The LinkedIn Hack That Makes Investor Outreach Easier

The best place to find and connect with new investors is LinkedIn. There is a simple hack that will make your LinkedIn outreach to investors much more effective. In short, you need to grow your network, and in particular, you need to have more investors as 2nd-level contacts on LinkedIn. Let me explain: Your connections on LinkedIn are your 1st-level contacts. When you and someone on LinkedIn have at least one 1st-level contact in common, you are considered 2nd-level contacts. If you have none, you are 3rd-level contacts. Reaching out to anyone on LinkedIn is much easier and likelier to succeed if that person is your 2nd-level contact. First, because 2nd-level contacts are way more likely to accept a connection request from you. Secondly, LinkedIn discourages sending connection requests to more than a few 3rd-level contacts, but encourages connecting with 2nd level contacts. So when you connect with an investor on LinkedIn, it would be much better if that investor is your 2nd-level contact. Now, the hack. There is a simple way to grow the pool of 2nd-level-contact-investors on LinkedIn: Connect with people who have a large number of investors as their 1st-level contacts on LinkedIn. The good news is that if someone has a lot of connections on LinkedIn, it usually means they want to grow their network, so there is a good chance they will accept your connection request. People with a lot of connections on LinkedIn are fairly easy to spot - they have a large number of followers. They also tend to be active on the platform, posting and commenting. So when you spot someone who is in your domain, and involved with startups and investors, simply send them a blank connection request. There is a good chance they will accept. BTW - one such person you can connect with is me :) About 5,000 of my 1st-level contacts on LinkedIn define themselves as investors. So if we haven't connected yet, you are welcome to send me a connection request on LinkedIn.