Bootstrapper.com - Confessions of Serial Entrepreneurs

Happy Birthday Kara! My little sister turns 20 today! Scary!

love you!

Richie

So when is it proper to go to a meeting with someone for coffee or for drinks. In our community, those are the two primary points of contact. Coffee and booze. I always like mixing things and suggest drinks because it’s great to see what people are like when they drink. You can really learn a lot. You can also go on a lot of almost, maybe, perhaps accidental dates. You know, meeting someone for a bite and drinks at 6PM of the opposite sex. While it might be a business meeting on paper, agreeing to meet someone of the opposite sex at night for drinks can easily imply something else and lead to fun and awkward situations. Meanwhile coffee makes me hyper and I have to pee a lot. Anywhoo…I don’t think I really had a point to this post but its something to think about…

So I recently met Esther Dyson for the first time. She is perhaps the most connected person in NYC technology. Just breaking through her investments at Edventure Holdings and it is dizzying. This is coming from me, Richie Hecker, the King of ADD in NYC. She happens to be one of the nicest people i’ve ever met and the first person in a while that I met that I couldn’t help. I really couldn’t think of a way to help her. She helped me and made a couple of introductions for me. Very helpful and very nice person and smart and connected…

Todays post is dedicated to David Blumenstein, the owner of David.com. David has been in the Alley for something like 20 years and founded groups before most of us were born. He was the CTO of Mercer Advertising and somehow knows everyone. He has been a very dear friend to me and has helped me out a lot in the past. I owe him a lot. He happens to run the Hatchery with another friend, Dr Yao who he introduced me to. If you are in the Alley are not connected to David.com, then you need to go out and meet some more people.

So there’s a couple of people in NYC that everyone is touched by in some way or another. One of these people is a friend of mine, Bonnie Halper. She has been in Silicon Alley for over 15 years and knows just about everyone. If you dig into your rolodex, there’s a good chance you can find a line into Bonnie. Bonnie is a recruiter and also working on a very cool new video startup. Shout out to Bonnie.

When you start going to events you start seeing a lot of people over and over again. Considering how small our nyc startup community is, you really can’t afford to screw around unless you are a hermit. If you’re social, everyone gets to know you so far. I mean, come on, how many people are really in this community? Not many. My benchmark is the 5000 on the tech meetup list but most people there are enthusiasts not startuppers or investors. Let’s crunch some numbers.

There is maybe 15 vc funds in nyc, average fund has 6 employees = 90 investors, add in ibankers and other related people that focus on seed stage and maybe we’re at 200, now add in professional angels and we’re at maybe 500 investors. Maybe there is 300 tech companies in nyc, each with 2 founders and 300 people that are top execs so we’re up to 1400 people. Let’s add in random other top tier people and we’re up to 2000. now split that in half as half the people on there are anti-social so we’re left with maybe 1000 people. Now divide that by 10 networking groups and the average has an event once a month, the average person goes to one event a month and 50 people show at the average event, we keep running into each other.

I have good feelings for the community here as a number of organizations are sprouting up and being supported. YVCS.org relaunched and is doing very well. The Hatchery launched a few months ago and is doing very well. My little group is taking off. Tri State Ventures just relaunched. All these groups are thriving. for years there was almost nothing going on and a lot of the original groups are gone - the long standing one being ibreakfast but the guard and tides are changing in a very positive way.

There is an old saying (that i made up) “At the heart of every conversation is a relationship”.

Everything we do, every interaction is based on relationships in some form. Even if you are doing a rote task, you got there on a relationship in some form.

So when people say they are idealists or want to be pure and not have people help them with anything or not allow you to help them find a job using your network or help them get into grad school or whatever - they are wrong but entitled to their own opinions. Life is about relationships, leverage them or you’re missing out.

In the last few months I have been all over the place. I have recruited people. I have looked for a job, I have tried to find founders for startups and founding execs. Throughout all my varied searches I learned an important lesson today that all recruiters at companies should grasp.

You are NOT competing with other companies for top executives. You are competing with the person himself. Barriers are so low that any smart person can start a company.

If you want to recruit and retain top talent you need to keep them happy and make them feel they choose to have your job.

Most companies think its about money or its about stock. It’s not. It’s about making a difference. In truth most people are too scared to start their own company but you as the corporate master should make them feel they are choosing you.

Anyway can hire a programmer in india for $800 and build their big idea. What is stopping them from doing that on the side?

The only thing stopping people from doing that is to make them feel like they have a home.

When you are talking compensation and positions, ask the candidate what is their dreams and aspirations and how your company fits in. No one really dreams to be a corporate beaurocrat. Then ask them what kind of compensation they think is fair and what you can do to keep them for 3 years, 5 years, hell even 1 year in todays environment.

Actually provide value to your employees so that they do not think of an alternative. Most people think people should want to work for them because of X, Y, Z and they could be a great place to work but a new recruit doesn’t know this - so instead flip it on its head - and give the person what he wants so he’ll be happy instead of you telling him why he will be happy. It’s a subtle difference. A few questions and a few concessions and then FOLLOWING THROUGH But you will have a much stronger work force and more loyal people as a result.

Some great companies people rarely leave: Google, Bloomberg, 3M, used to be Microsoft, Ritz Carlton etc…..

Most people don’t understand what networking really is. To most networking is going to a conference and getting to meet everyone on the floor for 30 seconds, shake a hand, collect a card. This is wrong!

A couple of reasons: first, most people won’t remember you, second if they do, you’ve done nothing to build a relationship and the odds are you offered no value - add to them.

I call these people Hyper Networkers - they come off like leeches circling an entire group sucking a card out of everyone.

The professional networker takes a different approach. First, his goal is to get to know the host, not the speakers, THE HOST and then to offer something of value to the host - maybe volunteer to help at the next event or refer him a speaker or something to that tune. The professional networker doesn’t ask for anything in return. He knows that by getting on the good side of the host - a connector - he can reach the entire group - with a personal introduction.

Would you rather meet someone in the audience out of the blue or be introduced by the host? Which looks better for you?

Let’s dig a little further, say the host is crazy, greedy or just not around - what do you do? You meet people. You talk to people. You have a CONVERSATION with people, you TRY TO AVOID TALKING ABOUT BUSINESS as much as possible. Why? As soon as a conversation slips to be about how you can work together, you’ve lost the ability to build a relationship for the moment because you’ve both slipped into greed mode and your guards are up and minds racing with dollars.

When I meet people, I try to avoid talking about myself and what i really do or my real goals. If it’s an investor I will try HARD not to pitch them on anything even if they ask and if they insist i will be coy and change topics. If its a business development deal, I will allude to possibilities but not go into any specifics and maybe ask about the persons lunch. Nothing is worse than turning a good conversation into a purposeful conversation when you first meet people - at least if you are like me and pride yourself on building relationships. Relationships are the reason you get asked to go to drinks, it’s the reasons to get invited to go to parties, they are the reason people talk to you. Unless your ass is being kissed but then those people won’t show up to your funeral when all those feet up your ass cause a heart attack.

When it comes to meeting new clients, i first ask them about themselves and their passions and what they really want to do before talking about anything about business when possible.

I would much rather learn what someone’s passion is or aspirations then how “we can work together”. Why? A) You can actually get into a real conversation and maybe even make a friend (GASP) but in truth when you ask people what they want to do (as long as they don’t say its what they are currently doing), you have successfully managed to separate that person from his or her job and got the person to completely let their guard down.

Think about this - would you want your boss to find out that you really want to start a XYZ widget bangers and that you secretly hate your job? Of course not! But now that the person has shared this with you, you are now on the inside. They are not going to think nearly as critically about you and will be more likely to help you and it will be a lot easier to build a relationship. Try it out for yourself. Better yet if you can put yourself in a situation where you could potentially help people achieve their personal goals - you’ve just struck gold. Like when I introduce myself to people, I first say that i love helping people start companies, on my business card it says “helping people fulfill their dreams” - then i can go into my day job (running an online ad company) and they will be truly curious because i first offered potential value to them before asking for anything in return.

Another very important part of networking is listening, let people talk. Ask questions, don’t try to pitch or sell yourself. NO one cares. No one wants to be sold, they want to be heard. Listen to people, it works with women to by the way. I”m not talking about the sensitive guy shtick that guarantee you get your heart broken but just plain listening. Girls love to lalk, (i’ll address this in my next post.) People love to talk about themselves. Just ask probing questions like “howd you end up where you are now?” Do you like your job? What’s your dream? When you out of the suit and tie, what do you do to relax? These are great open ended questions that people will usually fervently answer and think well of you for asking.

Always ADD VALUE. Offer people help before asking them for something. In fact if you OFFER value without provocation - there is a good chance they will bend over backwards to reciprocate without even realizing. YOu meet someone, introduce them to a few people that could help them. No one does this. The few people who do are the connectors - the professional networkers - the power players - the people that everyone aggregates around - better yet the people who others call when they need advice. Nothing is sweeter than to be needed and to really be able to help people. Karma works. Karma fucking works.