How and how NOT to get intros to investors

Investors don't respond to cold emails, but they do respond to warm intros. The best source of warm intros are CEOs in the portfolio of that investor. So look up all the investors that invest in your segment, then look up all the top CEOs in their portfolio. Reach out and try to grab coffee with them. Build true organic relationships and then ask for advice (not intros). They will organically offer their help, and likely intros will follow. If you have lots of founder friends who raised money, you can also do the inverse and ask them intros to whatever investors they have.

But understanding who NOT to get intros from is just as important.

Many times, an investor will say, ‘It's interesting; I'd love to send your deck to other people’. This is a soft no. Having a soft no sending your deck a round is like sending a warning signal to the investor community not to invest in you. That's because if the original investor didn't believe in you, why should her friends? In this scenario, the best thing to do is to politely say, “Thank you, but before you can refer me to more investors, we’d love to get you to the point where you’re committed. Let's focus on that for now”. The worst thing that can happen here is that you get pushback, but this will open up the door for more candid feedback that you can use to improve your pitch and move on to the next one.