The “secret sauce” of entrepreneurship in The Bay Area: Networking

- by Kristian Brøndum

So I have been around the innovative hotspot Silicon Valley and the entrepreneurial city of San Francisco for two weeks now. My schedule has been booked with events, company visits, visits to co-working spaces, pitching sessions and academic talks by inspiring entrepreneurs and they all seem to have one thing in common: the ability to network. But how do you network and what does it take to be good at it? Here are some lessons I’ve learned about networking and why it is so important to master this discipline, if you want to succeed as an entrepreneur, particularly in the Bay Area.

WHY NETWORK?  

First of all: networking is not a new phenomenon, but for me as a Dane coming here and experiencing the importance of it, has benefited me a lot in many ways. I would regard it as some sort of tacit knowledge, which you cannot read about or study – you simply have to experience it and learn it by doing.

Networking is about social skills; starting a conversation (in most cases to complete strangers), be open minded, ask questions, show interest in the one you are talking to, do “micro pitching” about yourself, your interest and business idea(s) and most importantly, master the ability to end a conversation. The last part is often said to be a problem for Europeans and Danes especially. But, there is no way out of it – you need to end the conversation, because you have to move on to the next person since every single individual can introduce you to a lot of interesting people. You will never know who you can get introduced to. Therefore, you have to meet a whole bunch of different people, who might give you advice, or introduce you to a potential mentor, customer or investor. This is important, because there are a lot more aspiring entrepreneurs in this area, a lot more start-ups present and starting up and the density of investors is higher, so getting in contact with the “right” people is much more difficult than in Denmark, simply because the concentration of “agents” in this particular field is higher. So, the importance of networking and being good at it seems to be much more vital out here, compared to Denmark. 

REAL TIME EXPERIENCE

Let me give you an example: last Thursday I went to a local bar to get some dinner and a beer with one of the follow participants in the program. At the bar, I started a conversation with a girl and told her that we were here because we won an entrepreneurial contest in Denmark. It turned out that this girl was an entrepreneur herself and she had a Danish partner as well. She suggested that I should add her on Facebook and Linkedin (that is the way it is done here). The next day I got an invite to a “party” via Facebook, which she hosted – even though we only talked together in 5 minutes. At Saturday we attended this “party”, which turned out to be more like a private networking event with numerous entrepreneurs and MBA students, whom we got in contact with and they introduced us to some other interesting people. So, it all started in a bar with a 5 minutes conversation Thursday evening and we ended up with rewarding contacts to individuals who were willing to help us, just 2 days later. 

PUTTING THINGS IN PERSPECTIVE

Your ability to network (get introduced to other people, e.g. others than the initial individual) and the ability to get people on board and believe in you, are necessary in order to make it as an entrepreneur. You need to gather a team, which investors believe in and want to invest in, because a great business idea is not enough to raise funding; the team is the most important thing. So, as an entrepreneur, you need to master the ability to convince people, for example external individuals, and get them to believe in you. Generally speaking, entrepreneurship is about people; individuals who interact. Consequently, trust and credibility are highly important in this interaction. In order to do so, you also need the social skills described above. Being a good networker with the essential and required social skills definitely helps you along the way.