tl;dr - the personalized cover letter, much maligned by job seekers nowadays (https://www.google.com/search?q=cover+letter+dead https://www.google.com/search?q=

tl;dr - the personalized cover letter, much maligned by job seekers nowadays (https://www.google.com/search?q=cover+letter+dead https://www.google.com/search?q=cover+letter+dead), is actually incredibly effective for applying to small companies (of the size where the inboxes of the CEOs and founders aren't heavily filtered and managed) if you keep it short and human and send it directly to those folks.