A few months ago, I was catching up with Josh Landy (co-founder, Figure 1) over coffee.

If you aren’t familiar with it, Figure 1 is a free, crowdsourced photosharing platform for healthcare professionals. Doctors, nurses and other professionals can share photos of medical conditions, radiological images (X-rays, CTs, MRIs) and other clinical data streams (e.g. ECGs) for collaborative care and medical education.

If you imagine the future, Figure 1 has the opportunity to not only build the world’s largest medical imaging library, but the largest social network for healthcare professionals – pretty neat.

Getting back to the story, I was seeking Josh’s help on a few items, and was wondering if he wouldn’t mind making a few introductions to his network.

“Happy to do so,” said Josh, “But I hope you’re okay that I do a double opt-in.”

“What’s that?” I said.

He replied: “Well, I know you want the intro – but I don’t know if the other person wants it, and I want to be respectful of their time. I’ll flip them a note, and if they agree to the intro, I’ll know you’ve both opted-in and I can safely make the intro.”

I completely flipped. Not because I was taken aback, but because it is a process I 100% agree with and follow, and I had yet to hear someone actually coin a term for it.

So Josh, if you’re reading – thanks for coining the double opt-in – it’s an elegant term that makes it incredibly easy to explain.

If the double opt-in process isn’t clear, let me explain:

If Person A wants Person B to introduce him to Person C, then Person B should privately ask Person C first – and only make the intro if Person C says yes.

This lets Person B know that both parties have “opted-in” for the intro.

The most awkward intro ever

I can’t count the number of times I’ve received introductions that I didn’t want. Building a startup is incredibly hard, and you have to eliminate distractions completely. Unwanted introductions are a distraction.

Here’s my favourite example (although believe me, it wasn’t enjoyable at the time). A year ago, a mutual friend made an email intro between myself and another entrepreneur. He actually didn’t ask either of us – he just blindly made the intro.

“Hey, I just wanted to connect you guys because you’re both in digital health and I think you could learn a lot from each other. I’ll leave it to you guys to connect!”

Now, the Josh of today wouldn’t stand for this, but the Josh of the past ended up having this call because he didn’t want to seem like a jerk. I’m guessing the other party felt the same way.

So we hop on this call, and the other party immediately says:

“Great, nice to meet you Josh. How can I help?”

Uhhh, what? Awkward. I didn’t ask for any help. Definitely brilliant on his part.

Of course, the Josh of today wouldn’t have gotten into this mess. And if I did, I would be transparent and clarify that there must have been some misunderstanding because I didn’t ask for the intro in the first place.

But, the Josh of yesterday wanted to avoid awkwardness, so he just started talking about his startup so the other party could look for ways to be helpful.

In short, it was a distraction and complete waste of time. Certainly, this was a more extreme version of a poorly made introduction (it was, in fact, the worst possible kind: a zero opt-in).

That said, I experience the one-sided opt-in often enough that I know it affects everyone – and I’m hoping this post helps people reconsider their practices for making intros.

What’s wrong with automatic introductions?

Don’t get me wrong – I love helping people and I’m happy to do so. BUT I really need a heads up so I can determine if:

1. I can actually be helpful
2. I have the time right now to help

The problem is that once the intro is made, it immediately creates an obligation on the person receiving the intro to accept.

What do I mean? Well, let’s look at my options once I receive an intro I don’t want:

1. Reject the introduction, in front of both parties – While I think there are kind ways to do this, it can still construe me as a jerk, embarrass my colleague for making the intro, or make the party seeking the intro feel bad.
2. Accept an introduction I don’t want – Wanting to avoid the above-mentioned consequences is what obligates many people to just accept the introduction. Of course, this makes me annoyed and it adds another distraction I shouldn’t have had in the first place.

In essence, the double opt-in removes any obligation for the person receiving the intro to actually accept the intro. It allows the person receiving the intro to safely reject the intro if it’s not the right fit or the right time, without making anyone feel embarrassed.

What’s a good way to do the double opt-in?

First, I won’t even ask for the intro unless I think there’s a reasonable chance my colleague would be interested.

Assuming I do, I’ll ask the person seeking the intro to write me a short email that asks me for the intro and includes a few sentences about who he is and what he wants.

This makes it incredibly easy for me to forward the email to my colleague with the short note “see below – interested?”, and take it from there.

It doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that. But this makes the intro process much more efficient for me, and it lets my colleague know I’m respectful of his or her time.

So there you go, the double opt-in. I urge you to give it a try. And kudos to Josh Landy for coming up with it.