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The elaborate system he has created allows him to dramatically scale the value
he adds to the people in his network.
How could a 24-year-old founder who is busy building a company offer more
introductions than venture capitalists whose full-time job is to find and
support portfolio companies into which they’ve invested millions of dollars?
Imagine building a road to an amazing place and then only using it once.
You’ve already incurred the cost, and it doesn’t hurt you if other people use it.
In fact, it helps to share because you build relationships with other drivers
who appreciate your generosity.
If you’re raising money, you talk to dozens of investors until you’re finished.
Then, you focus on other networks. The same goes for interviewing dozens of
employees and vendors to fill open positions. Once you fill a position, you
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Here’s the problem with the on/off approach: If you don’t always nurture
these networks, then they are harder to activate when you need them.
Francis’ insight was to make introductions for other high potential tech
companies to investors, designers, and engineers he already knew even when
he didn’t immediately need these networks.
At this point, most people using Francis’ logic would take an ad hoc process to
making introductions when people came top of mind.
Investors earn almost their entire return from one in ten companies they
invest in that hit it big.
With this in mind, Francis decided to actively search for and select high
potential startups that he believed in that he could advise.
Finally, instead of doing just a few introductions for each company, Francis
does hundreds. To receive funding or to fill open positions requires talking to
dozens of people. By only making a few introductions, you’re certainly
helping, but you’re not pushing the ball forward as much as you could be
given the need and your ability. Here’s Francis’ logic:
“
The reason I make hundreds of introductions rather than just a few is that fundraising is
hugely impacted by momentum. It’s best to fundraise within a short window so that there is
a lot interest at once and investors have time pressure. Furthermore, most investment
meetings don’t turn into investments so startups need a lot of introductions in order to
create momentum and find the needle in the haystack.
In order to scale the introductions you make, you have to organize your
network in the right way. This brings us back to the title of the article…
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The one thing you should you do after you meet someone is add them to the
right cluster (i.e. – segment).
Most people treat their networks as one large connected cluster. The reality is
that it is a set of many clusters.
This is critical because of relevancy. When you have a new article you want to
share, a person you want to make an introduction for, or a dinner you want to
invite people to, there two very likely possibilities:
1. The opportunities are only relevant for a small segment (i.e., common
passion, specific industry, location, etc.) of your network.
2. Many of the opportunities you come across are relevant to the same
few segments again and again.
The beauty of these two points is that if you find the segments that are
relevant for your network, you can organize people into lists that you can
reference whenever you need to.
Most people completely depend on who is top of mind. The problem is that
the brain is designed to forget the large majority of what it’s exposed to. Just
because someone doesn’t come to mind, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t
many people who should have.
Because Francis divides his network into very clear segments upfront, knows
how he is providing value, and has a tool that allows him to easily view
segments, he is able to systematize all of his processes so they take
dramatically less time.
1. Segmentation
2. Filtering.
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With this new approach, you collect basic data for one purpose; putting people
in a segment.
This stands into contrast with most systems that are purely designed to jog
your memory for the future.
Most segmenting / tagging systems get mired in complexity; tags that are too
similar or no longer relevant. As a result, many give up because the process is
too time-intensive.
For too many people, networking is a bad word. It has come to signify
individuals who use communication as an opportunity to broadcast what they
want from others who aren’t even relevant to that product or service.
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***
Special thank you to Sheena Lindahl for reading drafts of this article and
Jason Duff and Doug Fath for providing additional feedback.
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