想拉到风险投资？先找介绍人!

    有一天当我正在演讲时，有人问了我一个最最简单的问题：“怎样才能获得风投投资?"

    我想了想，但只能给出一条建议，是的，只有一条建议。找人引荐!我告诉观众，我搞风投13年，投资过的公司没有议价不是经我认识、信任的人介绍来的。

    我怀疑在我从事风投行业的13年左右时间里，收到的直接来自于创始人的执行摘要已经快有5,000份了。而且，正如我对观众所说，我没有立即回绝这些业务。我这5,000份执行摘要我都看了。我也曾和其中一些创业者见过面。但我没给他们中的任何一位投资。

    一位在场的观众问道，我是不是对那些我不认识、我朋友也不认识的创业家有偏见。这显然是个合理的问题。我想了想，我的回答是，我没有投资这些公司的原因是，这些公司的创始人不够有办法，都没法联系到能引荐的人。

    但这也让我陷入思考。或许，我曾有偏见。或许，我错过了一些很好的业务机会，没有给他们公平的机会去尝试。我决定了解一下，是不是只有我一个人这么干。我开始问我的风投同行，他们有没有投资过没人引荐的公司。结果答案都是“没有”。在我问过的人当中，没有一个人投资过未经任何形式引荐的公司。虽然他们都表示这不是不可能，大多数人也会看创业家主动提供的执行计划摘要（和我一样），但这些风投从来没有实际投资过非引荐企业。连一个也没有。

    那么，到底怎样才能获得风投投资？

    第一步：找到推荐人。找到你认识的某个人，可以把你介绍给你希望争取投资的人。你与介绍人的关系越近越好。介绍人与风投的关系越近越好。我写过这个话题，把它描述为“借来的信用”。如果介绍你的人在这家风投颇有信誉，你在介绍人处又颇有信誉，你就会获得这家风投的信赖。

    我在小学数学课上就学到了这一点，这种现象被称为传递性。如果：

    A在B有信誉

    而B在C有信誉

    那么A在C有信誉

    作为传递性的必然结果，(1) A与B之间的信誉关系越强，(2) B与C之间的信誉越强，则(3)A与C之间的信誉关系越强。

    当然，被引荐给一家VC本身不会给你带来资金。这些年来，在决定投资与否时，我拒绝的经人引荐的创业家数量比没有经人引荐的创业家数量还多。但我同意投资的创业家肯定是经人引荐的超过未经人引荐的。如果我询问的这些风投能说明什么问题，那就是面对风投，经人引荐是必要的，但不一定足以获得投资。

    如果你想获得我的投资，先请人介绍。拜托了。(财富中文网)

    本文作者是资本公司August Capital的合伙人。

    The other day when I was giving a talk I was asked the simplest of simple questions: "how do you get funded by a VC?"

    I thought about it and could only come up with one, for sure, piece of advice. Get introduced! I told the audience that in my 13 years in the venture business I had never once funded a company that hadn't been introduced to me by someone I knew and trusted.

    I suspect that in my 13 years or so in the venture business I have received somewhere on the order of 5,000 executive summaries directly from founders. And, as I told the audience, I didn't reject the businesses out of hand. I read all 5,000 executive summaries. I met with some of those entrepreneurs too. Yet, I didn't fund a single one of them.

    A member of the audience asked if perhaps I was biased against entrepreneurs I didn't know, or who didn't know someone I knew. It was certainly a reasonable question. I thought about it and responded that I thought the reason I hadn't invested in those companies was that the founders were not resourceful enough to find a connection to me.

    But it got me thinking. Maybe I was biased. Maybe I was missing out on some great businesses because I wasn't giving them a fair shot. I decided to see if I was the only one. I started asking my fellow VCs if they had funded any companies that had come to them un-introduced. And it turned out that the answer was "no." No one I asked had funded a company without some sort of introduction. While they all agreed that it wasn't out of the question, and most of them still read unsolicited executive summaries (as do I), not one VC had funded an un-introduced business. Not one of them.

    So how do you get funded?

    Step one: Get an introduction. Find someone you know who can introduce you to the person you want to pitch. The closer your relationship with the person making the introduction, the better. And the closer that person's relationship with the VC the better. I've written about this before and described it as "borrowed credibility." If you are being introduced by someone who has credibility with the VC, and you have credibility with the person making the introduction, you will have credibility with the VC.

    I learned about this in elementary school math class -- it is called the transitive property. If:

    A has credibility with B

    and

    B has credibility with C

    then

    A has credibility with C

    And as a corollary to the traditional transitive property, (1) The stronger the credibility between A and B, and (2) The stronger the credibility between B and C, (3) the stronger the credibility between A and C.

    Needless to say, getting introduced to a VC will not, in and of itself, get you funded. I've said "no" to many more entrepreneurs who've been introduced to me over the years than I have to entrepreneurs who have come un-introduced. But I've said "yes" to infinitely more who've come introduced to me than not. If the sample of VC's with whom I've spoken is any indication, getting an introduction to a VC is necessary but not sufficient to get funded.

    If you want to pitch me, get an introduction. Please.