From the VC’s corner (26): Intro, meeting and seed requests from people I don’t know
It happens I get lots of messages from people I don’t know, asking for intros, meetings or seed capital. Usually, I don’t answer them (or most of them); better than saying “I’m busy right now but shall get back to you …” or else, and never coming back.
When about intros, Fred Wilson’s angle works best: “When introducing two people who don’t know each other, ask each of them to opt-in to the introduction before making it.” Rarely have seen this approach among the local entrepreneurs. In addition, intros from other unknown VCs, out there in the market, are, from my angle, not very constructive (some say they may be even a bad thing.) However, the warm intros from the individuals I know (or are closely and professionally connected to some of the investors/people I’ve met) are worth a lot. I tend to use trusted connections that I know for years.
“I would say most of the times that I’ve gotten an introduction to someone, it came right after the person making the intro read something that I put out there,” writes Charlie O’Donnell in a blog post. Charlie did a lot of inbox mining and, in his case and on average, something he did almost two and a half years in advance let him get those deals, and from the first time he encountered them, it took about five months for the deals to close. “It’s the network of people who respect what you can do for a founder enough to make an intro,” Charlie clarifies.
When about meetings, following a cold call, email or a few words exchanged at a roadshow, it’s because I want to take them, and the caller/sender has done some diligence, knows what I’m up and how to put a spark to a smart approach (has some soft pitching skills.) Taking meetings just for the sake of “knowing each other” and hearing their ideas or my latest on a subject, when I don’t know the founders and their solution is far from my areas of interest, or offering some general level advice with no further action, is a waste of my time. Besides, meeting some founders I don’t know at a coffee or so, even if they do not bring to the table the need of raising capital, might be considered pitching (most VCs would probably say it’s pitching, so use this time wisely.)
When about investing, I need to know the founder(s), understand their strategy, uniqueness, problem solving passion and to build the relationships for the later stages/rounds; this takes time. Staying in touch is equally important. Therefore, asking for seed capital, when we don’t know each other, and pushing a deck in your first intro message are dead ends. I don’t do impulse investing in random entities/individuals.
The interesting thing about receiving cold intro, meeting or investment requests is that there’s ”occasionally magic in them,” as Brad Feld puts it; and if you send any, do it right. So as people who are only getting smarter (and more handsome, say their moms), I think the smartest thing you can do today is get an exec coach.
My today’s preferred: WaitWho.is/ — a growing directory of people and all of their best content in one place.
