How do I start an email to someone I don't know?

With something specific and public about them, then the reason you are writing, in that order and inside two sentences. Greetings and self-introduction can wait; the reader is deciding whether to continue based on whether the email looks written for them or at them.

What is a good greeting for a professional email?

“Hi [First name],” covers almost everything in modern business email. Keep “Dear [Title] [Surname],” for formal letters, legal correspondence and job applications, and never use “To whom it may concern” when thirty seconds of searching would have found the person's actual name.

Should I start an email with small talk?

Only when the small talk is specific. “Hope the launch went well” proves you knew about the launch and buys real goodwill; “Hope you're having a great week” proves nothing and gets skipped. With colleagues you speak to daily, drop it and open with the ask.

Why is this free — what's the catch?

No catch and no signup. This tool is funded by EaseClaw, an AI agent that finds people publicly asking for what you sell and drafts your replies. If the free tool is useful, some people try the free trial. That's the whole business model.

Email Opener Generator

Ten first lines, written for who you're writing to and what you actually want.

How to start an email is a harder question than how to finish one, because the first line has to do three jobs before the reader decides whether to keep going: prove the message is for them, explain why it is arriving now, and make the next sentence worth reading. The right opener changes completely with the relationship — what lands with a colleague reads as presumptuous to a stranger, and what works cold sounds oddly formal to a client you speak to every week. Pick the relationship and the goal above and this generator writes ten openers built for that exact combination.

How to start an email, sorted by who is reading it

Cold: earn the second line with a fact. Something public and recent about them — a post, a hire, a launch — beats any greeting, because it answers “why is this in my inbox?”
Warm intro: name the connector in the first six words. The referral is the whole reason the email gets read, so burying it under pleasantries wastes the only advantage you have.
Existing client: skip the throat-clearing and open inside their world. “The September numbers are in and one thing stands out” outperforms any greeting, because it starts where they already care.
Internal: put the decision or the blocker in line one. Colleagues triage on a phone between meetings, and the courtesy sentence can live at the bottom without offending anybody.
Never open with your own name or company. The reader can already see who sent it, so “My name is X and I work at Y” trades your best sentence for information that is already on screen.

Example output

Relationship + goal: Stranger / cold · Goal: get a 15-minute call with a Shopify store owner about their returns process.

1. Your returns page promises 30 days, no questions asked — generous, and usually more expensive than the spreadsheet shows.
2. Quick question about how returns actually get processed at Kestrel, not what the policy page says.
3. I bought from Kestrel last month and returned it, mostly to see what the process felt like from this side.
4. Returns are the one part of a store that gets built once and then never looked at again. Yours included?
5. You're running a 30-day window with a two-person team, and that maths gets tight in January.
6. Saw your post about January volume — returns are the part nobody budgets for.
7. Not pitching yet: is returns handling on anyone's job description at Kestrel, or does it land on whoever's free?
8. Fifteen minutes on returns, and if there's nothing there you'll know by minute five.
9. Your product photography is unusually honest, which is the cheapest returns fix there is — so the ones you do get are the interesting ones.
10. One question about Kestrel's returns and then I'll leave you alone: who reads the reason codes?

(Example output — yours is generated from the relationship and goal you pick.)

Frequently asked questions

How do I start an email to someone I don't know?: With something specific and public about them, then the reason you are writing, in that order and inside two sentences. Greetings and self-introduction can wait; the reader is deciding whether to continue based on whether the email looks written for them or at them.
What is a good greeting for a professional email?: “Hi [First name],” covers almost everything in modern business email. Keep “Dear [Title] [Surname],” for formal letters, legal correspondence and job applications, and never use “To whom it may concern” when thirty seconds of searching would have found the person's actual name.
Should I start an email with small talk?: Only when the small talk is specific. “Hope the launch went well” proves you knew about the launch and buys real goodwill; “Hope you're having a great week” proves nothing and gets skipped. With colleagues you speak to daily, drop it and open with the ask.
Why is this free — what's the catch?: No catch and no signup. This tool is funded by EaseClaw, an AI agent that finds people publicly asking for what you sell and drafts your replies. If the free tool is useful, some people try the free trial. That's the whole business model.

More free tools

Email Opener AlternativesThe most-skipped sentence in business email, replaced with a line that earns the second.Email Ending GeneratorFive closings that fit the email you actually wrote — each with its matching sign-off.Outreach Email GeneratorUnder 120 words, one real reason you're writing, one clear ask.

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