Cold email
Use a cold email when
You do not have a path to that partner, you can say what you do in five lines, and you will not attach a 40-slide novel. Volume is not a strategy. A true sentence plus a real traction line is.
Cold Email vs Warm Intro
Cold email vs warm intro: which door you knock on, and what you send through it
Reviewed August 21, 2026 by Robb
A warm intro is a borrowed reputation. A cold email is you, a sentence, and a link. Both can raise. Neither replaces a company whose books can survive the second meeting. We do not run outreach. We make sure that when someone says yes, the packet you send does not contradict itself.
Warm intro
Use a warm intro when
Someone who already has the relationship will stake a bit of it on you. Wait for a clean intro. Do not force a mutual who barely knows the company. A bad intro is a cold email with extra disappointment.
The packet is the same
Intro or cold, the next ask is numbers. If ARR, burn, and the cap table are not ready, you spent social capital on a meeting you will waste. Get the close in order first.
Warm is slower until it is not
Waiting three weeks for an intro while cash is tight is a forecast problem. Run a cash calendar. If you cannot wait, a precise cold note is more honest than a panicked intro request.
Do not shop a messy table
Either door leads to the same diligence. We would rather spend a week on the cap table than a month on a CRM sequence that sends people into a hole.
Frequently asked questions
Do VCs ignore cold email?
Some do. Some do not. The ones who reply still check the numbers. Write for that person.
Should I wait on intros before I raise?
Not if cash cannot wait. Build the materials. Ask for intros in parallel. Do not pause the close hygiene.
What belongs in the first note?
What you do, why now, a number you can defend, and a clear ask. No novel. No metric you would not sign.