project_Warmup
Make Intros Suck Less — a founder-first agent that turns warm-intro chaos into a kanban flow.
exploration: Aug - Dec 2024
problem: new founders have a fundraising ‘cold-start’ problem. when looking to connect with investors, there isn’t a way to ascertain strong warm-intro opportunities among friends, family and colleagues. LinkedIn isn’t a reliable source of data.
solution: (PRM) personal relationship management + warm-intro agent
Warmup is a founder-first tool that streamlines the warm introduction process for fundraising, hiring, and early customer acquisition. Today, founders and their networks manage warm intros manually through spreadsheets, ad hoc emails, and fragmented tools, even though warm introductions drive the majority of venture deals and are a major source of stress, lost time, and missed opportunities.
The product is deliberately narrow: it does not try to be a personal relationship management tool (PRM), a full fundraising platform, or generic email marketing software. Instead, it integrates with these existing tools.
Warmup focuses on one specific part of the funnel: matching who a founder wants to meet (targets) with who in their network can credibly introduce them (connectors), then automating their process through the use of agentic workflows and AI writers. The system tracks progress in a kanban-style flow, monitors inbox responses, and surfaces reminders so intros move quickly instead of stalling.
We would start by focusing on founders who are beginning to raise because they need warm intros the most. Warmup aims to create value on Day 0, beginning with company fundraising in months 0-6, followed by expansion during months 6-12+ when founders make their first key hires and begin B2B sales or BETA with friends & family.
There is a strong PLG growth opportunity. The average founder shares at least 50 investor targets to an average of 35 contacts.
comps: clay.earth, connect the dots, signal, superhuman. Identity resolution & data cleaning/de-duplication is a critical missing piece. Solutions are sub-par.
landscape: AI solutions are moving fast. founders can build / hack their way to a solution with Notion AI, Manus.IM, custom GPTs, etc.
VC backable: There is likely a solid $5-$10m ARR biz here. Unclear how big the long-term market is for everyday users v. power users, creators, influencers or small biz.
completed: prototype, business plan and competitive analysis.
ideation with: Rhenee Bartlett, co-founder @ Whym
status: Shelved project. Still a huge opportunity. No one is doing this well.