Asking your investors
Investors are just as invested in the success of your company as you are and know that finding the right people in the early days is of critical importance. When they partner with you in the early stages of your company they want to provide as much value as possible, and part of that involves tapping into their network.
Having the ability to connect your investors network allows you to have control over the sourcing process, which saves time for everyone. Many times when you are doing your investor updates and say you are looking to fill a particular role, they will keep that in mind, but they’re likely too busy to go straight to LinkedIn and do a search to see who they know in their network. Often, they may forget about your needs.
With The Swarm, on the other hand, you can take the initial work off of their hands and reach out to them only when an introduction needs to be facilitated.
Asking your advisors and close friends
You’ve asked all your team members and investors? No problem. Now it is time to tap into the network of your advisors and close friends who have an invested interest in your success. Sometimes it can seem like a task to ask people for a favor, but if done the right way these individuals will not mind.
For advisors and close friends, you could offer some shares in the company or potentially help them in their efforts to return the favor. Also, you want to be mindful of the individuals that you ask, as you want to be intentional in how you use your seats. For instance, If you know someone who is a high performing technical contributor, there is a strong chance that their network may come with other high performing technical contributors.
More tips and invitation templates
Start with a personal or professional update in regards to the company:
- Ex: “Hey we just raised our seed round and are now looking to hire some amazing people to join our team”.
- Ex: “ Super excited to let you know that I have recently launched my product and we have received some great feedback and now we are looking to grow our engineering team”.
Explain why you reached out to them specifically (the value they provide or the relationship you have) and then prompt the ask:
- Ex: “We are very happy to have partnered with you as an early stage advisor (or investor) and we would love your help in growing our team.
- Ex: “We are very appreciative to have partnered with you on our journey. As a small team and hiring is very challenging, but with your help we will be able to hire amazing people”.
Share with them how they can help and what tools you are using to streamline the process:
- Ex: “We wanted to make the process simple for you and have invited you to join us on The Swarm to share your LinkedIn network. All you have to do is share your connections to our Network Graph, and as we see exciting candidates, we confirm with you whether you believe they could be a good fit for our team.
Share The Swarm instructions.
Follow up in email every 3 business days, if they do not respond, see if you can get on a call with them: People usually want to help, sometimes they are just busy and ensuring that the process is easy for them to help is very important.
Let’s bring it all together: Personalize as much as you can
Hey Kara,
I am super excited to let you know that Impact.io has recently launched our product and raised our Series A. We have received some great feedback from our initial customers and now we are looking to grow our engineering team. Very thankful for all the help that you have given us during the product development phase and we would love to tap into your network to identify technical talent we would be crazy to not know.
We wanted to make the process simple for you and have invited you to join us on the Swarm to share your network. All you have to do is share your connections to our Network Graph, and as we see exciting candidates, we can confirm with you whether you believe they could be a good fit for our team.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Cheers!
Terry
Cofounder, Impact.io
