A person messaged me on LinkedIn recently about investing in Icebreaker, from a company claiming to manage a few billion dollars in assets.

I normally ignore cold outreach entirely as it's rarely worth the effort to verify, but the claim of a few billion in AUM piqued my curiosity.

We had no mutual connections, and their company website looked like it was built in 2007. I started asking myself that classic question: "Is this legit?"

I asked them to verify an email address on Icebreaker and they did – good start.

Then a second person emailed me from the same company domain, but something still felt off. They scheduled a meeting without confirming my availability and sent a Zoom link. I declined and called the phone number listed on their website instead.

The receptionist answered. I asked if she could verify this person worked there.

"I think so, but I'm not sure. Email us if you need more info."

I emailed. No response.

As a last effort, I checked the company's LinkedIn page and found an employee with mutual connections. When I asked my mutual if he knew the company or the person, he said, "No, actually. I just mass-connect on LinkedIn."

I can hardly blame him, but it was another dead end.

In total: a few emails, a phone call, a message to a friend, and 30 minutes spent.

Zero verification.

I canceled the meeting, I still don't know if they're legitimate, and now I have a lower opinion of their company than when I started.

This sort of cold outreach scenario happens to me at least three times a week, although I usually don't pursue it this deeply.

The frequency of this experience shows two things:

Traditional trust signals are breaking down.

Email domains can be spoofed, websites can be faked, and phone numbers can be redirected. Even the receptionist at the actual company couldn't confirm their own employee on a phone call. The burden of verification falls entirely on the recipient, and it's only getting harder.

LinkedIn mutuals are losing meaning.

My mutual couldn't vouch for his connection because he doesn't actually know them. He simply accepts any connection request. A LinkedIn connection is now more akin to an Instagram follow, an entirely digital relationship with no previous relational anchor, and thereby a much less useful signal than it used to be.

Someone in my extended network who worked directly with someone at this company and could give me trusted insight.

Better yet: data surfaced in the original outreach message itself – an alert showing that my mutual connection has never actually met this person, saving me the wasted time entirely.

There's no good way to access this information today.

That's what we're building at Icebreaker: getting semi-private relationship data into trusted environments, where it can inform decisions at the moment you need it most, like when someone cold emails you about investing in your company.

Uncover trusted relationships at icebreaker.xyz

A person messaged me on LinkedIn recently about investing in Icebreaker, from a company claiming to manage a few billion dollars in assets.

I normally ignore cold outreach entirely as it's rarely worth the effort to verify, but the claim of a few billion in AUM piqued my curiosity.

We had no mutual connections, and their company website looked like it was built in 2007. I started asking myself that classic question: "Is this legit?"

I asked them to verify an email address on Icebreaker and they did – good start.

Then a second person emailed me from the same company domain, but something still felt off. They scheduled a meeting without confirming my availability and sent a Zoom link. I declined and called the phone number listed on their website instead.

The receptionist answered. I asked if she could verify this person worked there.

"I think so, but I'm not sure. Email us if you need more info."

I emailed. No response.

As a last effort, I checked the company's LinkedIn page and found an employee with mutual connections. When I asked my mutual if he knew the company or the person, he said, "No, actually. I just mass-connect on LinkedIn."

I can hardly blame him, but it was another dead end.

In total: a few emails, a phone call, a message to a friend, and 30 minutes spent.

Zero verification.

I canceled the meeting, I still don't know if they're legitimate, and now I have a lower opinion of their company than when I started.

This sort of cold outreach scenario happens to me at least three times a week, although I usually don't pursue it this deeply.

The frequency of this experience shows two things:

Traditional trust signals are breaking down.

Email domains can be spoofed, websites can be faked, and phone numbers can be redirected. Even the receptionist at the actual company couldn't confirm their own employee on a phone call. The burden of verification falls entirely on the recipient, and it's only getting harder.

LinkedIn mutuals are losing meaning.

My mutual couldn't vouch for his connection because he doesn't actually know them. He simply accepts any connection request. A LinkedIn connection is now more akin to an Instagram follow, an entirely digital relationship with no previous relational anchor, and thereby a much less useful signal than it used to be.

Someone in my extended network who worked directly with someone at this company and could give me trusted insight.

Better yet: data surfaced in the original outreach message itself – an alert showing that my mutual connection has never actually met this person, saving me the wasted time entirely.

There's no good way to access this information today.

That's what we're building at Icebreaker: getting semi-private relationship data into trusted environments, where it can inform decisions at the moment you need it most, like when someone cold emails you about investing in your company.

Uncover trusted relationships at icebreaker.xyz