Philosophy · September 2026

How I think about introductions

Most B2B outreach starts from the seller: who can we contact, how many, how fast. I start from the market: what just changed, for whom, and who is built to serve exactly that. The introduction is the product. Everything else — the reading, the qualifying, the timing — exists so that one email between two named counterparties is worth answering.

Demand is a circumstance, not a trait. A company is not “a prospect”; it is a company that just launched, just raised, just hired, just lost a partner. Those moments carry intent and budget with a date attached. So I read the market’s calendar every morning and hold a thin list of counterparties whose moment is live, instead of a thick list of logos that fit a profile.

Fewer, better-qualified conversations beat volume every time volume is measured on results.

Thin is deliberate. A roster of three firms I understand deeply routes better than a database of three hundred I don’t. When I qualify a counterparty I want the boring facts — who signs, at what size, through which door — because boring questions asked before an introduction are what make the introduction worth taking.

Both sides get protected. Nothing identifying leaves my desk before there is a fit worth naming: a brief travels anonymised, a counterparty is disclosed only when both sides have said yes to the shape of the thing. If either side already knows the other, there is no introduction to sell, and I say so.

And the market decides. My research gives me a point of view about where money is trying to move; replies, calls, and closed matches grade it. When the market disagrees with my thesis, the thesis changes.

— Diego Hurtado routes active deal opportunities and production mandates to specialist firms.