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At just 19, a Bengaluru-based tech enthusiast took a bold step that would unexpectedly change the course of his career. Frustrated that his Alexa skill didn’t win an Echo device despite gaining several users, he decided to send a cold email directly to none other than Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and that single act ended up shaping his professional journey. The email he sent in 2017 not only reached Amazon’s top management but also prompted a response that opened doors for him within the company. A Bold Email That Changed Everything In a now-viral post on X (formerly Twitter), Ashish Jha revisited that turning point from his teenage years. “Lore time, When I was 19, I cold emailed @JeffBezos, after I was upset that my Alexa skill didn’t win an Echo device despite getting many users,” he wrote. He added, “Childish, I know, and the language—ughhh. But this email led the Head Dev Marketing Manager for Alexa to contact me personally, appreciate my work, give me contacts within Amazon, and within a month, they started offering perks in the Indian market to developers. The next five years, with me, @alexadevs, and the rest, is history you can Google.” Here’s The Email: Subject: Issue Regarding Alexa Promotion in India Firstly I would like to thank you and Amazon a lot for the multitude of services it provides, out of which the most recent one that wooed me is Amazon Alexa. But my issue is related to that too only. Actually, I loved the Alexa Dev Day so much, learned a lot from it, that without any previous knowledge, I went on to make my first Alexa skill on the dev day learning from the Amazon experts. A couple of days later my skill got published, and I have got around 220 unique customers in just 5 days of publishing the skill. Here’s the link in case you wanna try it out – Quiz of Thrones And when I learned that developers get an echo dot in US, UK, and Germany if they cross 100 and 75 customers respectively in 30 days on their new skill, I kinda felt upset for not having that promotion in India. It would have been a quite motivating for me to get a dot to continue my learning of Alexa. Anyways I will keep on building more skills. Hopefully, this funny sort of ‘discrimination’ will be taken care of Jeff, so that we Indian Developers are not left behind the world. Thanks, and have a great day. When I was 19, I cold emailed @JeffBezos, after I was pissed that my Alexa skill didn't win an echo device for getting a lot of users. Internet Hails Techie’s Bold Step Jha’s post resonated widely online, with people applauding his courage and the power of simply reaching out. One user commented, “Getting rightfully pissed at things is such an under-taught skill in the university of ‘be nice be kind’.” Another added, “A lot of people underestimate the power of cold emails. As long as you are genuine and not trying to be too salesy, usually the person gets back.” “This is amazing! That cold email hustle paid off big time. Shows the power of just asking and showing your work,” someone else praised. “Cold email works. Guys, take your shot. Remember, if you don’t ask, the answer is always NO,” a person shared. According to the Alexa Developers’ official website, Ashish Jha’s journey as a voice technologist began in November 2017 when Alexa was first launched in India. Since then, he has been involved in the voice-first ecosystem by creating over 500 Alexa skills across different domains for businesses. He now works as a Solutions Engineer at DevRev.
