The Art of Asking for Important Introductions

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By: Meltwater

One of my favorite things about the startup world is how generous people are about making important introductions. Everyone on the challenging adventure of building a company knows that you can’t do it alone, and there’s always someone out there—another founder, a potential customer, a mentor, an investor—that can help get you through tough times.

Unfortunately, most of us suck at getting or making introductions. It’s not something taught in high school (though it should be), at business school (it really should be), or at your job, but it’s one of the most critical processes to nail down.

Why is this so important? For starters, tell me if any of these scenarios sound familiar:

Someone offers to introduce you to a friend, and you get super excited, but that introduction never comes.
You get an introduction, but the person introducing you mischaracterizes who you are or your goal in connecting.
You email back and forth so many times looking for a right time and place that the meeting never gets scheduled.
When you show up to a meeting, the other person has no idea what’s going on or is uninterested.

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