Ask HN: Isn't networking usually a waste of time? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Isn't networking usually a waste of time?

68 pointsasadlionpk72 comments

There are so many 'startup' networking events everywhere now. But shouldn't the founders be home working on their product than "connecting the dots" with mediocre startup wannabes? Has anyone found them of any use?

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This seems relevant, an anecdote from Richard Hamming's "You and Your Research" [0]. Take it as you will.

> Another trait, it took me a while to notice. I noticed the following facts about people who work with the door open or the door closed. I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you don't know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard work you do is sort of tangential in importance. He who works with the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might be important. Now I cannot prove the cause and effect sequence because you might say, ``The closed door is symbolic of a closed mind.'' I don't know. But I can say there is a pretty good correlation between those who work with the doors open and those who ultimately do important things, although people who work with doors closed often work harder. Somehow they seem to work on slightly the wrong thing - not much, but enough that they miss fame.

(Edit: Originally, incorrectly thought this was from Feynman)

[0] http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html

The author appears to be Richard Hamming, not Feynman.

Whoops! I thought it was Feynman, searched that, and pulled the first response without reading more closely. Totally my mistake!

Is it still as useful now that we know its not Feynman? :)

Hamming is an important figure in history as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hamming

Hamming not Feynman

Ouch. This is one of those comments that hits a little close to home.

It's a great thought.

But it must be corrected to the reality that Hamming was working at AT&T labs at their peak productivity times. Networking certainly is extremely important, the question is: Is networking with the people on a networking event usefull at all? Because not all people are equal.

No not all people or networking events are equal, but unless you attend the events or meet people you aren't going to know the difference from a distance.

I agree with that correction, but it feels like a matter of severity over one of form. Keeping yourself open to the distraction of outside ideas helps you to have the "pulse" of the industry, of course. The question is a matter of balacing risks, expenditure, and capacity building: do you have quality enough signal in your networks to be able to reliably gain from participating in them?

This is what I call a perfect answer.

Seems to me like the 80/20 paradox:

The "tangential stuff" is the essential 20% of the business that takes 80% of the effort to implement.

The stuff "the world is" is what you see and get celebrated for - which looks like 80% but takes actually only 20% of the competence and energy to realize.

This is why those talking the most - those who make the big plans and work out the "strategies" make the most money and the fastest career - but the engineers who are doing the actual work - who make those ideas real do not get much credit.

The problem is you never know who's the mediocre startup wannabe and who's the connection who's gonna help you score seed funding, a round investment, a big client or your much-needed-but-you-dont-know-it-yet pivot.

Sure, 99% people you meet will not help your startup grow - but you go out for these events for the 1% which. As a tip - it's crucial to __prepare__:

- Always check in advance who is attending - Spot people who are relevant to what you're doing - Actively take steps to meet those people and engage with them - Come with an agenda - ask yourself "what is my end goal interacting with this person".

If you just randomly come to events unprepared you usually gain much less than if you prepare just 20 minutes in advance. I'm always baffled at how many people come unprepared and have no idea who attends the events they come to and why.

Likewise, be very selective in what you choose to go to. I find "networking events" are often a waste of time, but making friends with somebody you know has something offer and, say, going out with them and their friends, can have a high ROI indeed.

General rule: the more exclusive the event, with 1-on-1 hang-out being the most exclusive and Meetup.com being least exclusive, the better.

But, yeah, otherwise, (1) be a shark (at first) and (2) don't forget that real networking is based on actual friendship / respect.

But also remember that your goal is to find people who are good to work with, who will be the right people to know in 10 years, not just the right people to know now. If you are early in your career, don't spend all your time chasing "relevant" people who have already made it. Spend some time with your peers who are interesting and may well become the next generation of relevant people.

C.S. Lewis said this more eloquently in _The Inner Ring_ http://www.lewissociety.org/innerring.php

I attended the "Startup Weekend" in Chicago last year. Theme was 'Startup for Education'.

I met several mentors who have already traveled the startup path, and they guided us, and gave us their precious advice. These mentors are people who live, breathe and have experienced what you intend to do for next few years.

Their 5 minutes with you is more worth than hours with your bar buddy or highschool friend as far as startup advice/direction is concerned.

I partnered with a guy in that startup weekend who had this "idea" in his mind since few years. That guy has thought about this idea from every possible direction for months/years. But it was still childish. No where close to what VCs would love to see them pitched. No where close to what enterprise decision makers will buy. No where close to getting the user base for his B2B model.

Then the meeting with Mentors happened. Idea went from primitive to slightly more focused. Another mentor shaped the idea from selling and making money perspective. Third mentor helped prepare the pitch and perspective on what VCs/Judges would question and how to address them.

The idea went from unpolished to very fine sellable/workable idea which would make money in enterprise space if executed successfully. All that with just 15 minutes of time with each mentor.

Its important to hang out with people who are way smarter than you and in the same space where you want to excel and these events provide you with that opportunity.

As always overdoing anything is not fruitful.

I'd like to +1 the "Their 5 minutes with you is more worth than hours with your bar buddy" but you have to realize that with Startup Weekend* - unlike most of these startup event - there's a filter function. The organizers of SW have gone out and tried to recruit a set of people with different skills who have track records accomplishing things.

* Disclosure: I've been an organizer for Startup Weekend Austin for the past few years and a mentor at those and many others.

You were actually the organizer of the startup weekend which got me launched into tech about 3 years ago. Thank you! Sometimes the value of the experience isn't even the direct interaction with mentors but putting yourself in an environment where you can see them operating and solving problems. It osmoses and leaves an impact.

That's awesome and great to hear.

I firmly believe that the weekend itself is just a vehicle, not the goal. I don't care of zero businesses or even ideas come out. At the end of it, you just spent 48+ hours with people who are passionate and willing to work hard to get something done.

And even if you failed, you met some people, had a few meals, and lost a weekend.. not a job or livelihood.

In chemistry they say "six months in the lab can save you two hours in the library." Learning from other people's mistakes, whether they are writing them down or recounting them in person, is super valuable.

What makes you think you're not a "mediocre startup wannabe"? If everyone but you in the room looks mediocre the chances are that you are too, and just deluded about it. Don't worry, everyone else in the room probably is too.

There's a lot to learn when talking to others who are doing something similar to you. You'll hopefully learn from their mistakes and not make the same ones yourself. Also, if you're doing it right, it's fun.

Obviously if you do nothing but go to networking events you'll never get anything done, but there's a balance.

> "What makes you think you're not a "mediocre startup wannabe"? If everyone but you in the room looks mediocre the chances are that you are too, and just deluded about it. Don't worry, everyone else in the room probably is too."

I'm glad not to be the only one who got frustrated at OP's words. People easily notice this kind of attitude. They may not tell straight in your face, but will avoid you and keep you away from good opportunities. Hopefully it's not serial.

Labeling someone as a 'mediocre startup wannabe' is a waste of time. Meeting new people definitely has value and their ability as an entrepreneur is no measure of how useful they can be to your own business. Successful people figure out how to use other peoples strengths to their advantage while minimizing their weaknesses.

Ofcourse it has value. Meeting anyone has some value to it. But all these incubators encourage such networking events. I would honestly consider replacing them all with 'Go-make-your-product' event somehow. Wouldn't that be significantly more beneficial?

Both tend to have diminishing returns when shooting in he dark.

Also, I prefer to meet new people through my existing network through intros and friend of friends rather than startup network events.

>> Meeting anyone has some value to it.

I'm sure we've all met that guy who might legitimately have a mental problem. You can usually tell early on because their idea is something really out-there. I'm talking on the order of "make an engine that works by blasting lightning out of the back", as just one example from my own experience.

The problem is that they tend to not know the difference between polite chit-chat and real interest, so any level of interaction above straight-up ignoring them makes you permanently their "buddy".

I'm sympathetic to their plight and I want to be polite and not cut people completely out of the conversation. They don't deserve to be treated poorly, they don't deserve to be ridiculed. But I'm also not a charity or a community outreach program for people with high-functioning autism. I'm not there to be their babysitter so everyone else at the event can get their worth out of it. I'm there for the event.

I don't know what it's like for you in SV, maybe you have better filters for these kinds of people, but out here on the east coast, there has been at least one in almost every meetup I've been to.

Experienced this last week. Felt trapped and didn't know how to politely get away.

It's been a problem often enough that I've had to learn how to just walk away. Say something like, "thanks, good bye" if you can't just walk away. They don't know the difference between polite chit-chat and real interest, and they don't know the difference between politely and rudely ending the conversation, which mostly works to your advantage. They might make a scene, but unfortunately you sometimes lose the little gambles of life.

I really like it when the events include a brief, round-circle intro period. Some general behavioral signs that I try to avoid:

1) bodily or facial ticks, like hand contortions.

2) obvious poor hygiene, like greasy, dandruffy hair or food stains around the mouth or on the shirt, very wrinkled clothing, shirt only half tucked.

3) very bad fashion sense, i.e. dirty sneakers with khaki pants (AKA The Ugliest Pants Known to Man) and a polo shirt (AKA The Ugliest Shirt Known to Man), or cargo shorts (pulled up too high) and conference swag t-shirt at an event where everyone else is wearing dress shirts and jeans.

3) lack of direct eye contact when speaking.

4) a sense of near-panic (different than garden-variety nervousness, you get the feeling this person is going to bolt at any second if someone says something wrong) when speaking.

5) either talks far too loudly or far too quietly for the situation.

6) (as previously mentioned) a project idea that verges on fantasy.

7) Near-complete lack of useful skills, or mentions attending "code bootcamp" to "get into programming". This applies to anyone, even normal people who pass all of the previous points, just to avoid a different type of time-burglar.

I know this sounds insensitive and discriminatory, but... yeah, it's discriminatory. That's the point. I'm trying to discriminate between people who will completely waste my time and those who won't.

"Meeting anyone has some value to it."

Indeed. What is often forgotten, is that it also has an associated cost. Sometimes that cost can turn out to be a lot higher than we expect.

> Meeting new people definitely has value and their ability as an entrepreneur is no measure of how useful they can be to your own business.

The problem is that people have different incentives. Some people want to build a great product, and some people want to get VC funding and sell for tons of money. Silicon Valley has taught me that these two incentives are surprisingly not aligned.

With the low barrier to entry for tech products and the millions of VC funding being thrown around, the amount of "wantrepreneurs" has been steadily increasing, and therefore it's reasonable to be cautious about networking.

True, the average person found at the networking event will likely be seeking a VC funding followed by an exit.

> Meeting new people definitely has value and their ability as an entrepreneur is no measure of how useful they can be to your own business.

I absolutely agree with this. I do a lot of freelance content marketing/SM work and networking and meeting people is a huge part of building my business - the more people I know, the more we can connect each other with other people.

You don't fish from your house, and you don't fish at the clubhouse, you have to go to the pond to catch a fish.

That is to say, if all you do is work on your thing, you're not finding customers, so you need to do something other than working. If you're in a more service-oriented field, networking is one of the easier ways of finding customers (in that, it's probably the only way that reliably works. You'll probably not find many customers just through online means, and they will probably be bad customers at that.)

I understand your frustration with these sorts of networking events, but it's not networking that is the problem, it's the type of event that you're trying to do it at that is wrong. You're not going to find customers among a group of other starving startup founders. They don't have any money and they won't be interested in using your thing anyway.

You have to get out of your comfort zone and go somewhere where there aren't any people like you. That's the entire point. If they were like you, they wouldn't hire you, they'd just do it themselves. If you were like them, they wouldn't hire you, as you wouldn't provide anything different than they already know.

So don't go to startup networking events. Go to other industry's conferences.

All of the best leads I've had as an independent developer have come from folks I met briefly at networking events or on other contracts.

As a rather introverted person, it's hard for me to go to a lot of these, but going to ones where there's interesting things being discussed either in tech or business has been worthwhile. One of the big lessons I've learned is that everyone's startup is mediocre until it turns out not to be. Being polite and helping folks at these things have helped me more than assuming folks are wannabes.

As an introvert myself. I felt exactly this at the recent YC Startup School BBQ. Every person in the room had interesting things to tell.

It comes down to two things:

1: Pick your networking events carefully 2: Get good at walking away from clowns 3: Learn to work the room.

I can't emphasize the comment about clowns highly enough. These are the people who give you a good chuckle when their back is turned. Sometimes all you need to say is something like, "well, I need to meet a few more people, good luck on XYZ," smile, and go to the next guy.

I need to remember this line. I get caught WAY too often placating someone whom I'd rather not be talking to anymore at large networking events.

I think lot of people have that issue. Maybe the person you are placating is placating back to you. I learned that you are helping both of you by leaving the conversation if its not interesting to you.

Or to walk away, you could use one of the 17 Mindy Kaling Inspired One-Liners For Escaping A Conversation - http://www.slideshare.net/sidekick/17-mindy-kaling-inspired-...

Off-by-one error :P

I've found the best technical networking is done at the obscurer meetups, where the people are more into the tech than the money.

Yes exactly, I find dev meetups more interesting.

Another good indicator is the absence of free beer and pizza :/

Well, expect to find the non-clown engineers to be found enjoying beer and pizza with friends rather than random meetups. That is engineer networking. That is how devs find their next job. No one should expect to find them at the equivalent of a an AA meeting for Idea Guys, which is how these networking events tend to go.

Well before the VC pitch, the real epiphanies and ideas get written on the back of a bar napkin. This has been the case for generations of engineers, just like the wearing of beards, not just wave of the startup gold-rush.

I run a small (20-30 people) dev meetup that is fairly technically focused. While we don't have beer, we do have free pizza. I managed to leverage a bunch of my local contacts to negotiate corporate sponsorships. I let them get their name out there and announce job openings. In trade, they pay for pizza, pop, and desserts. It works great for everyone.

I like the ones with free champagne and oysters.

In my own experience when I was working at Sun I knew a lot of people inside Sun but nobody "outside" of Sun. Even after people had left I often lost track of them. When I left Sun I realized I didn't have anyone to consult with on questions if they weren't already at Sun. That was a problem since I was interested in how people other than Sun employees solved some problems. So after realizing that I resolved to try to reach out to people when I could and always be accessible (one of the folks here who as an unobfuscated email in their profile :-) The folks I've met over the years since have been pretty amazing. As a result I'm glad I've operated in that way, for me it has worked out.

Networking at work is way more productive. I dont go to tech meetups very much anymore because I get annoyed at the "idea man" types that have no technical ability but want to find someone stupid enough to work for equity.

Networking is dangerously close to not working. One letter to be exact.

Networking is where / when you least expect it.

Yesterday a neighbor invited me to her BBQ, which lead to cruising around on a boat where I sat with a tech CEO (written about many times on TC) whom invited me to his house in LA soon and the boat owner wants to followup this week by playing tennis. None of it was setup for "networking" but now there is opportunity beyond comprehension. That's just one example. The tennis tournament I played in last week produced similar "leads" ... figure out unobvious ways to share your story.

The tech networking events I've been to (10-15 or so) have never lead to an impulse or opportunity, except for accountants and lawyers happy to charge you a fee if you followup.

Anecdotally, as an engineer, I have found maintaining personal relationships (even those I did not initially suspect would be fruitful) has been invaluable to my career and has lead to some very interesting job offers, at least one of which I have accepted.

Networking is like VC investing. Most investments don't pay off, some a little, and the rare right-place, right-time one changes your life.

Networking definitely has real value. I see two main advantages. One, some of the people you meet can help you on the spot (i.e. they fill a need you presently had). Second, adding smart, talented people to your network raises the chance that when you next need someone to fill a role, or someone asks you if you do, you not only have someone, but you have someone good.

However, don't get carried away. The scene is huge and not every event is worth going to. In addition, going to events is only a compliment to the real work.

Network events are time consuming and may not always reap so much rewards. That's why apps like Weave are coming out to make networking more targeted and time-efficient.

I created a subreddit to curate these tools and tips - http://www.reddit.com/r/techwork. I will continue to post tools and tips until it really takes off. But you can help by contributing and making this a helpful resource!

Yes, the founders should be home working 95% of the time. That still leaves a few hours each week to "explore opportunities". I can think of many reasons to go to networking events (disclaimer: I organize a startup conference[1], I used to organize a meetup for co-founders to meet, and I used to have a business networking over lunch startup[2], so it's a topic I care about)

When I network, my ROI horizon is 6 months or more. In my personal experience, if I need something right now (find an angel to give me $250K, find a developer to write my MVP), it won't work. However, people I met 6 months ago, who I found interesting (but had no particular need for at the time), turn out to be a life saver.

Don't be selfish: network for others too. If the person you are talking to is looking for something specific, and you happen to know someone who could help, offer to make the introduction (assuming both parties pass your quality threshold).

Quality of events matter: if you are a new entrepreneur and doesn't even know what vesting or 83(b) is, you need to chat to people to catch up to the average level of entrepreneurs around where you are. At some point, you will "graduate" from those events. You can tell because when that happens, you can help pretty much everyone at that event with confidence. When that happens, you need to move to higher quality/more selective events. Pro tip: if there is no such event near you, start one.

[1] http://thestartupconference.com [2] http://colunchers.com

I used to play frisbee golf with another programmer who taught me a lot. I've partnered on a couple of startup projects with a great programmer who I found via someone who a buddy of mine worked with. My first full-time job as a developer came when another buddy's girlfriend started her own digital agency.

None of these relationships were "networking", persay, and I don't think the relationships would have been fruitful to either me or the other person if we kept wondering what we could get out of the relationship. It was just giving and taking and making an effort to be human with another person.

I think you'll find that having a big "network" is the result of being someone people like as well as putting yourself out there a lot. Putting yourself out there could mean attending networking events or joining an outdoor club or just going to see a certain band a lot.

I suspect you'll find that- all else being equal- having a big network is going to be really beneficial in the long run. You might not always be trying to start a startup, so try to build your relationships for the long run and enjoy the person as a person... not as a stepping stone.

Find a balance. You don't have to go to every single event, it's just a scene. Show face, get to know names. It helps, but it's not necessarily because those people you're meeting will individually make or break your journey, but because collectively it's great to have support.

Personally I find support through my non-startup friends as well, but sometimes they will become sick of hearing about startups swings.

Like everything else, it depends on your goals and your access.

If you are networking at a "How to get rich" motivational seminar you are going to have much less success than if you are networking at an A16Z event. So placement matters.

I know this first hand because years and years ago I would go to the Northern Virginia Technology Counsel mixers and venture forums and MIT entrepreneurship forums around D.C. and it was generally filled with people who wanted you to sign an NDA to talk about their idea or were looking for a tech co-founder - and sometimes the rare angel would show up for dealflow.

Fast forward to last year after some chance introductions, and I started attending the Cooley capital calls and local angel mixers. These events were 10000x more productive in terms of finding partners, access to money, finding mentors etc...

Assuming you can actually squeeze your way into these groups, you still have to have a purpose - for example trying to get funding, or looking for a co-founder or lawyer or whatever. Otherwise you are wasting your and everyone else's time.

Depends on what you're doing, I guess. Networking can be useful if success requires knowing/talking with other people. More generally, I've found more opportunities at events like this than I have anywhere else.

From a health perspective, it's also nice to get out and have some human contact once in a while. I do my best work when I'm not even at a computer.

Most founders are doing fine from health perspective I think. But being a founder, my objective with these events would be to benefit my startup somehow. But except making contacts with other founders (who most likely will never be your customers) I have never seen any value sadly.

To be overly simplistic and aggressively reductive, balance the value of networking using this:

http://smg.media.mit.edu/library/Granovetter.WeakTies.pdf (coupled with the probabilities of value for each connection, among many other things) -

with the value of working at that moment (maybe with consideration of diminishing returns at the day goes on, seeing as networking events happen later in the day).

And you'll be at the start of quantifying the trade-off.

Then realize you just spent a whole bunch of time, and wasted productivity calculating that, and the next time just promise yourself to make a spur of the moment decision based on mood, feelings of social isolation, how many 'good' friends you have at the moment, how 'included' you feel, and all the other computation reducing techniques your brain employs via intuition and emotional well-being and instead go off of that.

The best networking events are events where you actually build and work with a diverse set of strangers. When you work intensely with strangers you really get to know them. I have been organizing open creative events mixing devs, designers of all kinds, artists… since 2010 and I have seen several teams taking shape out of these events, people joining existing teams they wouldn't have known of (outside their professional field) and new collaboration forming. (As an organizer I myself met many friends and collaborators during these events). So my advice would be to go to creative events (sprints, hackathon, weekends, *mix, jams) that gather a diverse crowd and are designed so teams are actually mixed. My second advice: organize creative events yourself, maybe around your product, but in all case around your interests. Build the great and interesting professional community you want to be a part of.

Every dollar I earn both at my W2 job and any 1099 gigs I've worked in the past year have all been a direct result of networking. It 100% is not a waste of time. Usually it doesn't work right away though. You have to spend a few years making connections and keeping them and eventually it will lead to good things.

So many HN posts (and discussions in general), including this one, would benefit from avoiding the "false dichotomy" fallacy; e.g. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/False_dilemma. Life isn't either/or.

My general perspective is the following. Spend a good chunk of your time building value in the short-term. If other activities (such as networking events) have even a small probability of adding value over a longer term, do some of them too. Find a balance based on an organizational system that works for you and your personality and productive periods.

Most of the people you meet are useless to build your business. But even one in a hundred could make the difference and sometimes somebody you met years ago and almost reciprocally forgot can trigger a positive chain of events. If you can afford sending somebody to every event do it. If you can't, select a few of them and get known as the "person who does X". I was in the GPS trackers business 8 years ago and people still asks me about it. I'm doing something else now but a company asked my advice a couple of months ago and I found a consultant for them.

I've found networking events to be somewhat pointless unless there is someone attending the event who knows of you by reputation and wants to introduce you to other people. In other words, I've found it to be somewhat pointless to attend an event at which I know no one.

On the other hand, networking in the course of day-to-day work can be invaluable. I call this "making friends at work". I've gotten my last several jobs through friendships that have endured past the shared work environment.

If you network for the sake of networking, in places that promote networking, then you'll meet others who have the same objective and may not be useful because there is actually no substance to connect over and meaning to exchange.

However if you attend events because you believe the content will be valuable, and you're open to meeting and learning from others, then it's likely (from my experience) that people you meet will prove helpful to you in future.

Years ago I read a sort of autobiography by J. Paul Getty, "How To Be Rich."

His succinct advice: "Know as many people as you can."

15 years ago I got the best job I'd ever had at that time because I'd volunteered to help paving a driveway almost two years before that.

What's more, this weekend I learned that the guy I learned to know then is moving aross the country this spring and will be living within biking distance in May.

(I mean: There's value in networking, and not just financial value.)

Not always, but it's a distant second to improving your product, talking to customers, and improving your product.

Networking is never a waste of time I have found (at least speaking as a developer) - it helps you get ideas from others that you may have missed and that may be important for you now or the future.

I follow the Groucho Marx rule of networking. I don't network at any event that would have me as a member.

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