Keep Pulling the Thread: The Networking Framework That Led Me to a Tech Startup

External Networking - Blog 1 of 6

I met Josh, a parent in my son’s kindergarten class, at a school open house. He was building a startup and I was hoping to join one. He introduced me to Stephan, another kindergarten parent and partner at a local VC firm.  We met for coffee, and he agreed to share my resume with his colleagues for portfolio company roles.

After Stephan left the VC firm, one portfolio company reached out to discuss a potential role. In the initial email, I noticed the email address for Manish, a VC associate, and followed up to thank him for the introduction and invite him to meet. Coincidentally, he had a board meeting with Educative a few days after our coffee chat.  He shared my resume with the CEO and told him, “This is the kind of person you need to hire one day.” The CEO responded, “I could use her now.” Less than a month later, I joined Educative as co-founder and COO.

Sometimes, we just have to keep pulling on the thread.

To build my network, I needed a plan to stay organized and focused.

1. Set an objective

Don’t overthink your objective.  Set one.  Refine (or even completely change) your objective based on discussions.

Do you want to learn about a specific role for a career pivot?  Do you want to connect with hiring managers at desired companies?  

2. Identify your contacts

Based on your objective, identify organizations and/or contacts with whom you want to connect.  Use your existing network for introductions.

This is a good time to build your LinkedIn connections from prior employers.

3. Execute

Making this step 3 is a little misleading. Once you set an objective, you NEED to start meeting with close contacts and build your list of contacts at the same time. Don’t use step 2 to procrastinate on having meetings. You NEED to get out there as soon as possible to shake out the nerves.

Set a challenging, but achievable, goal (e.g. 3 meetings a week).  

Prior to every meeting, set clear objectives of what you want to accomplish.  Do they have a role that you want so you ask questions to assess skills you already possess and what you need to develop?  Do they work for your desired company so you want to learn about the company needs within your area of experience?

4. Communicate

Follow up with everyone.  After the meeting, send an email with key takeaways from the discussion and action items for both of you.  For the person making the introduction, send an email letting them know that you met with the contact and ideally, results of the meeting.  

A simple follow up email with thank you and benefits of the interaction is appreciated when they offered you their time and opened up their network.

5. Adjust and repeat

 I'll expand on each of those steps in subsequent blogs.