Never hurts to try. And there are answers to those questions -- I'll try below, but I'm sure other places can answer it better.

If you don't know anyone, the best way to get intros is to do an incubator program. Regardless, people there are generally very nice and most will make intros pretty easily. But to do a 3-5 day blitz is extremely difficult even for people with huge rolodexes; especially if you're raising from VCs as the followup cycle can include up to a half-dozen meetings. And not meeting in person on those can hurt you because VCs care most about team. I would say AngelList is probably your best bet for that quick of a blitz, but it's probably best to budget a week and a half or more.