IntroNet: platform to make and track introductions from Mike Krupit

As rewarding as it can be, the act of making introductions can still be cumbersome. It can be a mess of emails, links and very little in the way of quantifying the impact you might hope your introduction would offer.

That’s the focus of IntroNet, a new service to connect and track introductions from serial entrepreneur Mike Krupit. He should know the importance, since he could have used his own service when meeting his cofounder, a tech founder from upstate New York.

“Martin Babinec and I met last summer as a result of an introduction from Carl Grant at a law firm in DC. I was introduced to Carl by Chris Mengel here in Philly and I met Chris as a result of an introduction from Chris DiFonzo who I originally met through [Philly Startup Leaders],” he said.

Krupit is CEO, working with founding CTO Nick Hilem, who was most recently with Old City’s Artisan Mobile and the team is adding a community manager. Babinec is financing the launch. Krupit and Babinec were both working on other projects at the time and found that they had a lot of similar ideas.

The near-term goal is grow a user base — “enough traction to be able to validate our hypotheses and make better business decisions,” said Krupit. Depending on how usage grows, Krupit thinks revenue might come from a freemium model, an enterprise level for larger groups and white label solutions to support CRM or other referral systems.

“Startup communities like Philadelphia have been focused on building density, which is a way to increase collisions and we know that a lot of good comes from having collisions in our community,” said Krupit.

How does it work?

• Sign up for the free service.
• Import your email contacts.
• Choose someone to connect with someone else
• Tie their Linkedin accounts for further context.
• Give a reason for the introduction via the platform.

What do you get in return? Data and tracking on things like if your intro was opened, when and how often it was and other followup.

Krupit believes the spontaneity of such a platform will make it easier to help others make connections in common places as well.

“If you happen to bump into a friend at a coffee shop and you say ‘I’ve been meaning to introduce you to someone I know’, you can now take out your phone to make the introduction, do it on the spot, and you’ve just increased the chances of a very positive relationship being made,” he said.

As for Krupit’s cofounder, Babinec, who founded and took public cloud-based payroll processor TriNet,  has been focused on building startup communities throughout the world including solidifying his own community in upstate New York.

Krupit was last building a startup consulting practice called Trajectify and has continued to grow his Bootstrappers Breakfast locally. This role as startup CEO fits Krupit, who has said he is better at building a business than coming up with an idea.

“There are a lot of guys who have ideas but can’t make a company,” he said last year. “I’m comfortable with everything else and that’s something there’s a need for.”