Founders, Forget Warm Intros — Here’s A Better Way To Get Meetings With VCs

Admittedly, as a BIPOC female founder who didn’t previously work at tech companies such as Google or PayPal, I’m not the most networked in venture capital circles. After trying the warm intro process, which is entrenched in the established network of VCs and founders and exclusionary as Del Johnson pointed out in his seminal article Ban Warm Introductions!, I’ve found a faster, better method for getting VC meetings. As a bonus, it also works for getting organic press and customer connections.

The Inbound Lead Generation Process For Fundraising

Inbound lead generation focuses on attracting potential customers through the creation of valuable content. As a marketer and writer, I embraced this strategy and applied it to fundraising. My process has 4 steps:

1) Build, Don’t Wait for VC Funding,

2) Make Them Read About You – Get Organic PR,

3) Make Them Talk About You – Become a Thought Leader, and

4) Build in Public.

Step 1: Build, Don’t Wait for VC Funding

A prerequisite for inbound leads is building your product. You don’t need validation or funding from VCs to build your product and launch. So, build, don’t wait. Having a product demonstrates that you are applying your skills and solving how to build initial proof points. Take a cue from bootstrapped startups such as Shopify that found wild success by launching creatively.

Shopify: Leverage Content Marketing As A Customer Acquisition Vehicle

Cofounders Tobias Lütke and Scott cleverly leveraged content marketing as a vehicle for Shopify’s customer acquisition. The Shopify blog, which provided valuable resources and advice for entrepreneurs looking to start their own online stores, helped to build a loyal following. The founders doubled down on their content strategy by creating an extensive library of video tutorials, webinars, and other resources to help their users succeed. This not only helped them attract new customers, but it also helped them build a community of loyal users who were invested in their success.

Shopify thrived on its own earnings for one year before getting a small Seed investment of $250K in 2007 and then raising $7M in 2010, four years after launching. They focused on building a profitable market niche with organic growth. It raised a total of $122 million in private funding before going public – NYS (SHOP). According to Pitchbook, it has a market cap of $98.13B today.

The lesson: Spend the bulk of your time building. Focus on your product. Figure out creative ways to launch, build brand awareness for your company, and scale your company while being bootstrapped. Keep your marketing spend as close to zero as possible.

Step 2: Make Them Hear About You – Organic PR

In the early stages of your company, you don’t need to spend any money on a PR. Research your competitors, keep track of the publications that they are getting featured in. Reach out to the writers and editors at those publications. Use Hunter.io to figure out their email addresses. Send hyper-personalized cold emails explaining why you think they might be interested in your company since they wrote about other companies in your vertical. You can also try messaging the writers on LinkedIn and Twitter. Concisely pitch a story idea. Use DocSend links to your website, a demo, and Press Kit. You can create your press kit yourself using this guide. If you have a differentiated product that has launched, publications will be interested.

Step 3: Make them Talk About You: Become a Thought Leader

The way to become recognized as a thought leader on a topic is with 1) insightful writing, and 2) speaking engagements. Write thought leadership articles and get them published in leading industry publications to reach right people and VCs in your industry. To reach VCs, submit OpEd articles to TechCrunch with this link. The key is to write thought leadership articles with original insights and thoughtful analysis supported by research. Contrarian articles are the best since they grab attention. The goal is to demonstrate that you can analyze and can think smartly and differently. If you are a good marketer, use your copywriting and SEO skills to make your articles trend on Google News, X (Twitter), and LinkedIn.

Get speak engagements at leading conferences in your relevant verticals. If you have developed an impressive personal brand and are considered a thought leader as a founder via your product, organic press your company has received, and your writing, you are likely to get contacted by conference organizers for keynotes and to be on panels at conferences. If they don’t reach out to you, contact conference organizers. Introduce yourself and ask if you can be involved as a keynote speaker, panelist, or even as a moderator. At the very least, you will be able to attend a conference for free and hopefully the conference will be good networking for your business development efforts as well as a potentially good networking opportunity with press, VCs, and strategics in the vertical.

As a result of my writing, I’ve gotten more speaking engagements. And now I’ve been getting inbounds from not just potential SaaS customers but also VCs.

Step 4: Build in Public

Building in public is the practice of sharing content about how you are building your company’s products or services with the goal of engaging with like-minded people. It’s content marketing and community building. By publicly sharing steps taken, progress made, and lessons learned along the way, you can generate buzz around your company and build engagement. Moreover, it’s a tactic that can be used to attract investors.

Publish a Manifesto, but Not as a Basic Launch Announcement

Writing a company manifesto with your company’s goals isn’t a new concept. Many founders publish manifestos as launch announcements on their company websites, Medium, and/or LinkedIn about why they are starting a new company.

I took a different approach with my company’s manifesto and used it as part of my process of building in public. I published an OpEd titled, Think Bigger Than Personalization – It’s Time for Biohacking & Precision Skin Health in BeautyMatter, a leading global industry publication for the beauty, wellness, and health industries. Although I never mentioned my company’s name in the article, the article is my company Skin Dossier’s manifesto and vision. I introduced my contrarian view on the status quo of personalization and started using the terms longevity and precision skin health long before global conglomerates such as L’Oreal, Estee Lauder, or Shiseido. The article trended on Google News’ first page under the topics of ‘personalization,’ ‘Precision Skin Health,’ and ‘longevity’ for several weeks and trended on LinkedIn. When I shared a link to the OpEd in a LinkedIn post, I explicitly stated that the OpEd was my company’s manifesto.

It was a calculated risk. While I shared the company vision with the world – including competitors (some of which are very well-funded and one is a recent public company) – the risk was minimized since we have already launched a differentiated product, have a solid team, and are continually making progress every week. This was the final punch that helped me attract the most inbounds from VCs at top funds which also led to the fastest group partner meetings with funds.

Showcase Your Strengths and Create Your Own Strategy

Remember, the closer a founder’s existing connections are to a VC’s network for warm introductions, the less “work” the founder has to do to secure an introduction. For connected founders, there is literally no “ability” to test. Underdog founders, don’t fret about warm intros.

A true disruptor will figure out how to build and launch on their own terms and showcase their ability. The key is to personalize your launch and fundraising strategies to your strengths as a founder. My inbound lead generation strategy for launching my company and fundraising maps to some of my strengths – strategy, marketing, innovations, and writing. Leverage your strengths and get noticed as an innovative founder first, and you’ll find yourself getting inbounded from press, investors, and customers alike.