A general purpose email address for idea testing/research

[JWM]

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?

 

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[Kak]

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]

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]

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?

 

[JWM]

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]

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.

 

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[JWM]

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

 

[rblitz]

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]

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]

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