Get On the Plane

Packing my bag for a tech conference in Dublin, I felt that familiar pre-summer camp dread: Am I going to know anyone? Will I fit in?

It was 2011 and I was heading to F.ounders, a small subset of Web Summit for early-stage founders and investors. I worried about feeling completely out of place. Most of my colleagues dismissed it entirely. Too early stage, no real business to be done, waste of time. 

But I went anyway.

Fast forward to lunch: I'm sitting around a pub table with six other rogue warriors, eating meat pies (when in Ireland). I turn to the guy next to me: "So what do you do?"

"I'm creating a baller car service." That random guy was Travis Kalanick.

Twenty hours and twenty laps around the park later, I had secured $5 million into Uber’s Series B, when no one really knew what Uber was. 

None of that would have happened if I hadn't gotten on the plane.

Last week, a founder asked if networking is something you can learn, or if it’s just personality. Honestly, I’m not sure. But I do know this: An effective network isn’t a toolset. It’s not CRM hacks. It’s not about ‘working the room’. If it feels artificial, you’ve already failed.

The goal isn’t just access. It’s genuine connection.
Your network should become your friends. People who enrich your life as you enrich theirs.
Yes, it can be strategic. But it must always be real.

It’s mapping the interpersonal onto the professional.

That’s the first principle I share when I guest lecture or run founder workshops, and it’s the foundation of my networking framework.

Here are a few more tactical highlights on building your network:

→ Be deliberate. Map your network to your mission. If you're selling to Microsoft, go deep within Microsoft and its influencers. If you're evangelizing to masses, target megaphones - PR people, connectors, amplifiers.

→ Get on the plane. Put yourself out there. While you can be intentional, you can't be predictive. Every time I ask myself "Do I really want to pack a suitcase for this?" I get rewarded with something out of it.

→ Read the room. I used to arrive fashionably late to conferences. Now I'm there for opening remarks. I want to see who the organizer acknowledges and thanks. Spot the targets, not just the loudest voices. Balance efficiency with serendipity.

→ Be relevant. Important people want to deal with important people. Want access? Be someone worth accessing. Create stretch anchors - celebs, athletes, journalists all have needs too. But remember: six degrees of Kevin Bacon works both ways. Befriending the guy who reports to the guy is often more powerful than meeting the guy.

→ Make it personal. Find common ground early. Hunt for a shared source of joy. A recurring theme that grounds relationships and helps them relate to, and remember, you.

→ Celebrate others. Shut up and listen. Get someone talking about themselves. Be curious and learn. Don't one-up...enhance with your experience. Ask 3 questions for every point you offer about yourself.

→ Do the work. Put in the effort to be relevant. Prepare for conversations. There are no excuses thanks to GPT. Read the books (or the summaries), understand their world. You can fake knowledge, but you can't fake passion.

→ Be generous. Bring something to the table. It's an asynchronous quid pro quo, you give without expecting immediate return, but genuine respect flows both ways.

→ Use whatever system works for you. A spreadsheet, Airtable, CRM - something to help discover, research, and track who you should meet. While it's all laboriously time consuming and unnatural (until AI fixes this), having some system for discovery beats winging it.

The key nuance: Networks should be intentional, but they should never be artificial.