Whether you’re a founder or investor or just friends of the afore-mentioned job titles, you’ve most likely been asked for warm intros. The sage advice in the world has always been, that it is better to ask for warm introductions than send cold outreach, leaving the latter to be severely underestimated. Anecdotally, some of my best friends and mentors today came and continue to come from cold outreach.
Most people in this world love to help others. They derive joy and fulfillment in doing so. It enriches their life just as much, if not more so than, it does yours. There are a number of academic studies, like this 2020 one, that show positive correlation between giving kindness and your own happiness. The Ben Franklin effect extrapolates that you are more likely to like someone by doing them a favor. In sum, people want to help others. Investors (and friends of investors) are no exception.
But… the world does not make it easy to do so.
I’m not here to preach kindness. Nor do I think I need to. There are plenty of more incredible individuals in the world who are more capable of relaying that message than I am. But as the title of this blogpost alludes to, what tactical advice is there to:
- Help friends of investors/investors help you
- Get investors excited to meet you
Why even bother with a forwardable
Founders often ask me: Do you know any investors you can introduce me to? Which, in fairness, is an understandable question when you don’t know who you don’t know. In a world where I’m only helping 10 or less founders total, it’s a great question.
The problem is I, like many other people in the venture ecosystem, am often trying to help more than 10 founders. For me, I’m helping founders I’m actively advising, On Deck founders, Techstars founders, Alchemist founders, founders who are intro-ed to me, founders who cold email me, and founders who come to my weekly office hours. The number varies, but in any given week, I’m sending between 20-40 founder intros. And given that, I face a few obstacles:
- The colder the connection and the longer the time since we last spoke, the more likely I am to forget what you’re building. I’m sorry; I wish I had photographic memory.
- As much as I would like, I physically don’t have time to write a curated intro to every person who asks me.
- I don’t want to ping the same investor/advisor multiple times in a week without clear reasons why. The investors who have more social clout get more intros than others. And they only have so much time and attention they can give in their inbox/socials to new people.
Rather, I flip the question on founders. Build a preliminary list of people you would like to chat with. See who you know that’s connected with these individuals. Do note I did not say firms. Long term marriages begin with each human not their last name. If I’m a 1st degree connection to them, then reach out to me and ask:
“I’m currently raising for [startup], [context]. I saw you’re connected to [name], [name] and [name]. Would you be comfortable reaching out to them for a double opt-in intro? And if so, happy to send you forwardable to make your life easier.”
To which I respond…
What goes into a forwardable
While everyone has their own preference, I prefer all the forwardables I send to have three things – nothing more, nothing less. Nothing more, since busy individuals don’t have time to read essays. Nothing less, well, it is what I call the minimum viable forwardable. And yes, I just made that term up.
- The one metric you think you’re doing better than 95% (99th percentile is ideal) of the industry. On the off chance that the afore-mentioned metric isn’t obvious as to why it’s crucial to the business, spend another sentence explaining why. For example, if you’re a marketplace, the metric you’re slaying at might be the percent of your demand who organically converts to supply. While it may not be obvious to most, it is one of the earliest signs of network effects. Your customers love your product so much they want to pay it forward.
- 1-2 sentences as to what your startup does
- Why this recipient would be the best dollar on your cap table
The first two are things you, as a founder, should have readily on hand. The third is often the one I get the most questions on. What does “the best dollar on my cap table” mean? And how would I find that?
Why the best dollar is important
Fundraising is often seen as a numbers game. Analogously, so is networking. Both of which I agree and disagree with. I agree with the fact that you have to engineer serendipity. You have to increase the surface area for luck to stick. And to do that, you need to talk to a s**t ton of people. I get it. The part I disagree with is that a game optimized for quantity is often conflated with templated conversations. Or worse, purely transactional ones. Relationships don’t scale if you approach it from scale.
… which is why I need the third point in every forwardable. If you are unable to provide why an investor would be the best dollar on your cap table, then:
- You don’t need a warm intro. And that’s fine. Some investors’ inboxes are less saturated than others. If it might help, here is also my cold email “template.”
- I’m not your person. I, like any other person facilitating an intro, am putting my social capital on the line to get you in front of the person you want. And if you don’t think it’s worth the time to tailor your email to one that I would be comfortable sending, then I just can’t be your champion.
Examples of the best dollar
Predictably and unpredictably so, there are many ways to make someone feel special. While I will list some of my favorite that I’ve seen over the years, the list is, by no means, all-inclusive. In fact, I’m sure some of the best and most timeless ways to showcase an investor’s value add is still out there waiting to be discovered. And for that, I leave it to you, my reader, to surprise me and the world. The below, hopefully, serves as inspiration for you to be tenaciously and idiosyncratically creative.
I’ll break it down into two parts: (1) what do you need help on, and (2) what help can they provide.
- What is the 3 biggest risks of your business? The biggest one should be solved by you or someone on the team slide. The biggest risk should be the minimum viable assumption you need to prove that people want your product. At the early stages, sometimes that’s showing you have a waitlist of folks begging for your product. Sometimes, it’s just proving you can build the product (i.e. a deep tech product or AI startup). The next two risks, which aren’t as great in magnitude, but still prescient, requires you to be scrappy and at times, bring in external help.
- What are your potential investors’ value adds? Where does their tactical expertise lie in? There’s no one-stop shop for every investor for this… yet (hit me up if you’re building something here). But nevertheless, I find it useful to search “databases” of value adds on:
- Polywork
- Lunchclub profiles under “Ask [name] about…”
Note: I forget if Polywork and Lunchclub are still invite-only, but if they are, feel free to use my invite codes here for Polywork and Lunchclub. For those curious, this is not a sponsored post. - Doom-scrolling to the bottom of their LinkedIn profile and reading their references
- Looking through their portfolio and “ex”-portfolio and reaching out to said founders and asking:
- Who, of their existing investors, if they were to build a new business tomorrow in a similar sector, is the one person who would be a “no brainer” to bring back on their cap table? And why?
- Who did they pitch to that turned them down for investment, but still was very helpful?
- Subsequently, referencing (with the founders’ permission) those founders when reaching out/getting introed to those VCs.
Note: Generally, Crunchbase and Pitchbook has more exhaustive lists of portfolio companies oftentimes than their website of “selected investments.”
- Any publication/press release (i.e. Techcrunch, Forbes, etc.) where founders share how helpful their investors were. This may require a bit of digging.
As a general rule of thumb, the more specific you are, the better.
On the flip side, some examples of lackluster “best dollars” include:
- Just stating which industry they invest in
- Stating that they’re ideal because they work at X firm. You’re drafting individual team members for your all-star team, not brands.
- Stating that they’re ideal because they USED to work at X firm
- Using the recipient as a means to an ends. In other words, you want to get in touch with someone they know rather than they themselves. No one feels special when you like them only because they know someone else you like more. Either find a warmer connection to the “end” person or cold email.
- Being generic
In closing
As my friend “James” says, “Do all of the leg work. Help them help you as much as possible. Everyone wants to be the hero that helps someone else, but people have lives – and if you’re the one that is getting the value, bring the value as much as possible.”
If you were the recipient of said email, what would make you say: “Absolutely?”
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
May 9th, 2022 Update: Added the “Why even both with a forwardable” section
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Any views expressed on this blog are mine and mine alone. They are not a representation of values held by On Deck, DECODE, or any other entity I am or have been associated with. They are for informational and entertainment purposes only. None of this is legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Please do your own diligence before investing in startups and consult your own adviser before making any investments.