Show HN: How to solve the “can we meet for coffee” annoyance

Here’s the basic problem: People (including me…especially me) have emailed people who are more successful, well-known, connected, etc. and we all just ant a few minutes of their time to speak with them, show them a startup idea, land some connections, etc.

The busy people are bombarded everyday with the same requests.

So, the solution to to give, give, give before you get, right? Well most people fuck that up too. They ask, “can I help”, which signifies that they can’t offer any specific help and it also detracts more time from the already busy person.

So, how the hell can we fix this?

Simple: Plan your meeting at least a couple weeks in advance. Then if this person has a company, blog, twitter, whatever it is, make sure to study it, interact, share, etc. Maybe send them a creative gift that can add value (i.e. not some picture you painted of you and this person as stick figures in a park) but more related to their interests. When I ran a little streetwear company, I sent a $30 Garfield phone to Bobby Kim, owner of TheHundreds.com. Why? Because he mentioned on his blog that he couldn’t fine an authentic, mint condition Garfield phone and really wanted one. Boom. That was my in, and it worked!

So, be creative, be willing to spend time and maybe a few bucks, and see what happens. Most of all, don’t expect anything in return. To relate it to startups, conversion rates are never 100%, but getting a few to bite here and there is all you need.

Oh yeah, and go into the meeting with a specific purpose. Sounds dumb, but I’ve actually met with people for no fucking reason at all and didn’t even realize it until the awkwardness of the meeting had fizzled over to me.