The Five Rules of a Great Introduction

Everyone makes introductions.

Some people do ten a week. Some people do one a year. But at some point, almost everyone ends up brokering a relationship between two other people.

A founder introduces their new head of marketing to another founder’s head of marketing. A salesperson introduces a prospect to a current customer. A hiring manager asks for a candidate referral. An investor connects a founder to a customer, advisor, executive, or future investor. A friend introduces two friends who should probably know each other.

Introductions are everywhere because relationships are how a lot of work actually gets done.

But a good intro is not just two names on an email thread. A good intro is a judgment call.

When you say “you two should know each other,” you are putting your reputation behind that connection. You are telling both people that this is worth their time.

That matters because time is scarce, and trust is fragile.

A great intro earns trust. A bad intro burns it.

A thoughtful, relevant, well-contextualized intro makes you someone whose judgment people trust. A lazy, vague, irrelevant intro does the opposite.

Bad intros damage your reputation because they reveal whether you actually understand the people involved, respect their time, and know the difference between a mutual value-add and a favor.

Here are five rules for making successful intros:

This is the baseline rule for almost every professional introduction: Get permission from both sides before making the intro.

Do not surprise people by dropping them onto an email thread with someone they did not agree to meet. Do not assume they will be excited. Do not assume they have time. Do not assume the intro is obviously valuable just because it makes sense to you.

There are exceptions, but they are rare. Most people have maybe a handful of people in their network who have earned the right to introduce them freely (I can think about 5 or 6 in my network). These are people whose judgment is so strong, and whose understanding of your time is so precise, that you trust them to make the call without asking.

For everyone else, get the double opt-in.

A simple note is enough:

“Hey [Name] — I was just speaking with [Person] about [specific topic]. I know you’ve been working on something similar from a different angle, and I thought you might both find it helpful to trade notes. Can I connect you two?”

That’s all you need to send.

It gives context. It explains why the intro might be useful. It gives the person an easy opportunity to say yes or no.

The double opt-in is not just a politeness ritual — it protects the person you are asking.

A bad intro puts people in an awkward position. Now they have to ignore the email, take a call they do not want, or spend time crafting a polite “no” that does not make them sound rude or self-important.

You are creating work for them.

If you skip the opt-in entirely, you make it worse. You have already put them on the thread and publicly framed the connection as something they should take.

The point of the double opt-in is simple: nobody should feel trapped by your introduction.

The best introductions are specific.

Not “you both work in marketing.”

Not “you both live in New York.”

Not “you both invest in software.”

Those are not reasons — those are loose similarities. A real intro has context.

The strongest version is usually a “trade notes” intro: two people working on similar problems, from similar levels of relevance or seniority, who would both benefit from comparing what they are seeing.

For example:

Two heads of marketing at scaling B2B companies are both rebuilding their lifecycle marketing motion after moving upmarket.

Two CFOs are both thinking through IPO readiness and how early to start mock earnings calls.

Two founders are both selling into government for the first time and have each figured out a different part of the process.

Those are real intros. There is a reason for the conversation. There is a shared problem. There is something specific to discuss. Both sides can imagine what they might get out of it.

That is very different from “you’re both great.”

“You should know each other” can work when the trust is already very high or the match is extremely obvious. But most of the time, it is too vague.

Specificity is what makes the intro feel useful instead of random.

Bad intros usually come from lazy pattern matching, so before making the intro, ask yourself:

Why these two people? Why now? What would they actually talk about? What might each person get out of it?

If you cannot answer those questions clearly, the intro probably is not right.

Not every intro needs to be equally valuable to both sides.

Sometimes it is a mutual value-add. Sometimes it is a give. Sometimes it is a favor.

All three are fine. The mistake is pretending they are the same thing.

A mutual value-add is when both people have something clear to learn, share, or explore. They are peers, or close enough to peers, working on something relevant to each other.

A give is when one person is clearly receiving more value than the other. A senior operator advising someone earlier in their career. A public-company CFO helping a Series B head of finance think through planning. A customer speaking with a prospect as part of a sales process.

A favor is when you are asking someone to spend their time because you have the relationship and you are asking for help.

That is allowed. Just be honest about it.

Do not dress up a favor as a mutual value-add because you think it makes the ask sound better. It doesn’t. People can tell.

Seniority, relevance, and context all matter here. If you are introducing two founders of multibillion-dollar consumer companies to talk about international expansion, that may be a great peer intro. If you are asking one of those founders to speak with a seed-stage founder about brand-building, that may still be a great intro, but it is probably a favor.

The issue is not that people at different stages should never meet. Of course they should. Some of the best conversations happen that way.

The issue is misrepresenting the value.

Once both people have opted in, make the actual intro as easy as possible.

The intro email should be short.

If both sides have context, it can be this simple:

“[Person 1], meet [Person 2]. You both have context, so I’ll be brief. Please feel free to find some time to connect from here.”

That is enough.

The goal is not to impress everyone with how much you know about both people. The goal is to make the connection happen cleanly.

If both people are senior or scheduling is complicated, and you’ve already received the double opt-in, cc each person’s EAs on the intro email. You have now saved both people another email and reduced friction even further.

The best intros feel easy. Both people know why they are meeting, what the next step is, and who owns it.

The worst intros create work.

No context. No clear ask. No scheduling support. No idea whether this is meant to be a call, coffee, customer reference, job referral, or general networking chat.

A good intro reduces friction for everyone involved.

If introductions are part of your job, you need to track them.

That does not mean you need a complicated system. It can be a CRM, Airtable, spreadsheet, email alias, BCC inbox, Zapier workflow, or whatever tool you will actually use.

Track who you introduced, when you introduced them, why you introduced them, and what happened afterward.

Did they connect? Was it useful? Did it lead to a real outcome, or nothing at all?

If you work in community, platform, sales, recruiting, investing, partnerships, or any other relationship-heavy function, the intro itself is not the outcome. The outcome is what happens because of the intro.

Closing the loop also makes you better at making intros. You learn which types of intros work, which ones do not, who is generous with their time, who follows through, which asks are too vague, and where your judgment was right or wrong.

A simple follow-up is enough:

“Did you two end up connecting?”

“Was that helpful?”

“Anything useful come out of the conversation?”

If someone took a favor call for you, thank them. If the intro turned into something valuable, let the person who brokered it know. If you made the intro, make sure it did not disappear into the void.

Great intro-makers do not just connect dots. They pay attention to whether the connection mattered.

Introductions are one of the highest-leverage things you can do with a network.

They can help people find jobs, customers, investors, advisors, friends, mentors, collaborators, and ideas they would not have found on their own.

But that leverage cuts both ways.

A great intro can create value for everyone involved. A bad intro can waste time, create awkwardness, and damage trust.

None of this is complicated. It just requires judgment.

And that is the whole point: a good intro is not proof that you know a lot of people. It is proof that you understand them well enough to know who they should meet.