

The Anatomy of a Great Email Introduction - jasonshen
http://www.jasonshen.com/2011/the-anatomy-of-a-great-email-introduction/

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pclark
here is how I do it:

firstly ask both parties individually if it is okay to intro, explain why the
intro is requested. There is nothing worse than intros you do not want nor
need. It makes all parties look lame.

The nice thing of asking both parties individually is that email is a great
platform to say "no" - you simply ignore the first and follow up email, and
the other sender gets the message - unless they truly believe it to be
valuable in which case they'll try to reach you in another way, and if they do
not know any other method to contact you than email, perhaps you need to
become better contacts with the person before introducing them to other people
...

assuming all parties are game:

then send an email to both parties (both in To: field) with subject of <name1>
(name1startup) <-> <name2> (name2startup) intro

then format email as such:

<name1>, <name2> is a blah blah blah ["good guy"] and is dying to chat with
you about ["topic"]

<name2>, as recommended, <name1> is a blah blah blah ["smart guy"] and knows
tons about ["topic"]

then sign off with a line along the lines of "hope this intro helps, and i'm
sure i'll talk to you guys soon! plc"

and then when a party replies, they should _move you to BCC_ so that you know
that the parties actually responded, and its a good way to prevent you from
getting a ton of irrelevant to you replies. [the receiver typically starts
with a line along lines of ["thanks for intro Peter! moved to BCC"]

(I do this with everyone, but I have had good friends intro me to people with
only asking the other party - I think that is generally okay if you really
know the person)

~~~
rdl
I definitely support the "email each party separately first", although usually
the request for an intro comes during a conversation with one of the parties.

I also would dislike getting emails as long as the example from the article,
but might want a tiny bit more info than your example. Maybe 2 sentences per
person, focusing on how you know/why you vouch for credentials, and the ask.

Putting relevant searchable keywords in the subject line is key, too.

