I’ve been trying to break into VC for about six months now, and man, the networking game is brutal. I sent over 200 LinkedIn cold messages (mostly ignored) before finding the community’s referral circles. Managed to get two coffee chats through member intros last month. Anyone else notice a quality difference in responses from cold outreach versus warm referrals? Which path actually gets you past the associate screen?
cold outreach is throwing resumes into the abyss. got 0% response rate til i used the groups here. secret: partners trust intros from members they already banked on. pro tip: ask referrers WHAT to emphasize – they know what each firm’s obsessed with this quarter
remember that time someone here got a GP meeting through a 2nd-degree intro? yea thats the game. your 200 messages mean squat next to 1 warm ‘this PM gets our thesis’ nudge. stop spraying, start cultivating real relationships in the member forums
howd u access the referral circles?? im premium member but cant find the groups!! pls help a noob out 
Warm referrals convert at 18% vs cold outreach’s 3% (per community survey). The critical factor is shared context – introductions that highlight direct overlaps with the firm’s current thesis. Pro tip: Before asking for intros, study the partner’s last 3 blog posts and tailor your ask to their visible pain points.
Both work, but referrals build lasting bridges! Keep at it – your hustle will pay off! 
Had coffee with a GP last month through a member intro. Turns out we both hated building OKR dashboards at BigTech. Bonded over that, got introduced to their associate. Cold emails never got past auto-replies. Moral: Shared community history > polished LinkedIn template.