Relationship mapping
Who knows whom around the person or company you're trying to reach, and how strongly, so you can pick the warmest way in. Happenstance builds the map from your accounts rather than by hand, for sales, fundraising and hiring.
By Jerry Feng, Growth at Happenstance. Updated August 28, 2026.
Continue with GoogleThe short version
Relationship mapping is seeing who knows whom around a target person or company, and how strongly, so you can pick the warmest way in. It's used for sales, fundraising and hiring. Happenstance builds the map from seven connected sources (Gmail, Outlook, Google Calendar, Google Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram), extends it through the friends and groups you join, and shows it as a path rather than a diagram: ask "How am I connected to this person?" and you get the people between you and them, ranked by strength. Free, 500,000+ users.
What a relationship map has to show
A list of names isn't a map. To be useful for the next introduction, it has to answer four things about every person on it. Who you know, with the same person from Gmail, LinkedIn and Google Contacts folded into one profile. How well, from evidence of interaction, because a connection you accepted once and a colleague you email weekly aren't the same link. Who they are now, since the relationship you have is with a person and the person has changed jobs twice. And who they can reach, because most of the people worth meeting are two steps away, not one.
Happenstance answers all four for everyone in your connected accounts, and the map is something you ask, not something you look at. “How am I connected to this person?” returns the path: you, the friend or group that holds the relationship, the evidence, and the person at the end of it.
Who do I know at Ramp in partnerships?
Example4 people in partnerships at Ramp are in your network; two you know directly.
| Person | Mutuals |
|---|---|
AV Anjali VermaPartnerships Manager at Ramp | |
PV Peter VanceHead of Partnerships at Ramp | |
GN Grace NakamuraPartner Manager at Ramp |
Seven sources, one graph
Gmail, Outlook, Google Calendar, Google Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. Email and calendar carry the strength signal; the rest add people and evidence.
“Who do I know at Ramp?”
Friends and groups
Add the people you trust as friends, or join a group, and their networks pool with yours in both directions. The map grows to the size of the people you share with.
“Who in my YC batch knows someone at Anthropic?”
A path, not a diagram
Each result carries the way in: direct, through a friend, or through a group, with the evidence for each step. That is the introduction request, already written.
“How am I connected to this person?”
Why the hand-built map dies in a week
The spreadsheet method (export connections, tag them, add a column for how you met) fails for two reasons. It records that you know people, not how well, which is the fact the next introduction depends on. And it's stale from the day you finish it: every new email thread, meeting and job change makes it more wrong, and nobody goes back to fix it.
The evidence for the map already exists. Years of email headers, calendar attendees, connection lists and Google Contacts hold who you know and how often you talk. Connect those accounts and the map assembles itself: one profile per person, a strength score per relationship, enrichment for current role and company, and a refresh whenever the accounts change.
Relationship mapping for sales, fundraising and hiring
The job changes the noun in the question and nothing else. A seller maps the relationships around an account, a founder maps them around a fund, a recruiter maps them around a role.
- Sales“Who at Ramp do I or my team know best, and through whom?”Happenstance for sales
- Fundraising“Who in my network is a partner at Benchmark?”Happenstance for fundraising
- Hiring“Backend engineers my team has worked with who are open to moving”Happenstance for recruiting
500,000+people use Happenstance, and it's free. Teams pool through groups, which are free and unlimited; the largest pool 380,000+ people into one searchable map.
When a different relationship mapping tool fits better
Lucidchart and Miro draw diagrams by hand and are a different kind of tool.
Consider Introhive only if
- You're a professional services firm that needs firm-wide relationship capture across every practice group, bought as an enterprise contract
- Pricing not published; demo-led
Consider Village only if
- You want paths inferred from a public graph of 775M+ profiles, including people nobody on your team has met
- Free with 100 credits a month and 10 results per AI search; Pro $79 a month; Business $149 a month
Consider The Swarm only if
- You're building a GTM product on relationship data and need an API over a 500M-profile dataset
- Free up to 10 connectors with no API access; Premium $99 per company per month for 50 connectors and full API
For the map of who you and your team know, connect your accounts and ask. The head-to-heads are at Happenstance vs Village, Happenstance vs The Swarm and Happenstance vs Introhive. The category the firm-wide tools sell is covered in what is relationship intelligence.
Village details from village.ai, The Swarm from theswarm.com and Introhive from introhive.com public pages.
What Happenstance reads, and who can see the map
Email is read as headers only. Message content and attachments never reach our servers. Yes. Your connections are searchable only by you, the friends you accept, and the groups you join, and sharing is always mutual. Your public profile shows a constellation of named people you know by default, which you can turn off anytime. We never share, sell, or use your data to train AI models. Happenstance is SOC 2 certified and DTI Trust Level 2; the full list of what is stored and for how long is on the security page.
Frequently asked questions
What's relationship mapping?
Relationship mapping means working out who knows whom around a person or company you want to reach, and how strong each link is, so you can choose the warmest route. In B2B it's used by sellers opening accounts, founders raising, and recruiters hiring through referrals. The map is built from evidence of interaction (email, meetings, connections), not from a list someone typed.
How do I map my relationships to a company?
Connect the accounts where your relationships already live and search. In Happenstance, "Who do I know at Ramp?" returns everyone at Ramp you've emailed, met, or connected with, ranked by how well you know them, and "How am I connected to this person?" shows the path through a friend or group when the link isn't direct. Nothing is drawn or entered by hand.
What should a relationship map show?
Four things. Who you know, with each person deduplicated across every platform into one profile. How well, from interaction evidence rather than the existence of a connection. Who they are now, meaning current role and company. And how your circles extend you: the people your friends and groups can reach that you cannot reach directly. A list of names shows none of these.
Is relationship mapping the same as drawing a network diagram?
No. Diagramming tools such as Lucidchart and Miro draw boxes and lines you place yourself, and a relationship map drawn that way is out of date the day you finish it. A relationship map you can query answers a question instead of showing a picture, and it stays current because it reads the accounts you already use.
How does Happenstance measure relationship strength?
From how often and how recently two people email each other, whether the email goes both ways, and how many meetings they share, read from email headers and calendar entries only. Message content is never read. Connections, follows and Google Contacts entries add people and some evidence; email and calendar carry most of the weight.
Can I map my whole team's relationships?
Yes. Add teammates as friends or create a group, and everyone's networks pool into one searchable map. Sharing is mutual, each person controls what they share, and friends and groups alike are free and unlimited. The largest groups on Happenstance pool 380,000+ people.
Do I have to keep the map up to date?
No. Connected accounts refresh on their own, new correspondents and meetings join the map, and profiles update as people change jobs. Maintenance is why hand-built maps fail and why this one doesn't need any.
Is relationship mapping free?
In Happenstance, yes. The free plan is the whole product, with usage limits on chat and on web searches beyond your network. Pro is $30 a month, or $24 billed yearly, and it raises the limits. Introhive doesn't publish pricing; Village starts free with a $79 Pro tier; The Swarm is free for up to 10 connectors and $99 per company per month above that.
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