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)
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.
I think that strategy is the most careful and probably gives you the best success ratio, but as the introducer, it takes a lot more time / mental cycles to keep track of everything. That would cause me to make fewer intros. The guy can still ignore you if he doesn't to engage. And I pretty much only intro if I think there's a 60+% chance that the other party will want to engage.
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)