How To Ask For Introductions Like a Pro
Before I went back into investing full time, I thought I did a lot of email introductions. Now I really do a lot of email introductions.
I thought it would be helpful to share some of the best practices I’ve seen and try to follow.
First, figure out what type of introduction this is. Some common types:
- Investor
- Job opportunity
- Advice — but please don’t say this if it’s not really for advice and you want 1. investment or 2. a job!
- Business introduction, partnership, or new customer
There will be 3 people in this chain:
You > Introducer > Recipient
For the Introducer (the person you are asking), the rule of great introductions is to always do the double opt-in. Double opt-in means never introducing someone, even a good friend or relative who you are sure won’t mind, without asking permission first. Thus, all the “introductions” you’ll see below aren’t really introductions at all, they are requests for introductions.
The corollary here is that You, the person requesting the introduction, should assume that the Introducer is going to double opt-in, and thus you make it really easy for them by writing what Chris Fralic calls a Self Contained Forwardable Email, or SCFE for short.
The key here is to make it really easy for the Introducer to forward your email from a mobile phone. Please don’t require them to use their laptop (which might never happen). Top 5 mistakes made in a requested introduction:
- Hard to do on mobile, usually because…
- Copying and pasting or any editing required
- Subject line is not clear, needs changing (bad subject lines: “Re: nice to see you”, “Good to catch up”, “Follow up”… good subject line: “Potential Introduction: Mike Ghaffary (Canvas Ventures) / Tushar Garg (Flyhomes)”
- Extra context from previous email thread that’s confidential, personal, or needs to be cut out — start a new thread every time
- Listing out all the introductions you want in the forwardable email — now it’s not forwardable because for example if you want multiple job options or multiple investor intros, the Introducer isn’t authorized to share the full list with everyone! Thus you need 1 email per 1 requested introduction.
- The only exception to that rule is the Generic Intro Request — if whoever is helping you explicitly says that’s better. You can also throw in one Generic Intro Request after your specific email requests, for example 3 specific names you asked to be introduced to, then another generic one that the introducer can send to whoever they want in case they have other ideas.
Template introduction example:
- Investor: Specific Intro Request
Let’s say you are a founder named Jane Smith, running a company called Enaj, and you are asking me (Mike) for an introduction to Paul Hsiao at Canvas Ventures.
You = Jane
Introducer = Mike
Recipient = Paul
_________
From: Jane
To: Mike
Subject: Potential Introduction: Paul Hsiao (Canvas Ventures) / Jane Smith (Enaj)
Body:
Mike,
It was great catching up today. I really enjoyed chatting about the product and what you’ve been seeing in the market. You mentioned you could ask Paul Hsiao at Canvas Ventures if he was open to an introduction.
Enaj is software company that provides enaj on demand. The company currently has an annualized revenue run rate of $1M, and is growing 20% month-on-month. We are operating in the $20B US market for enaj. We are uniquely qualified to do this because my co-founder and I spent 10 years at the enaj lab, working on enaj. Here are our LinkedIn profiles.
We are raising a $1.5M seed round with a SAFE note at a $8M cap. We have raised $500k previously from friends and family.
Attached is our deck.
Please let me know if Paul wants to connect.
Jane
_________
Notice how easy it is for Mike to forward that email from his iPhone, without any editing needed. Also notice how Paul gets all the information he needs to decide whether a meeting is a good use of time, and he can reply back easily to double opt-in for this introduction (Jane has already opted in by requesting it), or to say it’s not a good use of time for some reason.
Also note the deck was sent without requiring an email login. Docsends are pretty standard now, but a trackable link still means you want a favor from someone, and yet you think your interest in tracking their behavior outweighs their convenience to easily view the content. That might be the wrong balance depending on the situation. Trackable links are especially cumbersome when they require an email address to access the document, so if you must, I would recommend using Dropbox or Docsend without requiring an email login.
_________
Sometimes it’s easier to just make a Generic Intro Request
Generic Intro Request:
From: Jane
To: Mike
Subject: Jane Smith (Enaj) — Company Intro
Body:
Mike,
It was great catching up today. I really enjoyed chatting about the product and what you’ve been seeing in the market. You mentioned you might know some investors or others who would be interested in connecting with us.
Enaj is software company that provides enaj on demand. The company currently has an annualized revenue run rate of $1M, and is growing 20% month-on-month. We are operating in the $20B US market for enaj. We are uniquely qualified to do this because my co-founder and I spent 10 years at the enaj lab, working on enaj. Here are our LinkedIn profiles.
We are raising a $1.5M seed round with a SAFE note at a $8M cap. We have raised $500k previously from friends and family.
Attached is our deck.
Please feel free to introduce anyone you think would be helpful to meet.
Jane
— — — — — —
More information and other great writing on this topic:
https://www.atrium.co/blog/how-to-find-meet-investors/
https://also.roybahat.com/introductions-and-the-forward-intro-email-14e2827716a1
