Imagine that you spoke only English. Millions of my friends are like that.
Now imagine that there was there a wonderful program taught in a non-English language a non-English speaking country. Many of the above millions might doubt they exist, but they do.
It would be a bad match, no matter how wonderful you each are.
Within a week I saw introductions and introduction requests for a startup seeking less than a million dollars with a fund that has a 30 mm minimum, a startup doing human genetics with a fund focused on a plants, a privately held company with a multi-billion dollar valuation in its most recent round with a pre-seed accelerator. Great entities. Terrible matches.
A brilliant colleague is often quoted as saying, “When you judge a fish by its ability to climb trees … … you should really be looking for a squirrel.”
When great people ask me to make an introduction, I don’t ask or talk about what makes them great, but rather why it will be a great match.
Otherwise, perhaps I should start selling scuba equipment to squirrels.
I like the idea of the great match being the deciding factor to the intro.