I ask people to donate $20 to cold-email me. And I think everyone should.

Allow me to start by making this personal: this is what I do for a living. I spend my time thinking about how to help people make better decisions about money, time and happiness. It’s not uncommon to have people contact me about research, career guidance or even personal investing advice. While this is definitely a good problem to have, the volume can be high and repetitive, sapping my enthusiasm for responding.

A couple of years ago I learned that Marc Andreessen (a successful venture capitalist) would respond to any email for $100. In the world of venture capital, where connections can make a huge difference, $100 is an incredibly cheap entry ticket. Intrigued, I dug into the idea and was convinced that it’s something we should all do.

So on my personal website you’ll find a link to a page hosted by Earn, a service which lets people earn Bitcoin by completing tasks. If someone wants to get in touch with me, I ask them to do it through Earn. I request a $20 donation which goes to a charity. They commit to it and the donation only completes if I respond.

At my end, I receive the message and decide if it’s interesting or not. If not, I can reject it (cryptocurrency messages usually get this response). Either way, the person has a clear response in a fairly quick turn-around time.