?

Is there a good way of using a general purpose, let's say Gmail account, without it looking unprofessional such as [your name] at [typical service] . com?

Do any of you have experience or suggestions relating to this?
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Kak

Legendary Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
492%
Jan 23, 2011
9,678
47,664
34
Texas
Gmail is surprisingly commonplace. @outlook or @protonmail are also good options.

When you do get a domain, migrate over to it.

I bought firstnamelastnameholdings.com a long time ago and used it as a catch all. Still do.
 

SEBASTlAN

Marketing Wizard
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
149%
Dec 22, 2014
1,888
2,813
Los Angeles
There's a lot of temporary ones you can use like guerrillamail or emailondeck etc. Not sure how long you need to use one for though.
 

JWM

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
147%
Apr 14, 2018
81
119
Australia
Gmail is surprisingly commonplace. @outlook or @protonmail are also good options.

When you do get a domain, migrate over to it.

I bought firstnamelastnameholdings.com a long time ago and used it as a catch all. Still do.

I like that idea, did you register a business to tie that in to?
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

JWM

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
147%
Apr 14, 2018
81
119
Australia
There's a lot of temporary ones you can use like guerrillamail or emailondeck etc. Not sure how long you need to use one for though.

I would be looking for a permanent solution, thanks for the suggestions though, they may come in useful
 

Kak

Legendary Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
492%
Jan 23, 2011
9,678
47,664
34
Texas
I like that idea, did you register a business to tie that in to?

Yes. I have a catch all LLC for smaller things that I do... Any kind of consulting, billing, or one-off deals I do go through that. That is what the incubator is under for instance. It is just a general business LLC.

Then real operations for the actual companies go through their respective entities.
 

JWM

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
147%
Apr 14, 2018
81
119
Australia
Yes. I have a catch all LLC for smaller things that I do... Any kind of consulting, billing, or one-off deals I do go through that. That is what the incubator is under for instance. It is just a general business LLC.

Then real operations for the actual companies go through their respective entities.

Brilliant, such an obviously simple solution, I appreciate the advice
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

rblitz

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
131%
Jul 11, 2013
147
193
Germany
I don't think temp email addresses are what you're looking for a number of reasons.

If you don't want to register a new domain for each of your business endeavors, I would simply register a .com domain (if available) for your firstname+lastname and set up an email account for "hello@firstnamelastname.com".

And then just email them from that email address.

Or even set up multiple email accounts for the domain so you have businessname@firstnamelastname.com
businessname2@firstnamelastname.com

You get the idea.
 

peterb0yd

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
220%
Dec 30, 2019
174
382
Dude the email address should be the last thing on your mind. Look up techniques for "customer discovery". If you seem genuine and are calling out a problem that they have, they'll want to talk to you or at least hear more.

I use LinkedIn for all of my out reach. It's been working well so far. Booking 1 interview for every 6-7 messages sent out so far using LinkedIn only.
 

JWM

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
147%
Apr 14, 2018
81
119
Australia
I have no issue with customer discovery, phone calls fits a lot better with what I am doing. Having that catch all email address for further communication once that initial contact has been made is just last last detail to give confidence in legitimacy for the client. In my opinion anyway.

I'd be interested in hearing more about how you use linkedin if you have a thread somewhere? My linkedin inbox gets flooded with nothing but spammy messages from web devs and marketers. How are you able to cut through the noise? 1 in 6-7 seems impressive in my mind.

Cheers
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Post New Topic

Please SEARCH before posting.
Please select the BEST category.

Post new topic

Guest post submissions offered HERE.

Latest Posts

New Topics

Fastlane Insiders

View the forum AD FREE.
Private, unindexed content
Detailed process/execution threads
Ideas needing execution, more!

Join Fastlane Insiders.

Top