sure - totally agree re: passwords/unsubscribe/etc. I'm not saying LinkedIn has the best product or user experience or retention/engagement - but they have done a great job growing the userbase.
as for flakey - maybe you're smarter than most of the Growth Hacker Conference attendees :) when Elliot surveyed the audience about which channel they'd focus their time/effort on, the vast majority chose the channel with the lowest conversion rate (i'm assuming they thought it had the most potential upside?) - which is exactly the opposite approach that Elliot took (focus on what's working, let engaged users do the work, reduce engaged user friction), and what actually allowed them to grow.
It's definitely not easy to do at scale, if possible at all. I'm still in the early stages with the product, so at this point (and with this particular type of product) the personal, un-scalable approach makes sense.
The style of email that I sent to Ryan, and the one that I describe in the post that he links to, is only for people that are arriving through 'warm' connections (e.g. a colleague told them about the site), versus arriving through twitter, search, etc. For completely cold connections, I use a slightly less personal approach. I shared a post about that here last week, and there were some great comments - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4527094. That method still requires some effort from a real person, but doesn't include any actual 'research'.
Yes, I understand your point. For some (maybe in your case, all?) products, it can be annoying. But with early-stage products, that first touch-point is critical, and I believe that you want to make your message as authentic as possible.
If you've got a working, post PM-fit product, I think you'd be using a whole different set of tactics.
One problem I've notice with Rapportive fyi - the info is a bit off/conflicting if the person has ever changed their twitter handle (rare, but it does happen).
Good point re: working email address. That situation has come up a few times - the person didn't reply to my initial welcome email, but remembered that they had received it, and replied to that email when they had a question later on.
It depends on the product. Coming directly from [email protected] makes sense for Quibb, but I could see [email protected] working in some other cases.
Yeah, you could - but I still don't think it's authentic :)
Actually sending the emails myself also allows me to add small things on the fly - for example, I'll sign my name '-Sandi (fellow Canadian!)' if I've noticed that the person is from Canada.
Thanks, forgot to say something about that. I meant to add that this is the best way to learn about your product at the beginning, and aren't yet focusing on scaling.
I edited the post to clarify. Thanks for reading!
yeah... that's a bit more difficult. i picked up the korean alphabet in an afternoon, and was able to read out loud almost any korean text put in front of me. after studying the language for a few more months, i was still only at a very low beginner level when it came to recognizing anything i read. i think it's one of the more difficult languages to learn.