Thanks, will check this out, too.
10 karma · joined July 8, 2013
Just checked them out, and it looks exactly like what we need, but the sign-up unfortunately site reads "Currently we can support applications only from companies paying at least $5,000 Per Month." While we will process more than this in January, it will only be a couple of hundred in February and March, and it's my understanding that they would want us to sign up for a plan.
One thing I would like to add from personal experience: It's really easy these days to connect to a lot of people on LinkedIn that you have never met or even heard of before. I am tempted to say the acceptance quote of a "cold connection" is about 50%.
Once your network has a decent size, you can connect to almost anyone from your industry (in our case gaming and mobile) even if you only have a free LinkedIn account (like I do) because you have a least a couple of people from their company already within your 2nd/3rd degree connections, and then you can literally add the entire board. Believe me, more C-level guys than you might think will accept you if your profile looks like you are a decent person.
The reason I writing all this is that I have been much more successful getting meetings through LinkedIn than through cold email. I feel that if I send a LinkedIn message to somebody I am connected to (but that I do not know whatsoever), that person is much more likely to a) open the message in the first place because the sender is not anonymous but rather has a name, face, and a job, and therefore b) also much more likely to read/digest what I am actually writing. And from here it is only really about what you have to say and sell anyways....
The bottom line is that while LinkedIn is a tool intended for connecting people that know each other, it actually works best for connecting (and selling something) to people you do not know at all.
Give it a shot!
First, I constantly have to withstand the temptation to use the "occasional" moment to check my phone when I am with other people. I probably only manage to stay strong 50% of the time, and I have been (deservedly) called out on it. Yet, I so far find myself unable to abandon this unnecessary, rude and impersonal behavior.
Second, I have been in countless situations where I have become annoyed with people that constantly check their phones while they are engaged in a conversation with me. I have actively ("do you mind...") and passively (just stop talking until they look up) called people out on this behavior, and will continue to do so.
Why I, as a "victim" of constant phone-checking, continue to engage in the same rude pattern myself is somewhat a mystery to me. I believe it is partly related to the urge to "beat" your inbox by processing emails as fast as possible. Adam also mentioned that divided attention has somewhat become socially acceptable, and that might be an excuse I subconsciously use ("hey, the others are doing it as well"). People oftentimes don't even make an effort to hide what they are currently focusing on...
I think the most important part for me will be to be consistent - either (sadly) continue to engage in this behavior, and don't be offended if other people do it as well, or (much preferably) stop it altogether and behave in a way that my parents would have considered decent.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoUSO_Mj1TQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTa7rC1oUnk
But then there are also the hybrids, the ones that start out as unimportant back markers, and then move up the ranks over time, predictably so. It's funny to observe how you absolutely know they are there, how you see them coming, getting closer and closer, how you know they will become critical at some point, because you have been there before, and how you still manage to find something "better" to do up until the very last minute. They feel like that heating pipe in your basement that you only fixed provisionally with duct tape on a summer weekend and meant to get repaired for real before the cold season starts. It's always on the back of your mind as summer comes to an end and fall approaches, but, well, "tomorrow" will do as well....
As time goes by, you live more and more in denial, you start getting anxious to the point where you are simply angry with yourself for not taking care of it while it was still easy, hassle-free, inexpensive, and non-pressing. In the end, you find yourself in a situation where something becomes your number 1 priority not because it is per se important, but only because you have no other choice but to make it happen on that very day.. "Again?" is the question you ask yourself when you finally dig through all the documents you need for preparing that damn corporate tax return on the 14th of March. "Really?" goes through your mind when you start packing a bag for an upcoming trip 2 hours before you have to leave in the middle of the night.
And as frustrating and senseless as it might be, it seems to be one thing above all: human. As a startup founder, I have come to appreciate that in the end it doesn't matter how you got somewhere; the only thing that matters is that you made it.
So I clicked on the link, didn't see a Kodak Carousel to my surprise, and started reading the text. I got annoyed very quickly ("why is this moving so fast? Did I click on anything?"). And just when I was ready to say "screw this" I got that my very behavior had just exactly proven what Jared's point was.
Touché!