Networking, who with and why.
Introduction
In addition to having an amazing product, founders need to ensure that they know the right people. Anduril, in addition to having great drones have close relationships with DoD contractors. Brian Chesky had good relationships with his users, letting customers Airbnb in his own home. These companies are successful because of the relationships that they have with different people, successful startups need to have good relationships with Engineers, VCs + UHNW, connectors ad users in order to succeed.
What is the aim?
Each different network provides a different benefit,
Knowing engineers allows founders to have a network of highly skilled people that can work on different projects. Referrals are hugely important and the more engineers you know the more you can help by connecting them to each other to succeed in their projects.
Knowing VCs + UHNWs enables founders to have access to capital. Good relationships with VCs go a long way, trust forms a big part of fundraising and the more VCs you have a good relationship with the more likely it is that you will be able to guarantee funding for your company
Knowing connectors enables founders to get closer to people outside their network, these sorts of relationships evolve from warm introductions to others. Knowing people who are well connected can make a founder’s life easier; increasing access to those which you aren’t necessarily close to yet.
Connecting with users is not really networking but important relationships to have nonetheless, they allow founders to actually see if their product is valuable or not. Engaging with users give founders a direct line of sight of what they need to do and how they are going to achieve it, it cannot be avoided.
Knowing engineers
Startups require people who are able to build out the product that you intend to sell, but how do you find talented engineers? Academic institutions are a good place to start when trying to locate talented engineers, schools such as Stanford, MIT, Havard, Oxford & Cambridge and their departmental websites, searching for PhD students who would be fit for the job. In addition to this, going to hackathons and other events which increase your chance of meeting talented people.
What do you do once you have met them? Help them is the answer, you should try to find what it is they are struggling to achieve and make their lives easier, ask them how you can be of use, who can you introduce them to? This enables you to have a positive impact on their project in addition to building and strengthening your relationship with them.
Compounding your network is super important, momentum builds momentum and creates new opportunities with new ways of helping others and solving problems, it is important to continue building these relationships and maintain a good relationship with everyone.
Knowing VCs & UHNW
Unless a you decide to bootstrap, every company will need some sort of funding to get the gears turning. Having access to capital is therefore very important! In the same way therefore that you need to find engineers you need to also find VCs & UHNW to connect with. Tier 1 VCs do not go to networking events as much as other VC funds, it is important therefore to be very proactive when trying to build relationships with tier 1 Venture Capitalists, try to send them emails or organise meetings with them, ask for introductions from other people that you are connected with to introduce you to these VC funds.
Now what needs to happen? You need to keep them in the loop, do not annoy them, but try to regularly update them on your projects and try to also help them out, they might be looking for a certain engineer or are interested in a space, try to introduce them to someone in that space, this builds and strengthens your relationship with them. Invite VCs and UHNW people to events that you organise where they can meet other engineers and talented people. Everyone in your network will begin to associate you at the centre of these different networks.
By keeping investors updated and well connected, they will begin to trust and know you better, if you seek funding you may have a higher chance of getting what you want, of course your pitch still has to be good.
Knowing well connected people
These people can act as shortcuts, if you are struggling to find people from the other networking categories, connectors are a great way to get introductions to people you want to meet. Additionally, a mutual connecting people also means that you will not have to worry about whether the person you are meeting is good or not, if you trust your friend’s taste then they are likely to be good!
Most interactions go both ways however, even if it doesn’t you should always aim to help the other person regardless. In fact the first thing you should ask them is to see how you can best help them with whatever they need.
Connecting with users
Users perhaps offer the most valuable thing to founders, which is feedback. Feedback enables users to share what they are feeling, what is good about the product and what is bad about the solution you are trying to provide. The most important resource to founders is time, you need to ensure that you are allocating your time to the most important task at hand and dedicating time to users is a must and should not be avoided.
Ensure that you have a system where users can reach you if needs be and decide upon a metric that tests whether you are engaging and responding to their feedback, this is not to suggest that you should implement every piece of change, but rather look for trends, try to spot real important issues within your solution that you can change.
In the early stages especially when figuring out whether you have achieved an MVP or not, user engagement is a perfect way of knowing what needs to be done and then iterating your solution till it is better than what it was before.
Conclusion
All aspects of networking are equally important, all of them support your company in a different way and founders should ensure that they have these networks in place or if not have a system in place where they can infiltrate these networks if need be. Maintain and water these networks, they all need the right amount of attention for them to grow and become useful. The most important aspect of relationships is also figuring out how you can help them, aim for this question to begin your conversation with them and end it as well.