Introducing People Over WhatsApp
I have been, for many years, creating connections between people using a temporary WhatsApp group.
To explain what I mean in practice, let's look at an example:
Say I want to intro Alice and Bob. Alice is a startup founder, and Bob is a great graphic designer who I've worked with in the past.
As I live in a country where WhatsApp - the popular messaging app - is the de facto standard of day to day communications, I have both of their phone numbers in my contacts.
My flow looks like this:
- I learn Alice is looking for a designer over a call or through a group chat.
- I check with Bob to see if he's available for more work.
- If he is, I create a group called "Alice <> Bob Design" and add both of them to it.
- After adding them, I send a message kind of like this:
"@Alice meet Bob - a talented designer I've worked a lot with in the past, and who specializes in early-stage, just-out-of-stealth companies without a clear design system yet.
@Bob meet Alice - the founder of Acme Corp, who are planning their moves coming out of stealth. I think they could really use your services.
The context is known and the technology exists - best of luck!"
- I leave the group so I don't get bombarded with messages.
This allows everyone to remember the context - we're busy bees and it's hard to recall everything - and provides a valuable service to both the people in the conversation.
Jackpot.
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The bigger story here, though, is that you should be making connections between people. If you know someone and you think they would benefit from knowing someone else, own the introduction.
They will be grateful, and will probably remember you for it.
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