Every few weeks one of the founders of K9 Ventures’ portfolio companies forward over an email they’ve received from a “Partner” at a VC firm. And every time I go through the same ritual, explaining to the founder when to respond, when not to respond, and how to respond to such emails. So I figured I would just explain myself in this blog post and then that way, I’ll save myself time by just sending them a link to this post. Plus, it may be helpful to founders elsewhere, which is always a big plus.

Before you go any further, go read this post: Partner, Partner, Partner. The tl;dr version of that post is: Don’t be fooled by the titles VC firms give to the people they employ. Several big firms have adopted the (IMHO ridiculous) practice of calling everyone a Partner, making it more confusing for founders to know who they are talking to. This is done intentionally, as otherwise the junior people in the firm have a tough time getting adequate attention from some founders.

Now, what do you do when you get an email from a VC firm, that says something like:

Dear <Founder’s Name>,

We recently came across your company in {TechCrunch | Term Sheet | StrictlyVC}. Saw that you’ve raised a seed round and are building a AI platform for chatbots.

We at <firm name> are strong believers in AI and also think that chatbots are going to be HUGE. We’ve already invested in several companies that use AI for everything from dating, to e-commerce, to customizing your favorite taco.

We know you just raised a round already, but we’d love to get to know you better and introduce our firm. 

Can we schedule an introductory call this week?

Partner

<Firm Name>

In some cases they will use the title of Partner, in other cases, there will be no title. No matter how flattering the email, just remember that in 99 out of 100 such emails are a complete and utter waste of your time. And you will likely only receive 20 at most, so loosely statistically speaking, you shouldn’t waste your time on any of these!

Why does this happen? 

This happens because several VC firms believe that they need “market intelligence” on sectors. So they hire a bunch of recent college grads, stick them in a room, and tell them to collect information on early stage companies in different sectors, and populate their databases with this information.

I’m guessing these people are judged on how many companies they can reach out to and collect information from. But, that’s all they’re doing: they’re collecting information. The chance that it will go anywhere is so remote, that it’s almost guaranteed to be a waste of your time.

As a founder your time and what you choose to spend it on is one of the most important assets your company has. You’re better off spending those 30 minutes on building your product, trying to get a new customer, recruiting the next key employee, figuring out your pricing/business model, and a host of other things. Serving as a free consultant for some junior associate at a VC firm that has a brand name attached to it does nothing for you — other than perhaps stroke your ego that you brand-name firm was interested in your fledgling startup.

The most egregious example of this kind of behavior that I have seen come from firms who use this process for doing competitive diligence — i.e. when a partner in their firm is talking to a company in a space, and then asks one of their associates to dig up information on other companies in that space. The associate then starts calling upon all the other companies in the space to try and talk to their founders and CEOs about the space. There’s no better way for them to collect this “market intelligence,” but in my view it is also unethical. But it happens. And I’ve seen it happen to companies in the K9 ventures portfolio.

How should you respond? 

First, look at who the email is coming from and dig up their LinkedIn profile. Check what the person’s background is. How long have they been at the firm they’re emailing you from? Does their background look credible enough to really be a decision making partner at the firm? Do *not* pay any attention to the title they use in the email, or the title that appears on the firms website. Those can both be misleading and as puffed up as a Frigatebird.

In most cases that simple check should be enough to determine what you need to do. But if you have any doubt, then email some of your existing investors and advisors to find out if any of them have more information about the firm or the person. It is highly likely that they know some of the top partners at the firm and could either introduce you directly at the right time (when you’re ready), or they know whether or not this firm/person is a good match for your company. I tell all K9 founders to feel free to forward such emails to me and I can give them a quick sanity check on it.

If the person reaching out is a genuine decision-making partner, who has active interest in your space, then respond right away, take the call or set up the meeting. But, if the person is not a decision-making partner you are better of not responding. Yup, you read that right, your best option in this situation is to not respond.

If you respond and say yes to the call or the meeting, you will be wasting your time, giving up intelligence and information about your space (sometimes you may think that this is general knowledge and everyone knows this already, but you’ll be surprised that what you think is common sense only came to you after you’ve been immersed in your space for years!)

If you respond and say, “Sorry, but we’re too busy to chat right now,” or, “We don’t want to engage with anyone who is not a partner,” then you’ll only succeed in pissing off someone at the firm. It’s a no win situation. And worse yet, even the most innocuous response you send will then get logged in their database — creating an indelible record of your action. So if you ever engage with the firm in the future, it will come up in the conversation. Or worse yet, in some cases firms will say that yeah, we looked at that company and passed. (Really!)

I know it feels rude to not respond, but the only winning move is not to play (that’s an awesome reference from one of my favorite movies: WarGames). That way you maintain plausible deniability about having ever engaged with the firm, you don’t waste your time, and don’t get blackballed.

So the next time you you receive an email from a VC firm that you’re not expecting, remember that most such emails are fishing expeditions, and your best course of action is to take no action. Move on and keep building your company.

You can follow me on Twitter at @ManuKumar or @K9Ventures for just the K9 Ventures related tweets. K9 Ventures is also on Facebook and Google+.