Direct answer: define the target first, identify people you directly know inside or adjacent to it, then rank those relationships by history, strength, role relevance and current context. Do not treat a mutual-looking relationship as a proven introduction path unless the underlying data actually contains that edge.

1. Start with the destination.

Specify the company, investor category, buyer role, industry or strategic target. The more concrete the destination, the more useful relationship relevance becomes.

2. Separate direct relationship access from inferred proximity.

If you already know someone at the target company, that is direct relationship access. If you know several people whose employers, roles or domains place them near the objective, that is useful context. It is not the same as proving that Person A knows Person B.

3. Understand the LinkedIn-export boundary.

A LinkedIn export is a star graph: it includes your edge to each connection, not the edges between your connections. It therefore cannot honestly produce a mutual-connection count, a multi-hop path such as “You → Mark → Sarah,” or an introduction probability to another individual.

What can be shown honestly?

Your direct relationship to someone relevant, your credible relationships inside a target employer, employer and role coverage, people whose own history spans useful domains, and—when multiple snapshots exist—changes that created new organizational reach.

4. Rank the relationship you actually own.

For every person you may approach, evaluate the evidence behind your relationship: interaction history, recency, reciprocity, duration, shared context, recommendations and user verification. The appropriate question is whether you have enough standing to contact or ask that person—not how theoretically connected they might be.

5. Use organizational coverage before guessing at introductions.

If a target company contains several people you know across different functions or seniority levels, RelationshipsIQ can show that coverage. That may reveal a strong direct route, a relationship owner worth consulting, or a gap in the account strategy without claiming that those people know one another.

6. Reconnect or give first when the relationship requires it.

A strategically relevant person is not automatically ready for an ask. Relationship Weather and Reciprocity can indicate that a strong relationship needs warming, that the right first action is simply to reconnect, or that you are positioned to offer value before requesting anything.

For investors, buyers and target companies

The logic is the same across goals: find the relationships you truly own, evaluate how close they are to the objective, inspect organizational coverage and gaps, and choose the next move that the evidence supports. If the missing relationship does not exist, Network Runway should say so rather than fabricate a bridge.