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I don’t have any connections

ninjasandrobots.com

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Re: I don’t have any connections

#31

Post by babebridou »

nraynaud wrote: post #24

I'm still a bit wary of this kind of advice, because it's mostly pushing against the technological meritocracy. The loudest in the room gets the light, the most outspoken is raised as an example. All this effort is still not spent building the right product. I live in France, where the tradition is that money, marketing and sales people run the company. The only successful startups here now are selling advertisement,…

You forgot another company runner in France, and a very important one: the procurement people.

These guys make it incredibly difficult to build new businesses. In their mind contracting a company with less than a hundred people is heresy.

Re: I don’t have any connections

#32

Post by mnavada »

ArekDymalski wrote: post #4

I'm pretty sure that for many people even such cold email can be intimidating. On rational level they know it's the necessary thing to do, but the fear of rejection drags them toward "I'm not ready yet. I'll mail them a week later when I build/write/learn more".

I agree, or you lose hope in the process. You're not going to get a reply the first time or even the 100th time, but if you believe that it works and keep modifying your approach in the email, it can work. I've tried sending cold emails and I got a reply after the 12th time. I try to tailor the email to each person. It's more time consuming and I can't send them as often as I want, but I find this more effective.

Re: I don’t have any connections

#33

Post by pgeorgi »

dkuntz2 wrote: post #28
nraynaud wrote: post #24

I'm still a bit wary of this kind of advice, because it's mostly pushing against the technological meritocracy. The loudest in the room gets the light, the most outspoken is raised as an example. All this effort is still not spent building the right product. I live in France, where the tradition is that money, marketing and sales people run the company. The only successful startups here now are selling advertisement,…

And knowing people or coming from money is the technological meritocracy?

No, "technological meritocracy" is just bait for geeks to work long hours on low money and stock options.

What this article proposes is to counter connections and money with being the loudest - realistic, yes, but depressing.

Re: I don’t have any connections

#34

Post by jason_tko »

inthesea wrote: post #23

I'm not sure if I'm alone here but I just lack social skills. It's like everyone but me has this secret book of how to interact with people. I'm not autistic or anything but I had little social life when growing up. I was actually rather popular at the Internet but that didn't translate well to real life. I'm now trying to catch up in my early twenties. I meet interesting people every day but connecting with them non…

This is something I see pretty often. I'm a business co-founder, so this stuff is pretty much my bread and butter.

An idea I've been kicking around is some kind of "Social Skills Primer" type product, probably done by video for ease of explanation and to capture/explain nuance.

I haven't fully decided on doing this yet, but would that be interesting to you, do you think?

As a side note, I would highly recommend reading How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Re: I don’t have any connections

#35

Post by tluyben2 »

babebridou wrote: post #31
nraynaud wrote: post #24

I'm still a bit wary of this kind of advice, because it's mostly pushing against the technological meritocracy. The loudest in the room gets the light, the most outspoken is raised as an example. All this effort is still not spent building the right product. I live in France, where the tradition is that money, marketing and sales people run the company. The only successful startups here now are selling advertisement,…

You forgot another company runner in France, and a very important one: the procurement people. These guys make it incredibly difficult to build new businesses. In their mind contracting a company with less than a hundred people is heresy.

Not heresy; it's risky. If you do it and stuff goes wrong, your boss will ask you wtf you hired this puny company and not a large one. No matter the reputation of the large one (bad or good) or the reputation of the small one (bad or good).

Re: I don’t have any connections

#36

Post by BSousa »

aleprok wrote: post #17

I know connections between people can be quite awesome and important. It is even more awesome if they can discuss about something important and give their opinion and listen to your opinion without starting a fight. When there is a problem it is good to have someone to ask help from. I maybe have one true friend and we mutually keep our friendship active. Then there are those who may drink coffee or have a beer with…

So, how was your day?

Re: I don’t have any connections

#37

Post by kaybe »

nate wrote: post #6
beat wrote: post #5

Making contact with people isn't the hard part, I don't think. Motivating them to help you is the hard part.

Thanks a ton for the comment on this and reading the article! But see, I don't think motivating someone to help you is really that hard. As I mentioned in there, there are so many places where there's oodles of people who'd love to help. Want to ask Alexis Ohanian something? Pay attention to when he hosts another AMA on Reddit. Or use Clarity or Public Beta. Or really just email them. I answer a ton of questions I ge…

And one of the reasons is the idea that you don't pay back, you pay forward. Everyone got help at some some point, and many are aware of this idea.

Re: I don’t have any connections

#38

Post by SyneRyder »

onepost51515 wrote: post #13

Heh. A rant, if I may: I lived in a small town in northern Canada until I was 17. I had had an interest in programming since I was 11, but the job most relevant to "computers" you could get up there was repairing them at BestBuy. My parents weren't particularly rich, and didn't encourage me to strive for high academics or anything of the sort; in fact, the only thing they really wanted me to do was to get a driver's…

Connections don't have to be people you meet & interact with physically. Many of the people I work with I've either never met, or only meet every couple of years on an international flight to the other side of the world.

Try reaching out to people on HN, email them with a specific question about how they achieved something that you're interested in & that they've done. I've been trying some of that recently and had a ridiculously high response rate (100% so far.) It might not turn into a "connection", but you'll probably learn something in the meantime. Expect that maybe only 1 out of 100 people you contact will actually turn into a "connection".

Re: I don’t have any connections

#39

Post by colomon »

onepost51515 wrote: post #13

Heh. A rant, if I may: I lived in a small town in northern Canada until I was 17. I had had an interest in programming since I was 11, but the job most relevant to "computers" you could get up there was repairing them at BestBuy. My parents weren't particularly rich, and didn't encourage me to strive for high academics or anything of the sort; in fact, the only thing they really wanted me to do was to get a driver's…

The connection I needed to found my software company (not a big company, but it's provided for me (and now my family) for 14 years) came from e-mailing with the author of a hybrid math / programming book about bugs in his published code.

And in the last five years I started working on the Perl 6 project in my spare time. I've made at least a dozen connections in the Perl community that way, and getting started with it didn't involve anything more than getting on the IRC channel and participating. That also found me a group of peers who have a lot to teach me about programming. Not to mention I get the chance to discuss language design and implementation issues with Larry Wall on a regular basis.

What I'm trying to say is the Internet and open source software make it easier to make connections with people doing interesting work than it has ever been in the history of mankind. If you're just looking to make connections in the physical area around where you live, you're really missing out.

Re: I don’t have any connections

#40

Post by AznHisoka »

aleprok wrote: post #17

I know connections between people can be quite awesome and important. It is even more awesome if they can discuss about something important and give their opinion and listen to your opinion without starting a fight. When there is a problem it is good to have someone to ask help from. I maybe have one true friend and we mutually keep our friendship active. Then there are those who may drink coffee or have a beer with…

That's just human nature. People don't care how you're doing unless it benefits them now, or possibly in the future. I just learn not to rely on human interaction for my life satisfaction.
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