Probably Won’t Pass You on to Another Investor

This is one of those personal preferences that might differ from investor to investor, but: no, I probably won’t intro you with another investor if I’ve already passed on your company. A lot of venture capital is full of wishy-washy bullshit human feels over reals. It’s an odd way to manage a market worth trillions, but it is what it is. When I refer a company to another investor, without fail one of the first things they’ll ask me is: did you invest? This is a problematic question for a few reasons: It immediately puts your company at a disadvantage because they’re already getting other signals from other investors (that they ostensibly trust) that your company wasn’t a good fit for them. It gives me as the referring investor at a reputation hit because I’m asking this other person to take time out from their lives to look at a company that I don’t even have belief in myself. That said, I have seen this approach work well. A decade ago I pitched a lovely investor who really liked the…