Getting a meeting with your dream VC
There are plenty of “how to” resources for getting your foot in the door with VCs, but they all boil down to one thing: get a warm intro from a “trusted advisor”.
Even though by now this is common knowledge, it’s still not common practice. Looking at the LionBird funnel so far this year, over 25% of incoming deal leads came from website submissions and cold-LinkedIn messages. Perhaps this is because, for people whose network has no overlap with that of VCs due to difference of geography or industry, “get a warm intro” seems like vague advice.
GETTING SPECIFIC
Bundling lawyers, accountants, service providers, portfolio entrepreneurs, and other startup industry players all into the “trusted advisor” bucket is not useful, as warm leads from them are not all equally likely to get you a meeting. Looking deeper at the LionBird funnel data, I’ll simplify this to one point:
We met with (almost) 100% of the startups recommended to us by Founders of companies we have invested in.
Why? This is likely because our portfolio Founders are intimately familiar with our investment interest areas and capabilities, leading to only relevant deals being sent. And as our partners who want us to succeed (just like we want them to), they intro us to only entrepreneurs they personally believe in.
Our deal funnel data supports this logic, as deal recommendations sent to us via portfolio Founders accounted for only 10% of total leads at the top of the funnel, but accounted for close to 50% of deals that warranted deeper research and multiple interactions with the founding team. More importantly, this deal source also results in a disproportionate number of closed deals vs. other deal sources.
THE NEXT STEP IS CLEAR
Armed with this information, it’s clear if you can get a warm intro to the VCs of your choice via their portfolio company Founders, it’s more likely you will secure a meeting vs. approaching them directly. However, keep in mind that while identifying a VC’s portfolio company Founders is simple (most VCs list their portfolio companies publicly), getting their endorsement requires that you have a startup actually worth intro’ing. So stop reading VC blogs and get back to working building your company!
