[ig1]

Ask any VC you know how many un-referred startups they've ever funded in their entire lifetime.

(or just read the quora question on it http://www.quora.com/Venture-Capital-Firms/Have-any-top-tier... )

VCs get pitched all the time they can't afford to give unsolicited pitches more than a tiny fraction of their time for evaluation as 90% of them will be terrible. But if a pitch comes with a recommendation from someone they trust, it's much less likely to be a bad pitch so they can spend a bit more time looking at it.

Getting an introduction to a VC isn't hard, it's trivial to meet startup founders at events, etc. and most would be willing to introduce you to their VC if they thought you had a good idea.

If you're not capable of getting a warm introduction fairly easily, then that's a huge negative signal for the VC about your capabilities.

[chris_dcosta]

I know what the general advice is, but not doing what people tell you to do is pretty much what we encourage people to do.

I see no difference between encouraging people to bend and break the rules to create an innovative start-up, and bending and breaking the rules to attract a VC. It's all part of the same mentality.

But if that isn't a good enough argument, then try the maths: the probability of success is 50-50 on every try.