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Peripherally related: one thing I've learned is to never partner on a web site with someone who doesn't have a lot (and I mean dozens, if not hundreds) of peopl

Peripherally related: one thing I've learned is to never partner on a web site with someone who doesn't have a lot (and I mean dozens, if not hundreds) of people connected to him via sites such as LinkedIn or Facebook. If someone's claiming to have been working on Internet projects for years, and can't immediately point to a hundred or more people who are least willing to connect with them on Linkedin or something, there's something deeply fishy. A great question someone once told me for talking to a potential business partner: "Who were your past business partners, and can I chat with them? Also, how well did they do relative to you on those deals?" If someone tells you that all his past business associates were crooks or liars, walk away.

lsc 15y ago
now, I agree completely with your second paragraph. However, as for the first? the problem is that the more 'connections' you have on social networking sites, the more likely you just click 'accept' to all requests. A huge number of my customers, for example, request to be a contact. I mean, I guess that's somewhat legitimate, but if you pointed me at one of those random people without access to my customer database? I wouldn't be able to tell you who they were. I mean, I've had about 4000 customers (I mean, I don't currently have that many, but over the last five years or so, I've had about 4000.) So, I think < 100 contacts is fine, if the person is one of those folks who limits contacts to people they actually know and remember.
- tomkarlo 15y ago
  If someone's been in the industry for a decade (and wants to be an entrepreneur), or went to school less than 10 years ago, I'd be hard pressed to believe there's less than 100 people they know and remember who would want to connect via LinkedIn, etc. I'm a pretty crappy networker and I don't add connections on FB or LI to people I don't know, and I've still got over 1,000.... I don't think 100 is much to ask. And I'm not saying it's a dealbreaker, just something that might mean you should investigate further. (To give a more concrete example, I once realized that someone claimed to have gone to a particular college, but didn't have a single person on either FB or LinkedIn from that school in their friend lists. Doesn't that seem a bit fishy?)

lsc 15y ago

now, I agree completely with your second paragraph. However, as for the first? the problem is that the more 'connections' you have on social networking sites, the more likely you just click 'accept' to all requests. A huge number of my customers, for example, request to be a contact. I mean, I guess that's somewhat legitimate, but if you pointed me at one of those random people without access to my customer database? I wouldn't be able to tell you who they were. I mean, I've had about 4000 customers (I mean, I don't currently have that many, but over the last five years or so, I've had about 4000.) So, I think < 100 contacts is fine, if the person is one of those folks who limits contacts to people they actually know and remember.

tomkarlo 15y ago
If someone's been in the industry for a decade (and wants to be an entrepreneur), or went to school less than 10 years ago, I'd be hard pressed to believe there's less than 100 people they know and remember who would want to connect via LinkedIn, etc. I'm a pretty crappy networker and I don't add connections on FB or LI to people I don't know, and I've still got over 1,000.... I don't think 100 is much to ask. And I'm not saying it's a dealbreaker, just something that might mean you should investigate further. (To give a more concrete example, I once realized that someone claimed to have gone to a particular college, but didn't have a single person on either FB or LinkedIn from that school in their friend lists. Doesn't that seem a bit fishy?)