Commanding Connections & Building Your Professional Circle

Venture capital is first and foremost a people business, which means relationships are the essential currency on which interactions operate. Relationships are critical for identifying investment opportunities, conducting due diligence, creating value for portfolio companies, fundraising from Limited Partners (LPs), and finding co-investors or sourcing customer relationships for investments. We often see fund managers mishandle relationship-building through transactional exchanges, overkill networking, or the “it’s not what you know, it's who you know” mentality. Fund managers are much better off seeking meaningful exchanges and bringing value into interactions to create strong connections.

Here are a few best practices to establish your own guidelines for interpersonal communications:

1. Give Before You Take

Approach prospective relationships with something of value that you have created rather than asking for a role to be invented for you. Set up a positive dynamic that can result in your favor. For example, a potential candidate wanted to work with a bleeding edge startup in frontier technology. While the company did not have an open position that fit their background, the candidate did not wait. The candidate spent a few months researching and wrote a 100-page white paper on frontier tech topics of relevance to the space. With this research, white paper, and industry contacts in hand, the candidate approached the company with a proposition stating “Here is what I have done, and here is how I can add value to your work.” The company offered the candidate a job, and they have gone on to build a great career in the frontier space. 

2. Double Opt-in Effectiveness

Double opt-in introductions, where both parties are separately asked to accept the connection before an introduction is made, are preferable to respect privacy, improve relevance, facilitate communication, and demonstrate professionalism. This method also identifies whether timing is optimal for an individual to receive an introduction. For example, a prospective connection may be on parental leave, at capacity, or managing deadlines. An accountant may prefer new customer introductions after April 15th, a placement agent may prefer to connect in 3-weeks after completing a pending search, and so forth. Double opt-in intros positively predispose the parties to one another, increasing the likelihood of a meaningful interaction because both sides have already “bought-in.” By following this best practice, you can increase the likelihood of building productive and meaningful professional connections for yourself and others.

3. Do the Work

Make it easy for others to help you by handling as much of the up-front work as possible yourself. When you ask someone to act as "connector" for an introduction, send them a forwardable email introduction template, regardless of how well they know you. In the email, include your name and background, with whom you are asking to be introduced, the reason why for the introduction, and any relevant highlights in your background to increase the response rate. Your connector is already doing you the favor of using their time and social capital to make the introduction; it should be your pleasure to make it easy by teeing up the necessary information and links, thereby allowing the connector to simply click forward. 

4. Pay It Forward

In addition to asking for meaningful introductions from those you know and trust, it is equally important to pay it forward and provide that value to others. For example, it can be as simple as responding to that undergraduate college student who asked for help with their research project on a deal you were involved in, making an introduction for a startup founder raising capital, or highlighting an LP contact to a fellow emerging fund manager. Make it a practice to help someone every time you ask someone else for help. Finding opportunities to advance others can be equally rewarding.

5. Templatize

To make interpersonal communication a super power of yours, it needs to be done well and often. To facilitate that process, have an arsenal of outreach templates to pull from to avoid unnecessary time spent crafting custom messages with each outreach. Better to focus your time on researching the contact, company, and highlights of why this connection is meaningful to both parties. Below, we have included a few samples to get you started.

6. Variety Helps

Diversity of intellect is not only good for neighborhoods and teams, but also important for your network. If diverse teams are 87% better at decision-making, think how much more robust and compelling your network will be with variation. For example, it is good to know major biotech companies from your alma mater; yet better to know those working on key biotech initiatives across all top universities. The more robust the diversity approach, the better. This can extend to backgrounds, industries, socio-economics, geographies, seniority, educational institutions, functional roles, and beyond. By incorporating variety into your network, your knowledge base will expand exponentially, and this will be considered time well spent in short order.

7. Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop

Make a conscious effort to expand your network frequently, not just when you need something. For example, an angel investor was looking for new deal flow and organized an impressive outreach campaign including a monthly recurring newsletter and in-person social events that generated hundreds of conversations with new and existing connections. Not only did the angel investor improve their deal flow, they were also asked to advise several new startups, serve on a board, join a fund as a venture partner, and speak at an industry conference. The efforts were so beneficial that the angel continued  weekly engagements after the initial objective was met. By establishing a practice of talking with your new and existing contacts on a continual basis, you can create a steady stream of engagements that lead to deal flow, talent for recruiting, fresh investors, and more.

Expanding your interpersonal connections and facilitating frequent introductions can allow you to access new opportunities, learn from others, and drive personal and professional growth. These gains are a necessity for growing a robust deal flow pipeline, diligence opportunities, LP network, talent channels, and customer prospects. Carefully and consistently cultivating these connections can be both rewarding and fulfilling.

If there are other network introduction tips and tricks that you would like to share, please connect with us! We are always interested in distributing more useful information with the ecosystem.

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Intro Template Sample A

Connection: Company to Investor

Subject: Intro <Investor Name> & <Your Name @ Your Company>

Body:

Hi <Connector>,

Great catching up with you. Hard to believe it's been 10-years since we first met through <how you know each other to show relationship relevance>! 

Could you please connect me with <Investor> at <Investor Firm Name>. I would love to chat.

<Company with URL link> is <unique value proposition>. <Tagline or comparative text descriptor>.

* <Market stat>

* <Product traction metric>

* <Key people backgrounds & standout mentions>

We are now preparing to launch and will kick off our first round of fundraising shortly.

Best regards,

<Your Name>

<Title>, <Company> | <Cell #>

<URL>

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Intro Template Sample B

Connection: Outreach to Start Conversation

Subject: <Name> & <Your Name> Catch-up

Body:

Hi <Name>, 

Hope all is well with you. You were on my mind recently. It's been a long time since <reference to shared project or how you know the recipient>.

I am working on <current project of interest to recipient> and would love your insights.

Would you have time to chat in the coming weeks, perhaps <minimum two options for date & time>? Feel free to suggest an alternative that works well for you.

Best regards, 

<Your Name>

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Intro Template Sample C

Connection: Introduction to Investor

Note: We are including a special template for LP introductions. While it is against SEC regulations for most funds to solicit when fundraising, it is always a good idea to connect with like-minded contacts around shared areas of interest, such as climate tech, synthetic biology, etc. Keeping your introductions focused on areas of mutual interest on a continual timeline, rather than during isolated periods of fundraising, ensures your network’s constant expansion.

Subject: Connecting <Investor Name> & <Name>

Body:

Hi <Investor Name>,

Please meet <Name> at <Company>.

<Name>, please meet <Investor Name> at <Investors Firm Name>. 

As mentioned, <Investor Name> is open to learning more about <Company>.

Hope you are able to connect!

Best regards,

<Connector>

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By Shea Tate-Di Donna and Kaego Ogbechie Rust, authors of The Venture Fund Blueprint.

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Disclaimer: The providers, companies, examples, products, and services shared represent only a subset of available options and are based solely on internal fund manager conversations. These options are intended to be a general framework, not an exhaustive catalog, and should not be viewed as legal or tax advice, endorsements, recommendations, approvals, or rankings. We encourage you to do additional research into each category to find the resources that best fit your specific needs.