Alright, here’s the deal: we added a plain-text, no-frills email from the founder to one client’s abandoned checkout flow. It only goes to non-buyers—the folks who’ve gone through the whole flow and still haven’t pulled the trigger.

What happened? Two major wins:

1. It brought in extra revenue. ☝️ 

2. It gave us insights straight from the people who didn’t buy—something most brands completely miss. ✌️

This little email? It took five minutes to set up and started paying off immediately. Let me show you why it’s a no-brainer to try this today.

Win #1: Feedback From Non-Buyers

Here’s some hard truth: most people who visit your site won’t buy. If your conversion rate is 2%, that means 98% of your visitors are leaving without spending a single, solitary nickel.

But what if you could learn why they’re leaving? What’s confusing them? What’s stopping them? Might we entice a barrage of nickels from them and others?

That’s where The Founder Letter comes in.

This email asked one simple question:
“What stopped you from completing your order?”

No hard sell. No pressure. Just a friendly nudge. And guess what? People actually responded. 🤯 

Now imagine you get consistent feedback saying your shipping rates are too high, or your product descriptions don’t answer key questions. What if fixing those lead to a 20% conversion rate improvement—say going from 2% to 2.4%.

Let’s do the math:

• If you get 100,000 monthly visitors with a 2% conversion rate, you’re making $200,000 a month.

• Bumping that conversion rate to 2.4% (a 20% improvement) adds another $40,000 in revenue each month—or $480,000 annually.

Even if you don’t hit those numbers, addressing real issues can drive meaningful gains. And that’s just from asking a question.

Win #2: Instant Revenue Boost

But what if nobody replies to the email? Guess what—it’s still a win.

In the last 90 days, this email accounted for 4.12% of the total revenue in the abandoned checkout flow. 🫰 

Here’s the kicker: this email wasn’t flashy. It was short, text-based, and felt like a personal note from the founder. That simplicity made it work.

Why It Works

• This email nails three things:

  1. It’s Personal: People love hearing from a real human, not a faceless brand.

  2. It’s Engaging: Asking a question gets responses and builds a connection.

  3. It’s Targeted: Only non-buyers get it, making every send count.

How to Try This for Yourself

Want to give it a shot? Here’s the exact template we used. All you need to do is tweak it for your brand:

Subject Line: Quick question from [Your Name]
Body:
Hi [First Name],

[Your Name] here. Founder of [Your Brand]. (Those [Product] you were checking out the other day. 😁)

I just wanted to ask—what stopped you from completing your order? No worries either way, but I’d love to know so we can improve the experience for you and others.

If you have a second, let me know! It’s me personally responding to these, and I’d appreciate the feedback.

Cheers,
[Your Name]

Final Thought

Look, this is the easiest win you’ll ever set up. It takes 5 minutes, max. That’s less time than it took you to read this article.

Here’s the thing: most brands skip over this because it’s too simple. But simple works. If you can get even one actionable insight or a few extra sales from this, it’s worth every one of the 300 total seconds you’ll spend on this.

Action Plan:

1. Go to your Flows

2. Find your Cart or Checkout Flow (Or Both)

3. At the end of your emails, add a conditional split:

4. Add the plain text email above with edits to make it personal to your brand.

5. Send from your normal sending email. (info@ or hello@ etc.) not your personal founder’s email

6. Reply email should be your founder email though, or an alias that comes to you.

So, what’s stopping you from trying it out? If you need help or want to take it further, I’m just a message away. Let’s get your emails working harder.