Need funds for your start-up? Here's how to get the perfect intro with a VC

Best intros come from people who have a personal relationship with the VC, reports Tech in Asia

You want to raise money for your start-up and are looking for investors, but like most people, you don’t know any. So how do you get introductions to venture capital investors to make your plans a reality? 

Who are the best people to get introductions from?

If you want to join a mob, would you want the recommendation to come from the pizza guy or the consiglieri?

The category of the person who makes the intro is not as important as the nature of the relationship of the person with the VC. It may turn out that the pizza boy isn’t tight with a mob but grew up near Sand Hill and his godfather is Ron Conway. He may not be an investor, but he has a close relationship with the targeted investor.

So the best intros should, in fact, come from people with a personal relationship with a prospective investor. 

Does it always matter how close the relationship is to get an introduction? Not for low-level intros

The quality of the relationship someone has with an investor matters exponentially the higher the social status of the investors. In the Valley in particular, many VCs are gods among men. 

Borrowed credibility is how introductions to investors work

In high school, you learn about status. In math class, if you didn’t have any, you learned about the transitive property.

The transitive quality works like this: If you want to get on the football team, the fact that your best friend is the hot cheerleader helps. Candy is your friend. Jim the captain and QB likes Candy (sometimes visually). Candy introduces you to Jim. Jim helps for purely altruistic reasons. Boom.

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The article was published on Tech In Asia. You can read the full article here