The Mobster-Style VC Intro

I’m a big mobster movie fan. Just love’em. There’s a lot we can learn from the ways and rules of the Mafia. One of their many lessons comes in making effective intros.

If you’re introducing someone new to “the family”, you need to do two things: i.) Vouch for that person; and ii.) Show that he (and yes, it’s almost always a ‘he’) can be a good earner.

Now in the mob World, vouching for someone is a life or death matter (if that person screws the family, you both die). It’s not such a big deal here in the Startup World, but I got a great intro to an entrepreneur recently that was definitely mobster-style and I immediately took the meeting.

Here it is with names and details changed to protect the innocent:

Mark,

Please meet John Doe (CEO of Newco and previously my co-founder at Acme co). I was hoping you could coordinate with him to meet and hear the very compelling Newco story.

Newco has achieved the following very impressive metrics:

– XX highly social and engaged monthly users

- Over XX minutes time spent last quarter

- XX minutes per visit

- XX total uploads, XX uploads monthly

- Top (category) app in all major app stores

- Usage doubling every X months

I will most likely be participating in the next round of financing and I wanted to make sure you had an opportunity to meet with John.

So, what makes this a mobster-style intro?

Familiarity: I know and trust the person who sent me this e-mail.

Vouching: There’s no people risk here. The CEO was this guy’s co-founder in a previous startup. Also, the referrer is putting his money where his mouth is (i.e. participating in the round).

Greed-inducing: The referrer gave me some key and compelling stats that tells me this CEO and company will be a good producer if they become part of the Real Ventures family.

It’s a short intro. No long rambling prose. Just immediate endorsement of the entrepreneur and compelling stats on users and usage.

This kind of intro will get you a meeting all day every day!