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ambient (textambient.com) · traction 08

how to get customer intros from your investors, and what to send

your investor said "let us know how we can help." here's what to send back.

7 min read6 nov 2026

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Your round closed three months ago. On your last call, your investor said it again: "let us know how we can help." You need meetings with buyers, and your investor must know some of them. You still haven't asked, because you don't know what to ask for.

Don't ask for "intros to customers". First, write to the founders your investor has already backed. Then send your investor a short list of named people. For each person they know, write an email they can forward in 30 seconds. After every intro, tell them what happened.

your investor already counts this as part of the job

It may feel like you're asking for a favor. Investors see it as part of their job. In a survey of almost 900 venture investors by Paul Gompers of Harvard Business School and three colleagues, the investors said they connect about 69% of the companies they back with customers. Yet when Forward Partners and Landscape VC surveyed more than 500 early-stage founders in Europe in 2021, 65% rated the help they got from their investors as low value.

We think part of that gap comes from how founders ask. Ellen Chisa, an investor at Boldstart Ventures, explains it from her side: when a founder asks "can you introduce me to some customers?", it's hard to go through everyone she has met and work out who has that problem. A list changes that, she writes: "If a founder sends a list of target companies, it's much more likely you'll remember who you know who works there."

start with the companies they've already backed

The founders your investor has already funded may be your first customers. Paul Graham, who co-founded the startup program Y Combinator, wrote that startups selling to other startups have a big pool of users in the other companies Y Combinator has funded, "and none took better advantage of it than Stripe." When a founder agreed to try Stripe, the Collison brothers would say "Right then, give me your laptop" and set it up on the spot.

Tomer London, a co-founder of Gusto, says most of its first 10 customers were startups from its own Y Combinator group. Joshua Merrill, Carta's former chief product officer, says one of its first customers was Tamr, because Andy Palmer of Tamr had invested in Carta and "brought it into his company early on." So if one of your angel investors runs a company, ask whether that company could use your product.

Open your investor's website and find the page listing the companies they've funded. Mark the ones that could buy from you. Then mark the ones that already sell to your buyer. If you sell to hospitals, another startup won't buy from you, but a founder who already sells to hospitals knows who decides there and can introduce you. Write to those founders yourself, and open with the investor you share, because that's why they'll read it.

Hi [first name], [investor's name] backs both of us. We make [what you make, in one line] for [who buys it]. Would your team use it? I'd be glad to show you in 15 minutes. If it's not for you, I know you already sell to [type of company], and I'd love to hear who decides there.

Other founders can introduce you to buyers too, even if your investor hasn't backed them. ambient is a private, text-native network where verified founders help each other solve problems and open doors. You text ambient, an AI agent, and say who you need to reach and why. It finds a founder who knows that person. That founder reads your note and, if it fits, asks them. You're introduced only if they say yes.

How do you get in? You can't buy your way into ambient, and you can't pitch your way in. A founder who's already inside invites you, or you text ambient and get verified. Before ambient looks for someone to help you, you help another founder or invite a founder who gets verified. That's how strangers become each other's unfair advantage. Tap "> access" at textambient.com.

for the rest of their network, send names, not a type of customer

Don't wait for your investor to go through their contacts. Go through them yourself. Frederic Kerrest, a co-founder of Okta, did: "We asked our angel investors and combed their LinkedIn networks." His target was to talk to 15 to 18 new IT people at different companies every month for the first six months, and he says he probably hit 85% or more of it.

Go through each investor's LinkedIn connections, if they let you see them. Pick people who do the job your product is for, at companies like your best customers. Kirby Winfield, a founding partner at the fund Ascend, tells founders to send "no more than 20" names. Next to each name, write one line on why now, such as they just raised money or just hired a head of sales. That line gives your investor a reason to write to them today. Then ask which of them they know well enough to approach. That lets them skip anyone they'd rather not bother.

Hi [investor's first name], you offered to help with customers, so here's something specific. We sell [what you sell, in one line] to [role] at [type of company]. These are people I'd like to meet:

[name], [role] at [company], because [why now]
[name], [role] at [company], because [why now]
[name], [role] at [company], because [why now]

Which of them do you know well enough to ask? Skip anyone you'd rather not approach. For each one you pick, I'll send you a short email you can just forward.

If the person you need isn't in your investors' networks at all, "How to ask for a warm intro to someone you don't know" walks through who to ask and what to send.

write an email they can forward from their phone

For each name your investor picks, send one email. Address it to your investor, but write it for the buyer, because all your investor will do is hit forward. "If they can't manage it in 30 seconds from their phone, you're unnecessarily slowing things down," writes Waseem Daher, a co-founder of Pilot. If they have to write anything themselves, he says, they'll "get to it later".

Say in the first lines why the buyer should care, so a busy person sees it before they stop reading. Then ask only for a first meeting, because the buyer can say yes to that without deciding anything else.

Subject: intro to [their name] at [their company]?

Hi [investor's first name], could you see if [their name] is open to a short chat? Feel free to just hit forward.

[Their name], we help [role] at companies like yours [the result, for example cut the time spent on refunds by half]. [A company like theirs] already uses us. I'm writing now because [why now]. Do you want to meet for 20 minutes to learn more? If it's not a priority, no problem at all.

[Your name], [your company]

Your investor should ask the buyer before connecting you. Fred Wilson, an investor at Union Square Ventures, asked for this in 2009, because when people skip it, "I often take meetings in these situations that I don't really want to take." You don't want that meeting either. If the buyer says no or doesn't answer, go to the next name.

If your investor says "sure" and then goes quiet, send one finished email for one person and ask them to forward it. A list asks them to search their contacts, and one email asks them to press a button. "Some VCs don't make introductions," Chisa writes, so if that fails twice, put your time into your other investors and the founders they've backed.

an intro gets you a meeting, not a sale

We found no study that measures whether investor intros lead to sales. And your investor can't make anyone buy. "VCs don't approve spending," Chisa writes.

Square saw the same thing with its founder's own contacts. Jack Dorsey got people he knew to try it, and they "didn't really create repeat usage or become real customers," says Cameron Walters, who was on Square's founding team. Its first real everyday customers were merchants the team could walk to, like Sightglass Coffee.

Find out early whether the buyer wants this meeting or is doing your investor a favor, so you don't count on a sale that isn't coming. Near the start, ask what made them say yes. If the answer is that your investor asked them to, treat the meeting as research: ask how they handle this problem today, and who would decide on a change. If someone junior shows up, ask who else would have to agree, and whether they can join the next call.

tell them what happened, and you won't feel like you're nagging

After each intro, write to your investor within a few days, even if it went nowhere. Chisa says good feedback is "likely to make the investor want to make more intros", and a bad result helps too: "the VC can help other founders avoid wasting time." If you've asked twice and feel like you're nagging, open with the news and put the ask second.

Hi [investor's first name], an update on your intro to [name]. We met on [date]. [What happened, for example: they're trying it with one team, or they said no because they just signed with someone else.] Thank you for making that happen.

The next person I'd love to reach is [name], [role] at [company], because [why now]. Do you know them well enough to ask?

Do the same in your investor update email. Paul Arnold, an angel investor, describes Derek Steer of Mode, who sent a monthly email "enumerating all current sales prospects and their status." Add one line on each intro and one named person you want to reach next. Every investor who reads it then knows who you're after, without a separate ask.

sources

Paul Gompers, Will Gornall, Steven Kaplan and Ilya Strebulaev, "How Do Venture Capitalists Make Decisions?", Journal of Financial Economics, 2020. Working paper version. The 69% is the average share of their companies that investors said they do this for (Table 22). nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w22587/w22587.pdf

Dan Taylor, tech.eu, 1 April 2021, reporting the "More than Money" survey by Forward Partners and Landscape VC. We read the report on the survey, not the survey itself. tech.eu/brief/92-of-vcs-say-they-offer-value-beyond-capital-founders-reply-mmm-yeah-no/

Ellen Chisa, "Skip the line", 26 May 2023. ellenchisa.substack.com/p/skip-the-line

Paul Graham, "Do Things That Don't Scale", July 2013. paulgraham.com/ds.html

Lenny Rachitsky, "How today's fastest growing B2B businesses found their first ten customers", 7 July 2020, for Gusto, Carta (then called eShares), Okta and Square. lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-todays-fastest-growing-b2b-businesses

Kirby Winfield, "Best Practices for Requesting Warm Intros From Your Investors", Ascend, 4 January 2024. ascend.vc/blog/best-practices-for-requesting-warm-intros-from-your-investors

Waseem Daher, "The forwardable email", 10 August 2022. waseem.substack.com/p/forwardable-email

Fred Wilson, "The Double Opt-In Introduction", AVC, 3 November 2009. avc.com/2009/11/the-double-optin-introduction/

Paul Arnold, "You Aren't Getting the Most Out of Your Investors", First Round Review, 3 March 2015. review.firstround.com/you-arent-getting-the-most-out-of-your-investors-this-is-how-to-start/

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