Stop Trying to Grow Your Startup by Networking

“When you’re good at something, you’ll tell everyone.

When you’re great at something, they’ll tell you.”

― Walter Payton

If you’re an entrepreneur who’s founding their first company, networking events seem like a godsend. Important and well-connected people are gathering in a public place and issuing an open invitation for you, an unknown entrepreneur, to join in on all the fun? Sign me up!

Networking events also have the added benefit of being a lot more fun than sitting in the office, hunched over the computer, working for 10 hours straight. Nobody wants to be hunched over a computer when they could be having drinks with cool people who can talk all night about your industry.

And of course, there’s always the hope that we’re going to be “discovered” — that an influential angel investor, industry professional, or huge lead will be at that networking event, and that by a twist of fate, you will score a meeting with them and all your dreams for your business will finally come true.

Oh, if only.

Years ago, I founded my own business. Over the next six years, I went to what was probably hundreds of networking events locally and nationally in the US. My business went on to be surprisingly well-known in my industry circles, and even several years after I shut the business down, I still meet people asking me if I’m “that Pufferfish girl.”

The fact that my business became well known had nothing to do with the networking events I attended. In all that time I spent at networking events with cool startup people, I cannot recall even one time any coffee meeting or connection I made at a networking event led to a breakthrough for my business. I occasionally made a connection I thought would be my “big break,” but invariably, they were not.

My experience seems to be par for the course. The people in my community who started million-dollar businesses weren’t the people I saw at these networking events. They were the people who weren’t there. People would ask “Where’s Luke?” and someone else would say “Oh, he’s probably at the office working on another prototype.” A few years later, Luke ended up on Shark Tank. None of the people I regularly saw at networking events ended up on Shark Tank. While the rest of us were goofing off, the winners were hard at work.¹

If running a business is like keeping a campfire going, networking events are like lighter fuel. Pouring fuel on a fire can make it blaze for a moment, but if you don’t have kindling, logs, and coals for the fuel to set ablaze, your fire will be gone before it even got started.

There are a lot of people out there pouring fuel on a fire pit with no logs and wondering why the flame of their million-dollar business won’t light.

How to Know When It’s Time to Network

It’s time to go to a networking event when you have the business fundamentals, that is to say, the kindling and logs that will maintain the fire of your business. But how do you know when you have the fundamentals?

One of the most obvious signs is that people are inviting you to networking events. If people from your community are reaching out to you via LinkedIn or email to invite you to a networking event, that’s proof your reputation has spread far enough for influential people to think you belong with them. These kinds of invitations are the reason I ever started attending networking events in the first place.

Another good indicator is when you have customers contacting you via your support box or social media to tell you how much they love your product. If they love what you’re doing enough to write to you personally to let you know, you know you’ve got something good on your hands.

A third great indicator is when random people start reaching out to you on LinkedIn to ask you for coffee. There are a lot of people who think the key to having a great career is having coffee with important people, so being asked for coffee by these strangers on LinkedIn is a good indicator that people think you’re successful or that what you’re doing is cool.

What Do You Do If It’s Not Time to Network Yet?

If it’s not time to network yet, then you focus on making something worth sharing. Like Luke, you keep your head down until it’s time to come on stage.

What “doing the work” means is vastly different for everyone depending on what line of business they are in, but there’s one piece of advice I give to everyone, regardless of what they do…

Practice in Public

Start a blog, Substack newsletter, Instagram, or a similar public feed. Post updates as often as possible to this feed. If you’re an artist, post pictures of every piece you complete. If you make apps, post screenshots of development, prospective designs, and company updates. If you consult with tech companies to help them remain current with regulatory bodies, post regular updates about the changing regulatory landscape and your company’s orientation toward these changes. Whatever it is that your company does, find a way to keep the general public updated about what you’re doing.

This is perhaps the single most powerful thing a small business can do. Practicing in public will get you…

1. New paying customers.
2. Feedback on how to develop your product.
3. A reputation for excellence in your industry.
4. Invitations to networking events, conferences, and other business functions.
5. …and much more besides.

Practicing in public is perhaps the most important factor in making your new venture stick.

In Conclusion

If you find yourself thinking “I need to build my network,” you probably don’t. If you have a good product, you’ll be able to show up to only a handful of networking events each year to maintain a thriving professional network. If you think you need to build your network, what you probably need to do instead is read a few books and put in the work to make your company great.

Networking works when you have something to offer the crowd that they want. Give them something worth wanting.

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1: I was not one of those winners, by the way. My business was barely worth $30,000. It could have been a million-dollar business — I had the right idea at the right time in the right place — but I didn’t love the work, so I didn’t work hard, which is why I was at all those silly networking events in the first place. I don’t exactly regret it because I’m much happier as a writer, but I do look back sometimes and wonder what would have happened if running that business was the right path for me…