Does it matter which person inside a venture firm a founder enters through?

Paul Graham · published Apr 2007

Emailing a business plan to a VC essentially never results in funding; founders should always get a personal introduction, and to a partner rather than an associate.

source The Hacker's Guide to Investors

Paul Graham · published Sep 2013

Cold emails from VC associates are worthless leads: associates have no decision-making power and partners discriminate against deals arriving that way.

An associate is not a VC and has no decision-making power; partners discriminate against deals that come to them this way, and Graham knows of no VC investment that began with an associate's cold email.

source How to Raise Money

Harry Stebbings · published Nov 21, 2025

Founders reaching out cold to junior people at firms rather than being introduced to the right senior partner is a self-inflicted error

The junior person doesn't know the space as well and is the wrong partner for the deal

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Nikhil Basu Trivedi · published Sep 6, 2023

Founders should not categorically skip junior investors and go straight to GPs; whether to engage is case by case and best judged on the quality of the actual conversation

Many great investors started at the bottom of the ladder and you can't know in advance who they'll be; a conversation with the youngest person on a team can be better than one with the managing partner and has led to investments in his own career

6:06 Engaging juniors vs seniors should be judged case by case on conversation quality

Harry Stebbings · published Sep 6, 2023

Junior investors are often the most researched and thoughtful people on a team and can deliver real value to founders

They have the time to map out a space and do competitive and pricing analysis that senior partners don't

7:09 Junior investors can deliver more value through deeper research than senior partners

Max Altman · published Nov 21, 2025

Founders route to junior investors because outreach from a branded firm is flattering, and because many people in the industry name-drop connections to top GPs they can't actually deliver — so founders don't believe their seed investors can just text those partners directly

Two causes: ego gratification from brand-name inbound, and a credibility problem created by investors who overclaim their access

51:20 Founders route to juniors because brand inbound flatters and they doubt their seed investors access