A very nice story with a perfect example of how 1-2-1 targeting can really pay dividends. I read this through the lens of someone reads a lot about account-based marketing, but the below instance is more a case of 'account-based fund-raising' if such a thing exists (I know it doesn't really).

The principle is the same. Most people in B2B don't want to engage millions of people everyday, there's often only a handful of people they really care about influencing. In this case, three students from Keble College, Oxford (my former employer by the way!) were keen to raise seed capital for their storage startup, which they neatly nutshell as 'airbnb for left luggage'.

These three entrepreneurs were unconvinced of accelerators programmes and decided to directly target 1-2-1 the gorilla in their field (who just so happened to be the CEO of Big Yellow Storage). They very quickly found themselves with a succinct and interested reply, which gave rise to a pitch and a lot of helpful advice from someone who'd been around the block a few times and seemingly knew the right steps for these three to take to help them on their way.

My take home

: whether you're marketing a product or raising capital, I recommend you start by having: 

(i) 

a clear idea of who your audience is (even if it's a market of one) 

(ii) 

an effective means of delivering your message to them.