Our best introductions are always going to be personal “warm” introductions from others.

Investors rely heavily on personal introductions as a screening tool to find quality Founders. If someone isn’t willing to risk their “social capital” to introduce someone to an investor, that’s usually a good sign that it’s a bad deal.

There 3 places to get personal introductions outside your existing contacts:

• Other Founders. This is a great hack! Ask Founders who have taken on investment to make intros to their investors. They will give you some “inside baseball” as to who the best investors are to talk to, and Founders are always willing to help our fellow Founders.
• Advisors. A nice way to expand your network is to add prominent Advisors to your startup and ask them to help you with your fundraise. It’s not difficult to recruit Advisors and helping you expand your network is specifically the kind of thing they like to do.
• Investors. The best question to ask any investor you speak to is “Do you know some other investors I should be talking to?” Of course they do! And they will often be willing to make those introductions even if they are not interested themselves.

Instead of just thinking about what investors are in your network, focus on who in your network would know investors and reach out!