Warm introductions
The person who can introduce you is somebody who already knows you both. Happenstance works out who that is, from every relationship in the accounts you connect and the ones your friends and groups share with you.
By Jerry Feng, Growth at Happenstance. Updated August 28, 2026.
Continue with GoogleThe short version
A warm introduction is an introduction to someone you want to meet, made by a person who knows you both. Happenstance finds who can make it: connect Gmail, Outlook, Google Calendar, Google Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram, and it maps every relationship you have, then the ones your friends and groups share with you. Ask "who can introduce me to someone at Stripe?" and you get the people who can, ranked by how well you know them and how well they know the other side. Free, 500,000+ users.
How Happenstance finds the path
Connect your accounts. Happenstance reads who you email and how often (headers only, never content), who sits in meetings with you, who you're connected to, who you follow, and who's in your Google Contacts. That's the first-degree graph, and it's built from things that happened rather than from two people having overlapped at the same employer.
Then friends and groups extend it. A friend is someone who agreed to share networks with you, in both directions. A group is a team, a fund, a cohort or a community that pooled its members' networks into one searchable place. Together they give you the second degree: people you don't know, reachable through someone who does.
Ask in plain English. “Who can introduce me to someone at Stripe?” returns everyone who can, with the route for each: direct, through a friend, or through a group. Paths are ranked by the strength of the relationship on both ends, so you see not only who could introduce you but who should.
Who can introduce me to someone at Stripe?
Example11 people at Stripe are reachable through your network; Alex and Pieter hold the strongest ties.
| Person | Mutuals |
|---|---|
ZF Zoe FitzgeraldSecurity Engineer at Stripe | |
FR Felix RothResearch Engineer at Stripe | |
AO Amara OkekeEngineering Manager at Stripe |
Three kinds of path
Direct: you know them. Through a friend: someone who shares their network with you knows them. Through a group: a member of a team or community you joined knows them. Every result says which.
“How am I connected to this person?”
Ranked on both sides
An introducer who knows you well but barely knows the target is a weak path. Happenstance scores both links from the evidence, so the person at the top is the one whose word will land.
“What is my strongest path to this investor?”
One graph from seven accounts
Gmail, Outlook, Google Calendar, Google Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. Each account adds people and proof of how well you know them.
“Which of my friends knows partners at Accel?”
Why inferred paths go cold
Some tools in this category build their graph from public records: two people worked at the same company in the same years, so the software calls it a tie and offers it as a path. Sometimes that's exactly what it is. Often the two never met, and you find out after you've spent the favor. Only introducers who demonstrably know the target get proposed, which is why those routes turn into meetings. The trade is coverage: if nobody in your network, your friends' networks or your groups knows the target, there's no route, and the answer says so plainly.
The full set of tools, including when a pre-built graph or a firm CRM is the better buy, is in the warm introduction software guide.
What to ask, by situation
- Raising a round
- “Who can introduce me to a partner at Benchmark?” Happenstance for fundraising
- Opening an account
- “Who on my team knows anyone in sales leadership at Datadog?” Happenstance for sales
- Getting a referral instead of applying cold
- “Who do I know at Figma, and who knows them well?” Happenstance for job seekers
- Hiring someone the team can vouch for
- “Which of my friends knows a staff engineer at Vercel?” Happenstance for recruiting
500,000+ people use Happenstance. The largest groups on it pool 380,000+ people into one searchable network, and groups are free and unlimited.
When another warm intro tool fits better
Consider Village only if
- You want paths inferred from public work and education history, beyond the people you or your team have met
- Pro is $79 a month and the free plan is metered at 100 credits with 10 results per AI search; team pooling is a $149 a month Business feature plus $19 per collaborator
Consider Affinity only if
- You're a private capital firm buying a CRM of record with a deal pipeline, and the warm-path scoring rides along
- Essential is $2,000 per user per year, sales-led, with no free tier or self-serve trial
Consider Connect The Dots only if
- You are a sales team inside Salesforce or HubSpot and want AI-drafted intro emails an executive approves and sends
- Free is 10 AI searches a month; Professional is $20 a month billed annually, $25 month-to-month; calendar sync is listed as coming soon, and there are no social accounts
Choose Happenstance if
- You want every proposed introducer to be someone who knows the target, with the evidence shown
- You're one person, or a team that would rather pool networks in a free group than buy seats
Village, Affinity and Connect The Dots details from village.ai, affinity.co and ctd.ai public pages.
What Happenstance reads to find a path
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 a warm introduction?
A warm introduction is when someone who knows you both introduces you to a person you want to meet. The introducer's credibility transfers to you, which is why a warm intro gets a reply where a cold email does not. The message is the easy part; finding out who can make the introduction is the hard one.
How does Happenstance find warm introduction paths?
It builds a graph from relationships that happened: who you email and how often (headers only, never content), who you meet, who you're connected to and who you follow, across seven connected accounts. Friends and groups add the networks other people chose to share with you. When you ask for a path to a person or a company, every route is ranked by relationship strength on both sides, so you spend the ask on the person whose word carries weight.
How do I ask for a warm introduction?
Ask one person and give them a two-line note they can forward. Say who you want to meet, why them, and what you want to get out of the meeting. A double opt-in intro, where the introducer checks with the other person first, is the polite default and the one most investors expect.
What if the person I want to meet isn't in my network?
Then there's no warm path yet, and Happenstance says so. Two things help: joining a group pools its members' networks with yours, and web search beyond your network finds the person so you can see who around them you do know.
Does it work for a team?
Yes. A group pools every member's connections into one searchable network, and sharing is always mutual. A founding team, a fund, an alumni community or a sales team can ask "who on our side knows someone at Datadog?" and get the path through whichever member has it. Groups are free and unlimited; the largest make 380,000+ people searchable.
Is it free?
Yes. The free plan is the whole product, Sidedoor included, with unlimited connected accounts, friends and groups, and usage limits on chat and on web searches beyond your network. Pro is $30 per month, or $24 billed yearly, and it raises the limits.
How is this different from mutual connections on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn shows the people you both connected with on LinkedIn, with no sense of how well either of you knows them. Happenstance shows the people you share across email, calendar, social accounts and Google Contacts, ranked by strength of tie, and adds paths through friends and groups. The college friend who never joined LinkedIn is still in the results.
Does Happenstance send the introduction for me?
It finds the path, shows you the evidence behind it, and drafts the ask when you want it to: one forwardable paragraph that you send yourself. Connect The Dots and Village draft and send intro emails on your behalf.
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