I’m early in my career and I’ve always wondered how people have these massive networks and relationships with people that are doing game-changing things in the world. 

When I first entered the workforce it was simple, live in major metros like SF, NYC, LA, or Chi where all the action is happening. Odds are you will meet great people while living your life.

This was the case when I moved to the bay area, specifically SF. There I was able to meet some great people that ended up being great life long friends and mentors. Of course, I also met a few people that I wish I never met, but I still had a greater opportunity to expand my network being where I was. Over some time, I realized just living in a major city is not enough. So, how else do I expand this network? Am I limited to the city/area that I live in?

After building out my network a little more, It was clear that it’s absolutely silly to expect that just living in a city will automatically surround yourself with great people. I’ve learned that the hard way many times. There are interesting people all around the world. Why just limit yourself to your city?

Here are three things I’ve done recently that have significantly helped me increase the quality of my network.

Connect with VCs (Venture Capitalist)

Now I know you might be thinking that it’s quite hard to get a hold of a VC and not everyone is lucky enough to have some degree of separation with a VC. However, I’ll tell you now that these are all limiting beliefs. VC’s are natural connectors. All VC’s are committed to putting themselves out there in order to find the best and brightest minds that are building game-changing companies. 

If you’re a person working at a company already and see a company that just recently raised a venture round that has some relevance to your company’s business, then cold email or reach out via social media like Twitter and Linkedin to the investors of that round for an intro.

Be specific in your email and keep it short.

• Introduce yourself
• Your role and company
• Why their portfolio company is interesting to your company and why?
• A Specific ask: like an intro of the founder

VCs love providing value to their founders in any way possible and if they can make an intro to a possible customer, they will. Once you establish this initial connection with a VC, they will start reaching out with other relevant portfolio companies for potential partnerships or collaboration.

Engage on Twitter

I’ll be honest, I should probably engage more on Twitter myself, but I’ve learned that when I do, that I naturally draw messages from interesting people. And of course, with any social media, you have to take the good with the bad, so be ready to filter through what’s relevant to you.

So how do you engage on Twitter?

• Answer thoughtful questions that people are asking on Twitter with thoughtful responses
• Ask thoughtful questions to your followers
• Do NOT just write “great quote” or “Good idea”. Provide a thoughtful, substantive, and original response.
• Share a thoughtful article or report with your analysis
• Write a tweetstorm (a series of tweets) that summarizes your thoughts on a topic or epiphany
• Share an original article or blog post with a brief summary
• Be ok with being wrong. There are a lot of smart people on Twitter and odds are that you might be wrong and that’s ok!

You probably noticed the word thoughtful pop-up multiple times above. Twitter is all about sharing all types of ideas. The good, bad, dumb, funny, thoughtful, and etc.. People that are doing great things are attracted to people with original thoughts and perspectives on interesting topics. Don’t be surprised if you end up receiving messages from people you least expected. Twitter is about engaging with the world vs your friends. It’s a ripe network for you to expand your network dramatically.

Or take Naval’s word for it. One of the best concise tweets on “How to Tweet”

Start a meetup on your favorite topic

Meetups are a fantastic way to meet people in person. It’s one thing to attend a meetup, but there’s a whole new appeal for actually starting one yourself. You can create a meetup for any topic such as dog lovers or AI data scientists. This gives you the opening to then invite experts on that topic to come to speak and engage with your audience. Experts love to talk about what they are passionate about and often have super insightful tidbits to share with other people. It’s a great way to connect with them and build that relationship vs being in the audience of an event they spoke at.

Lastly, you can even have companies sponsor your event by either providing their office or serve light refreshments. You would be surprised at how little upfront cost is required when you can secure sponsors.

I’m still working on building out a quality network, but these are a few things that I’ve learned along the way that I hope is helpful to you.