The fan-mail move solves a problem most people think is hard: how do you reach someone with no shared contact and no email. Larry’s answer is to use an address that already exists and already routes mail correctly, the company’s own office. Every public company or well-known office already has a mailroom system built to get a letter to the right desk.
That system is an External API you did not have to build, you are simply putting a letter into a machine someone else already runs. Larry credits a thank-you note, not a cold pitch, with helping land Nike as a sponsor, which is the karma side of this move. A short, specific, handwritten note stands out inside a stack of digital pitches that all look the same.
The letter should be brief and should ask for one thing clearly, the same discipline PQRST demands before you walk into any room. Larry’s version of this skips the growth-hacking version of outreach entirely, no funnel, no automated sequence, just a real letter to a real desk.
Karma, in Larry’s language, can be tracked, measured, and channeled, and a fan-mail note is one of the simplest ways to channel it. This works because most people never try it, so a single sincere letter competes against almost no one.
Larry’s rule to attack the money applies here too, the letter should ask for the meeting or the deal, not just for attention. It costs a stamp, which is about as close to free distribution as External API thinking gets.
Details: Watch Larry tell the story
#Karma #FanMail #Web12