Hacker News Reader

Comment by joelandren | Hacker News Reader

This is spot on, but this is still a PITA for everyone involved. There should still be a better way.

I don't have a ton of love for LinkedIn, but this is a problem they've taken on and solved to some degree. If I have a second-degree LinkedIn connection, I can request an intro through an intermediary, who has the chance to reject it, pass it along, and so on.

I'm not sure how much the investment community uses LinkedIn, but it seems like the closest thing to a solution right now.

I'm reluctant to use LinkedIn for two reasons.

1) Comes across as impersonal to the person I'm contacting. 2) LinkedIn is often checked infrequently at best.

I'm sure any solution would have same obstacles to overcome, but this is why I don't use it.

Yes, I fully expected this to be an article about how to "fix" this problem situation. I have to say that I have been in a few of the positions in this sort of chain, and now if I'm the inviter, I always just CC both. Not forwarding on the entire chain feels dishonest. (Obviously the invitee doesn't need to read the whole thread, but it's there for posterity, and to give context.) If the "busy person" is so rude that they wouldn't want the introduction in the first place, then they can be that rude themselves, and not leave it to the middle person, IMO. If they're not rude but not interested, then they can take the 2 minutes it takes to compose a "bowing out" email. Sheesh.

> If the "busy person" is so rude that they wouldn't want the introduction in the first place, then they can be that rude themselves

I disagree. The "busy person" didn't ask to be put on the spot to decide whether the inviter's social capital is insufficient to overcome their busy-ness or lack of interest in the intro or whatever reason they have for declining, so you shouldn't put them in that spot.

Assuming it's laziness totally misses the social dynamics.

As a frequent introducer, I would never forward the whole chain.

Consider the case of a friend looking for a job. If they come to me asking for an introduction, they may be open with me about things they wouldn't tell a stranger in the first minute of contact. E.g., concerns about the target company, fears they might not measure up, things going on in their life. It's hard for me to know what they don't want shared, I want to minimize the risk a violation of trust, and I don't want to guess at what the recipient might have an issue with. So I'll always write my own intro or ask for something I can forward.

Also, if someone dumps some unwelcome request from a pal in my lap, I'd be irritated that I had to do the work of bowing out. It's their friend, not mine, so it shouldn't be my problem. For that reason, I always ask permission to do an intro unless I have strong reason to believe the intro would be welcome. (E.g., if somebody told me they're looking for developers, I'll do intros without confirming an interest in each specific person.)

I once worked at a place where the board members were having a discussion about the CEO, and then of the board members decided to just cc: said CEO into the conversation at random, because "well we are talking about him and he deserves to know."

That board was not well-functioning.

Not forwarding on the entire chain feels dishonest.

Knowing what information (is appropriate) to share with whom is not only not dishonest, it respects other people's privacy, and is a key life skill for effectiveness.

I tend to agree with you here. In the scenario proposed by the article, the busy person is still essentially doing the same amount of work. Having to consider the intro, reading up on the subject and the requester, etc, etc. If the answer is a flat no, then so be it, but let them hear it directly from the person. I find it hard to believe that somebody could be so busy that taking a few minutes to respond to such a request would actually be a problem. If it is so onerous, perhaps setting aside a few hours out of one day per week to handle these requests would be prudent? That way, you can minimize the impact it would have on your day-to-day life.

The problem isn't that the "busy person" is too busy to respond, it's that the "busy person" did not request to be involved and should be forced to be the bearer of the bad news.

Hearing bad news is a part of being an entrepreneur. Speaking only for myself, I would prefer to hear no directly from the horse's mouth.

That, again, is not the point. It's not what you want, it's what the "busy person" wants, the one who's being asked to do a favor (or more).

oops...should not be forced.

I am the recipient of a lot of these, as an angel investor. I insist on the double-opt-in. It saves me time, and it saves the introducee time.

Here's a simplified view of my email life: I have a couple hundred people (the intermediaries) I have worked with before or am friends with who each work with or talk to many entreprenuers. Each of these people knows dozens of investors. When they like an entrepreneur, they try to decide which investors would be interested in that entrepreneur. This isn't easy because angel investors change what types of things they are looking for and whether they are looking for anything at all all the time (based on what they have already invested in, on how much time and money they currently have to invest, etc.) They then send out intros to many investors. I get about a thousand of these a year.

Now, there are two types of intros. The most common is "[Founder] is looking for an investor for his company, which looks like [company]." The second is "[Founder] asked to be specifically introduced to you." If the latter, I always take the introduction. If the former I filter for only the stuff I might actually invest in. This saves me time because--since I have a pre-existing relationship with the intermediary--I can say something like "I don't invest in companies like [company], I am looking for [thesis] right now." This takes 30 seconds. If I was to reply to the founder, it would take a lot longer not to be rude. Rudeness is discouraging (I know, I raised money for my own company, lots of investors were rude), and it burns bridges. If an entrepreneur told an intermediary she thought I was rude in my reply, that intermediary may no longer send me anything. I know I, when I've been the intermediary, have stopped sending people stuff because the feedback from the entrepreneur was that they were rude.

Also, the whole point of the intermediary is to save the entrepreneur time. The intermediary sends out a score of emails asking who is interested, and some smaller number reply. The intermediary then makes the connection. Now the entrepreneur only has to deal with the people who have self-qualified as potentially interested. This saves them time (and also puts them in a slightly better negotiating position.)

The only negative to this process is the time it takes for the intermediary. I am an intermediary as much as, or more than, I am a recipient of these intros. It takes time. I've often thought about how to automate much of this introducing work: deciding which people would be most likely to want the intro, sending the emails, tracking replies, making the intros, and tracking which intros worked to feed back into the process. I suppose this is what software like Salesforce does for salespeople, but I've never found a personal CRM that can do this for me. Would love to have one.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com