How to Network with Entrepreneurs
Effective ways to network with entrepreneurs include asking for feedback on your deck, help with your investor list, and introductions to other founders.
Now that we have established why networking matters and why network with VC-backed entrepreneurs in particular, I want to expand on how to actually go about it.
First, some good news. In my experience, one unique characteristic of the startup ecosystem is that founders help founders. I think that’s because all entrepreneurs have been recipients of incredible kindness along their founder journeys. It just stands to reason to pay it forward - and most do. This very book is one such attempt.
That means that connecting to most founders is not very hard. You can use mutual friends, you can go to networking events, you can plug into entrepreneur communities, you can even cold call. I have seen all of these approaches work well.
To be sure, there will be plenty of disappointments along the way, especially from founders that you are close with, who simply won’t respond or follow up. Try not to take it personally - everyone has a lot going on and their own battles to fight. I know it can be hard to see things that way, which is one reason I talk about this topic a bit more in Managing Your Psychology.
During the preparation phase, there are three fundamental topics you want to discuss with founders: your fundraising materials (discussed in Draft Effective Fundraising Materials), your investor list (discussed in Build Pre-Qualified Investor List), and expanding your network with more entrepreneurs.
Pitch Feedback
To kick things off, I suggest asking for 30 minutes of a founder’s time with the goal of getting their feedback on your pitch. That’s an easy ask because almost everyone loves giving advice. It makes them smart in both the superficial as well as actual sense - seeing 1,000 pitches definitely helps make your own better.
If possible, try to have meetings in person. Otherwise, offer to jump on a video call, which has quickly become much more widely accepted recently. Ultimately, your goal is to have face-to-face time, which helps build trust and connect meaningfully.
In any case, I would try to do a few things very purposefully:
First, make sure to have a conversation rather than a one-sided monologue. You are looking to engage this person, not just for the potential intro in the future, but also to learn from their experience. For example, VC-backed entrepreneurs tend to have a good sense of the kinds of objections that investors will raise about your business. You should write those down and create appendix slides that effectively address such topics. See 10+40-Pager for more on this.
Second, make sure to actively listen. You are not pitching yet - that comes later. Right now you are just looking to identify and recruit allies and learn from their experience. And that is hard to do when in pitching mode. Stay in learning mode instead.
You should always follow up with a brief thank you note, because it’s the right thing to do when people have been kind with their time. If there was a meaningful connection, discussion, advice, then it might make sense to reach out again a few weeks later, once you have made meaningful progress on your pitch. One significant benefit to that approach is that now you have partners that are seeing the evolution of the business and the thinking behind it and are actively helping shape it. Just don’t overdo it - you want to be respectful of everyone’s time and busy schedules.
Investor List Feedback
If the conversation has been productive, the next topic to bring up is about investors, perhaps in a second or third meeting, after demonstrating how your pitch has evolved based on prior feedback.
Before the meeting, make sure to research which investors have supported the entrepreneur along their journey and fill in some of the “essential” information in your investor list. I suggest looking not only at CrunchBase but also on LinkedIn to see which investors the founder is connected to. Definitely don’t rely only on open-ended questions such as “who do you know” - because people are really quite forgetful. The more time you can save entrepreneurs by doing research beforehand, the better. Help founders help you.
At the meeting itself, what you are looking for is the “advanced” information - who likes what and how and all the other knowledge that is impossible to get online. Go through your investor list together and take notes as appropriate.
Entrepreneur Referrals
If your meetings go well, you should look to expand your network by asking for intros to other VC-backed founders. It’s surprising how well this works in practice. If you simply got 1-2 intros to entrepreneurs from every founder you met, you’d create an incredible network in no time.
Prior advice applies here as well: help founders help you. Augment open-ended questions with prior research about which founders from the entrepreneur’s network are relevant for your venture.