✨ Hey there this is a free edition of next play’s newsletter, where we share under-the-radar opportunities to help you figure out what’s next in your journey. Join our private Slack community here and access $1000s of dollars of product discounts here. One of the most common questions we receive looks something like this:
The short answer is that you are probably not doing anything “wrong.” The market is just competitive. Lots of people are applying for the same roles. And AI tools are spamming recruiter inboxes with resumes and cover letters. That means that when a hot startup posts a new role, they often receive hundreds of applicants (sometimes even thousands!). So yes, it’s hard to stand out. But that does not mean it’s impossible. Below I wrote a few strategies you can use (and I’ve personally seen used successfully many times) to get more responses. Hope it helps!
The best way to set yourself up for success is to take a few minutes practicing empathy: think about the person receiving your application. For the sake of this example, let’s imagine the person on the other end is a hiring manager at a Series B startup. Let’s call them Alex. What is Alex doing? Alex is sifting through a load of applicants trying to figure out who could be a great fit for the company. Because their roles were recently featured on Next Play (yes email us hi@nextplay.so if you’re hiring), there are 100s of applications to sift through. Most applicants look the same. There’s the occasional 3000 word cover letter, but Alex does not really have time to read that. And he also doesn’t have time to respond to the few dozen cold emails that all sound generic and look like AI-slop. He clicks on LinkedIn profiles. Reads quickly. And so on. Alex sifts through the applications 1x1 trying to pull out people with relevant experiences to see if they…potentially…could bring value to the company. Now that you’ve thought about Alex a bit, hopefully you’re starting to get the picture. Alex wants to see who in his pile of candidates will add value to the company…but it’s hard! It’s hard to decipher a LinkedIn profile to see if this person will actually be useful. It’s hard to know if a resume will translate into results. At the same time, it’s not hard to know if the candidate is just generically applying and does not really care about this specific position. It’s not hard to know if someone is just copying and pasting the same outreach over and over. From the above quick analysis, I think two useful lessons emerge:
Make it a lot easier for hiring managers to understand that you can add value to a companyI have mentioned it before but if you want to help hiring managers understand that you can add value, simply SHOW not tell. Start adding value. You don’t need to be hired to add value. This will make it a lot easier for them to say yes: Here are some quick practical examples (all of which can likely be executed in 15-30 minutes):
Hopefully you are starting to get the idea. There’s a lot more you can do:
The general message is this: instead of saying you could add value…just go add value! You’ll of course want to limit how much time you spend on each application (because you’ll probably need to do 10+ of these) but, especially in the beginning, don’t feel bad if it takes you a bit of time. Learning to add value quickly, with limited context, is a skill you can develop (and it can also be fun!). Show that you care about this specific company and why, instead of just sharing a generic templateAnother counter-intuitive thing you can do to stand out is to send a very human email. Words are easier than ever to mass produce. What’s hard is being concise and clear in your communication, and that can come through in a cold e-mail. Here’s some more thoughts we wrote on cold emails. A key ingredient we’d add is making the email personal. Show you’ve done your work. Look up the hiring manager. Do they have a personal blog? Do they post on LinkedIn? Find something interesting and real and include it in the email. That’s “proof” that you’re not a bot or some AI—you’re actually taking the time to write and send your email. If you follow the above ideas, I can all-but-guarantee you’ll get more responses from startups. Here are some startups I recommend you try it with: Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions (hi@nextplay.so). You're currently a free subscriber to next play. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
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A better way to apply to startups
Sunday, 29 March 2026
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