LinkedIn is the preeminent social network when it comes to professional relationships. It’s also grown significantly in prominence as a a content platform in recent years. For many founders, connecting on LinkedIn can be the easiest way to open a direct line of communication with a potential investor.

But you have to do it right.

Here are 5 tips for connecting with a VC (or really anyone) on LinkedIn:

1. Make Sure Your Profile is Tight

The first thing most people do when they receive a LinkedIn connection request is click on the profile link. So make sure you’re profile page is buttoned up.

At a minimum, your profile should have the following:

Headline - A few words about who you are / what you do (e.g. “Cofounder and CTO at Stealth”). Make sure that your headline is short enough to fit into a preview without being truncated.
About - A couple of sentences about you and your prior experience.
Experience - List all of your past positions with key projects/achievements that you were responsible for. If a company is a lesser-known startup, consider adding a line about what the company did or links to significant media stories.
Education - What schools did you go to, what did you study and what were a few significant achievements?

LinkedIn offers plenty of other profile sections, so feel free to add any that seem relevant and can highlight aspects of your experience.

Finally, make sure that your profile photo is visible to people who haven’t yet connected with you. It might seem great to keep your photo private, but nothing screams “spammer” more than a connection request from someone without a visible photo.

2. Create a Company Profile

If you’re fundraising for a startup that’s out of stealth, take the time to setup a robust company profile.

Upload size-appropriate logos and headline images
Add a solid “About” statement that concisely describes what the company does
Make sure all of your cofounders and any employees, advisors, etc. have added the company to their profile (so you all show up under the “People” tab)
If any media articles have been published about your company, include them under the “Posts” section

If your company is still in stealth mode, you should still list the experience on your profile as your current role (so eager investors can find you). You can do this in one of two ways:

List yourself as a cofounder of one of the ubiquitous “Stealth Startup” companies already on LinkedIn (the largest of which currently has more than 21,000 “employees”)
Create a custom “stealth” profile for your company, including a more accurate description, location and list of cofounders

3. Always Send a Personalized Message

Like most social networks, LinkedIn makes it incredibly easy to connect with anyone by displaying a big, fat “Connect” button on their profile. But far too many people simply click that button without any further thought or effort.

I get dozens of LinkedIn requests each week — and I’m sure that’s nothing compared to many people. Many of them are undoubtedly legit. But a significant percentage are spam/bots/etc. So once or twice each week, I scan through the list of requests. Unless someone immediately jumps out at me, I ignore them. As a result, I regularly ignore requests from people who I previously met in person, simply because I don’t recognize their LinkedIn photo or remember their name (sorry!).

How do you stick out from the crowd? Simple: include a personalized note.

Here’s how you do it:

Connecting on Desktop

When you click the “Connect” button on someone’s profile page when using LinkedIn on a desktop browser, you will get a popup box with an option to “Add a note”. Click this to enter a custom message that goes along with the connection request.

If you pitched a VC at a party, this is where you remind them where you met:

Hi Chris,
It was great to meet you last night at the epic Panache Venture party! I’d love to connect and schedule a follow-up conversation as we discussed.

If you’re sending a cold connection request, then consider this the equivalent to sending a cold email — so make it shine (here are some tips on how to write for success).

Connecting on Mobile

Here’s where things start to get tricky: if you click on that exact same “Connect” button on someone’s mobile profile, you don’t get the option to send a personalized note. Instead, the connection request gets sent off automatically without any personalization (and no ability to add one later…big thanks to the PM who removed that option).

To send a personalized connection request on LinkedIn mobile, press the button with the 3 ellipses to the right (“…”). That will bring up a menu with an option to “Personalize invite” (do not use the “Connect” option 🤦‍♂️). Press that button and you can add your message.

Connecting vs. Following

Some profiles on LinkedIn have a “Follow” button instead of a “Connect” button.

These users have optimized their profile for sharing content by offering a way for people to easily follow their posts. To send a connection request to users with these “creator” profiles, do the following:

On Desktop: Click the “More” button to reveal the Connect option, which will be followed by the personalization popup.

On Mobile: Click the button with the three ellipses (“…”) and use the “Personalize invite” option:

Never Click the Connect Button on a Recommended Profile

Are we having fun yet? 🙃

Here’s another doozy for you: when LinkedIn recommends someone to you via their People You May Know algorithm, they have an identical-looking “Connect” button under their profile:

Never, ever, ever click that button. On both desktop and mobile, clicking the connect button on a recommended profile will instantly send a connection request without any option to include a personalized note.

To send a personalized connection request to someone recommended to you via LinkedIn’s People You May Know algorithm, click on their name, go to their full profile and send a personalized connection request using one of the options above.

P.S. In case you’re wondering why all of this matters, it’s because if you try to rescind a connection request in order to add a personalized note, LinkedIn won’t let you do so for 3 weeks.

4. Review Your Connection Requests

In general, if someone doesn’t accept your connection request after a week or so, it’s highly unlikely they ever will. Not because they don’t like you, but because they’re never going to scroll through the thousands-upon-thousands of requests they received on the off chance they might find someone interesting.

Once a month, go through your pending requests by navigating to My Network ➡ Invitations ➡ See All ➡ Sent:

Remove any that are more than a few weeks old by clicking the “Withdraw” button, then add them to a list to revisit later (such as by sending a different personalized note).

5. Follow Up

Once you’ve connected with a potential investor, it’s time to start a conversation (you aren’t connecting for the sake of connecting).

Send a follow-up message via LinkedIn or email (if they’ve also given you their email address) and make a point to stay in touch. Just as regular investor updates can keep potential new investors apprised of your progress, tagging them on important updates on LinkedIn can help keep you top-of-mind.

Just don’t overdo it.

How to Connect with a VC on LinkedIn