As a venture investor, warm intros are my lifeline, both as a receiver (new deals) and a giver (for portfolio founders & co-investors).
Given the sheer volume of the intro pipe I deal with, I also see the goods and the bads of it all. In particular, I see folks making 101 mistakes and breaking what have become fundamental rules of intros that the Valley plays by. Break them, and it screams, “I am not ready to play in the major leagues yet!” to the ecosystem.
For the benefit of everyone out there, sharing some of my ground rules for warm intros:
1/ Double opt-in
Internalize this deeply – double opt-in is the only right way to do intros. Violating this cardinal rule significantly reduces your credibility.
2/ Reputation
Implicitly underlying every warm intro is your personal reputation. In the venture ecosystem, judgment is everything, and who you are vouching for is a major signal for it. Think about that the next time you agree to introduce someone.
3/ Skin-in-the-game
I treat intros without skin in the game or demonstrated conviction as low-signal “favors”. Personally, I don’t do this type of intros at all. But definitely receive a ton of them.
As they say, talk is cheap. Or in the context of this post, “sending an email is cheap”. The signals underlying the email are what matter.
4/ Limited bullets
When I started my career in venture, one of the Partners taught me a valuable lesson that I follow to this day – “you only get 3 bullets with each relationship in a lifetime. So fire each bullet carefully”.
Being indiscriminate with warm intros is the worst thing you can do as a professional. It’s like spamming – your credibility goes down exponentially with each ask that hasn’t been thought through properly.
5/ Acceptance rate
Controlling the acceptance rate is as important as the send rate. As a constructive participant in the flow, you are individually responsible for ensuring no time gets wasted on either side.
So it’s important to control that carnal urge to “network” and vet each inbound request properly to ensure there is a high likelihood of mutual fit before the actual meeting.
It’s exactly like qualifying sales leads. Just because someone is doing a warm intro doesn’t mean it’s a good fit at this point in time.
Hope these rules are helpful. Wishing you a long track record of fostering interesting & useful connections.
