If you've ever guessed someone's work email, you've played this game.
jane@? jane.doe@? jdoe@?
I got curious about which one is actually most common, so I counted. Adamlead has 2,667 verified work emails for people at startups that raised a round. Here's what they look like.
The short answer
At startups, it's the first name.
| Format | Example | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| first@ | jane@acme.com | 1,739 | 65.2% |
| first.last@ | jane.doe@acme.com | 334 | 12.5% |
| flast@ | jdoe@acme.com | 225 | 8.4% |
| firstlast@ | janedoe@acme.com | 40 | 1.5% |
| firstl@ | janed@acme.com | 35 | 1.3% |
| last@ | doe@acme.com | 26 | 1.0% |
| f@ | j@acme.com | 14 | 0.5% |
| f.last@ | j.doe@acme.com | 10 | 0.4% |
| last.first@ | doe.jane@acme.com | 4 | 0.1% |
| first_last@ | jane_doe@acme.com | 2 | 0.1% |
| Something else | nicknames, initials, team names | 238 | 8.9% |
All counts from Adamlead's data as of October 26, 2026. "Verified" here means the address has our top status, verified. Guessed and unconfirmed addresses aren't counted.
If you only remember one thing: try firstname@ first, then first.last@, then flast@. Those three cover 86% of the addresses in the table.
Founders and everyone else
This was the interesting part. Splitting the same emails by who they belong to:
| Format | Founders and CEOs (2,104) | Everyone else (563) |
|---|---|---|
| first@ | 64.6% | 67.5% |
| first.last@ | 11.0% | 18.1% |
| flast@ | 9.4% | 5.0% |
| Something else | 15.0% | 9.4% |
Two things I didn't expect:
- Employees use first.last@ more often than founders do. 18% against 11%. My guess: a company that starts with jane@ for the founder sometimes switches to first.last@ once it hires its second Jane.
- Founders have more "something else". Nicknames, initials, a single letter, the company name. Founders pick their own address; employees get the default.
So when the founder is jane@acme.com, don't assume the head of sales is mark@acme.com. Check one employee's address before you guess everyone's.
Which mail servers startups use
While checking these addresses, we also record which mail server each domain uses. Of 2,823 startup domains:
- Google Workspace: 2,024 (71.7%)
- Microsoft 365: 459 (16.3%)
- Zoho: 39 (1.4%)
- Proton, Mimecast, Proofpoint and others: about 263 (9.3%)
- No mail server at all: 38 (1.3%)
Why care? Two reasons.
First, that last line. 38 domains have no MX record, so any email to them bounces, no matter how right the format is. It's usually a company that rebranded, moved to a new domain, or uses the old one for the website only. Check the domain before you check the address.
Second, Google and Microsoft both watch bulk senders closely. If most of your list is on Google Workspace (and at startups it will be), Google's sender rules are the ones you live by: authenticate your domain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC, and keep complaints low.
How to find any company's format in five minutes
You don't need anyone's database to work out a format. You need one real address from the same company.
- Look on the website. Contact page, press page, careers page, blog author bios, the privacy policy. Anywhere a person signs off.
- Look at the funding announcement. Press releases list a media contact, often a real person at the company.
- Search the domain in quotes.
"@acme.com"in a search engine shows addresses that have been published anywhere: podcast notes, event pages, GitHub, old job ads. - Apply the pattern. If you found mark.lee@acme.com, then the CEO Jane Doe is very likely jane.doe@acme.com. Unless she's the founder and the table above is right about founders, in which case try jane@ too.
- Verify before you send. Our free email verifier checks the format, the domain and its mail server. A paid verifier can also ask the server whether the mailbox exists.
If you're looking up lots of people at funded startups, that's the job Adamlead does: every company comes with its decision-makers and their emails, each with a status and a 0 to 100 confidence score, so you can see how sure we are. This week's funded startups are here.
A few edge cases
- Hyphenated and double last names. "Anna-Lena Schmidt-Weber" could be anna-lena@, annalena@, anna@ or a.schmidt-weber@. Try the simplest form first.
- Accents. José is usually jose@. Work addresses rarely keep the accent.
- Two people with the same first name. Usually the second one gets first.last@ or firstl@, while the first keeps first@.
- Very small teams. At 2 to 10 people, it's often first@ for everyone, plus hello@ or team@ for the general inbox. The general inbox is fine for a first touch, but it's rarely the person who decides.
The takeaway
Guessing isn't a bad strategy at startups. It's a good one, as long as you guess in the right order and check before you send.
firstname@. Then first.last@. Then flast@. Then verify.
Did your company's format surprise you, or is everyone just jane@ where you work too?