Show you can do the work — but not for them yet. Nam cold-emailed Dr. Megan Ma at the Stanford lab, and by the time she responded he already had something to show. Don't ask for 15 minutes to "pick your brain"; give them 15 minutes of value to review.
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Nam says he didn't have much to his name, but the team indexed on building things directly related to the work — building guard rails and showing Megan the suite of what they were doing before even joining the lab. "We cold email Megan and by the time she responded we already had something to show for her." The principle: "you want to show that you can do the work but just not for them yet," then use that to show the value you can bring. People don't have 15 minutes for you to pick their brain — "they have 15 minutes to review whatever value that you did" and then decide whether to talk.