let's grab coffee?

Hey folks, I’m Swati.

Welcome back to my weekly newsletter.

This newsletter is those conversations: what I’m seeing, thinking, and what I’d tell you if we were grabbing coffee.

This week’s edition is about coffee conversations.

Before we dive in, quick poll:

A visiting professor texted me on WhatsApp last week.

"Let's catch up over coffee."

That was their full message. 

I luckily had their number saved, else I would have had to truecaller it or ignore them.

I get some version of this almost every week. 

"Hey Swati, let's meet on campus."
"Hey, this is what I think. Can you tell me the next steps?" 

And the people who do get the meeting: half the time they sit down and I can tell within two minutes they haven't figured out what they want to ask. 

We have a pleasant chat and they leave. 

But rarely anything ever comes of it.

I want to help, but a vague message makes me do all the thinking for you. 

Who are you?
What do you want?
Am I even the right person?

That's a lot of work before I've even said yes.

And this is how we’re wired.

One line.

"Hey Swati, I'm a PGP '25 student" or "We met at the campus town hall last month" or even "I'm a visiting faculty who met you in Term 2."

Or 

“Hey, I have been teaching at Masters’ Union for quite some time now and I think, we would like to hire your students. It would really help if we can meet to understand the placement process.”

This sounds obvious but I get messages every week from people who assume I know who they are.

I interact with hundreds of students, so even a single line of context saves me from scrolling through my contacts trying to place you.

Be specific. "I'm trying to decide between two job offers and would love your perspective on evaluating early-career tradeoffs." 

Or "I'm building a start-up to help you enhance your students’ experience through better query management system and want to get your inputs on our product."

I can work with that because now I know if I'm the right person and what I need to prepare. 

"I’d love to pick your brain" tells me none of those things.

"I'm reaching out because you spoke about hiring at the last town hall" or "I saw your post on appraisals and it's exactly the situation I'm in."

Please don’t try to flatter anyone.

Instead tell them why their time won't be wasted because you've actually thought about why they can help.

LinkedIn's own data shows personalized messages get 15% more response rate than generic ones. 

People reply when they can see exactly why you're writing to them.

"Would you have 15 minutes this week?" is much better than "Let's catch up over coffee sometime."

Grabbing coffee could take anywhere between 20 minutes and two hours.

15 minutes is a commitment someone can actually say yes to.

And if the conversation is good, it'll naturally go longer.

Put it together and it looks like this:

"Hey Swati, I'm a PGP '25 student. I'm exploring product roles and saw you spoke about how MU evaluates non-tech candidates. Would love 15 minutes to ask about what you look for. Does Monday at 4 PM work? If not, happy to work around your schedule."

That took 30 seconds to write.

But it tells me who you are, what you need, why me, what time and how much of it.

Compare that to "let's catch up over coffee" and tell me which one you'd respond to faster.

I think a lot of us default to vague because we're taught that directness feels rude, especially in India.

We say "coffee" because it sounds low-stakes, like we're not asking for much.

But we are asking for something.
In this case, it is someone's time. 

And the less clear we are about why, the more of their time we're wasting before the conversation even starts.

I'm not saying don't reach out.

Just remember there are 100s of others doing it too and only a few will get replies.