6 ms·

Meeting People

115 points by ziadbc 15y ago

iamelgringo 15y ago
The coolest, most helpful people I've met in Silicon Valley make a concerted effort to do just those two things: meet people and get things done. Meet at least one or two new people every couple of days. And, meeting people online... much different than spending an hour with them over coffee. After a few years, you'll be amazed at the opportunities that become available.
ggr 15y ago
If you are an interesting person, you have to put yourself in a situation where you can prove it to others. Find a competition, a hackathon, sport activity or even volunteering and build something with strangers. This is how i made most of my find friends and my connections.
bricestacey 15y ago
I thought I was trying to meet people in the Boston ruby community but I didn't realize how little effort I was putting into it until I contacted two prominent people via railsmentors.org. There are dozens of people that will happily meet with you and make introductions to others. You just can't wait for it to happen. You gotta contact them and plan it. Serendipity is 90% planning.
aklemm 15y ago
Confirmed. This is exactly how the most exciting opportunities in my life have come about. It would be awesome to hear from someone who either doesn't get this or disagrees with it. It seems simple enough, but I bet there are quite a few people who don't get what they're doing wrong.
- sivers 15y ago
  Here's my conditional disagreement: If you live in a social city, you may find yourself in a situation where you're doing more meeting and talking than actually working. I know a few people that have put such emphasis on the importance of meeting with people and connecting people, that they never get any real work done! Yes, the OP mentioned this: "(1) Do something" - but the problem is that contacting people and meeting up with them, and attending events, meetups, and even posting on HN - can all feel like you are doing something. But sometimes you need to ask yourself if you're using all this people-meeting as a distraction from your real work. Too often, I find meeting people is easy. What's HARD is disconnecting, focusing, staying in, and working through the difficult obstacles to creating something valuable.
  - wallflower 15y ago
    > Too often, I find meeting people is easy. What's HARD is disconnecting, focusing, staying in, and working through the difficult obstacles to creating something valuable. From my network marketing days, one phrase sticks out: "Never confuse productivity with activity". I find your statement very interesting. I am convinced that people often focus on what is hard for them/what the lack/what they want more of. For example, my relatively poor artist friends who bounce from job to job (so much that being fired/quitting means nothing) and perpetually have no money but have lots of friends. Contrast that with my relatively successful developer friends who are so busy with projects that they have no time for friends. One more example - the most connected woman I know - very successful founder/CEO - her biggest accomplishment of the past 5 years is completing a 5k run. Because it is challenging for her physically. Have you considered working in an environment where there is energy but you have no connections? Like a university library/cafeteria/commons (library access might be restricted - but sometimes if you pay, sometimes you can get a card as a resident) or a coffee shop in an area where they don't speak your native tongue primarily (Chinatown) or a random hotel lobby with a 3G/4G access point?
  - pace 15y ago
    Great comment. Now, there are so many startup events in my city than never before but every time I struggle to go there. The key of meeting people is simple: you hope that you see/find somebody doing something which inspires you and brings new stuff to life. That's the pattern about how we try and learn new things (like children): you see somebody doing something and you say to yourself, hey I can do this too. But back to your comment: If I stay home and dive into a new topic it's always 100% more productive. I remember those days when I was learning Ruby at a Saturday night when my friends were heading to the same clubs they visited every weekend and I knew that they are wasting their time (usually you feel the opposite when a bunch of people you know meet/go out). But the problem is that you usually need a trigger to get productive and just from surfing the web and reading Hacker News it's hard to get this trigger -- don't ask me why but getting active from just reading a blog post doesn't work (maybe there're just too many of them.) So, at the end you need to have a good ratio of being productive and just being active/busy/meeting people. A last thought: if I think back to all encounters on such startup events most stay superficial and lead nowhere. I got the most inspiration out of long-term relationships (coworkers).
wallflower 15y ago
Speaking as someone who has been historically afraid to invite people, it's so true. People want to be led. That doesn't necessarily mean starting a non-profit but something like getting people together for a dinner or a happy hour or an art crawl. Planning dinner parties. I've actually started doing this. I find that it seems to be a lot harder to plan/execute/have a small (8-10 person) dinner engagement than it is to send out a broad invite to almost everyone you know for a 30 person party - expectations of the host/guests? I don't know why (yet). The key for a dinner party is to not to try for a weekend night but a weekday night (e.g. Tuesday or Wednesday) - easier to compete against other events on those days than weekend events (which are usually more important/reserved slots). Having non-shows annoy me (but life happens). Always try to invite some couples - that maximizes the invite/halves the required outreach. I used to consider myself a fairly shy person but the thing is I have run into people at other friends's events who I already know (and my friends are like - you know them already?) Which makes me realize - that I am not as shy as I claim to be. Actions speak more than your beliefs? I like to try to run in many circles (albeit loosely connected). I have not yet managed to bring disparate social circles together on a regular basis (outside of a big party) but that is my goal. I have had at least two instances of people meeting and dating - so by that metric - I have succeeded. As I heard once, it is very hard to be the global maximum (e.g. POTUS). Harder to be the regional maximum. But at your own party, at your own event, by definition - you are the local maximum. The host, the one who brought everyone together. That counts for a lot. Good luck and just get it going. Don't wait for your dinner party/bar crawl to be perfect. All you need is two people with you to not feel like a social pariah. Because you are not one.
alain94040 15y ago
I attended my first lean startup circle lunch last Wednesday in Palo Alto. It's definitely getting easier to meet people interesting people now than 10 years ago. The trick is to be genuinely interested in what other people are doing. If you go to any event trying to sell [yourself|your product] you'll look like a jerk.
mberning 15y ago
I don't think I'm in the minority, but I'll come out and say it. I hate the concept of 'meeting new people'. Not saying that I hate people or socializing, I just hate the whole song and dance of exchanging pleasantries, feigning interest, and proffering bits of information about myself, etc. It's one of those things where you have to go out and press flesh with 100 or 200 people to find one person you REALLY click with. It's overwhelming to me and I'm usually drained after chatting up 10 or 15 people. On the other hand, I have had pretty good luck dropping in on local and regional forums, chatting about topical stuff, building a rapport with people, and then meeting them in person.
- wallflower 15y ago
  > On the other hand, I have had pretty good luck dropping in on local and regional forums, chatting about topical stuff, building a rapport with people, and then meeting them in person. The three C's: Conversation-friendliness, Community, Continuity https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2800649 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2800649
- spodek 15y ago
  My social and communications skills weren't great when I started my first company. As a science graduate student before that I didn't think they'd need to be. Nor did I like acting like I did. How much we enjoy something depends on our expectations of success. As you improve your skills and experience success meeting people you enjoy it more. You'll also get better jobs, have better meetings with VCs, etc. Since I came to improving my communication and social skills later in life through exercises, I shared a few of the most effective exercises on my blog -- http://joshuaspodek.com/communication-skills-exercises-6 http://joshuaspodek.com/communication-skills-exercises-6. They've become some of my most popular posts. This is just the type of crowd I wrote them for.
jmspring 15y ago
An interesting experience from last evening. Attending my most recent high school reunion, I mainly showed up to see a couple of old friends. Upon arrival, I looked around and realized two things -- I didn't recognize most of the people there; and those that I did I didn't have an interest in chatting with. Then, a funny thing happened, I realized a number of people were in the same boat, scratching their heads at who these people were. I had a couple of very good conversations with an Accenture Consultant who had travelled to some of the same countries as I have recently; as well as someone I did recognize but never spoke much with who has a startup doing pretty well in the mobile space. My takeaway -- when thrown into a big group, especially one with certain baggage attached, it is best to just let go and take the time to chat. A simple hello, how are you, what do you do/what have you been up to, only takes a few minutes. In most cases, it might be considered a "waste of time" but there will be moments where something unexpected comes about. Furthermore, if you are like me -- someone who tends to prefer the intimate/known to vast wilderness -- it might do you some good to branch out.
- genieyclo 15y ago
  Curious, why exactly do people attend high school reunions?
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - impendia 15y ago
    As painful and awkward as high school was, there were a lot of really cool people in my high school, many of whom I didn't succeed in connecting with at the time.
  - johnnyjustice 15y ago
    To see old friends, that you may have lost touch with. And unfortunately to compare themselves with others. But fortunately, this could be a great opportunity to make new friends based on some commonality and sharing where they are in life.
  - 15y ago
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
EGreg 15y ago
Man, I could write volumes regarding meeting people. I made a study of it because I was very interested. Now I should put it into practice. I was just too disorganized/lazy to take my own advice. First of all, organizing things that others will enjoy is certainly a great way. But you also have to motivate people to bring their friends, otherwise you'll always be seeing the same people. People bring their friends when there is something they really want them to experience, so that's what you should focus on. Also, meeting people is a great way to realize that you can outsource responsibilities to others, something that can actually "scale". Often this allows you to network to the right people. The key here is not to be perfect, and not to put too much responsibility on yourself. For example, you want to bring together two groups of people (men and women, say, or investors and entrepreneurs) that would really like to meet each other. You want to cultivate an aura of quality (i.e. the men and women are exceptionally attractive for whatever reason) and selectiveness in order to inspire people to perpetuate this selectiveness and recommend it to their friends. Suddenly the experience is created not just by you, but by this self perpetuating aura of exclusivity. Being the facilitator and helping people meet each other actually gets you a lot of points, which you can use later when you need a favor yourself. If you're coming as a guest, though, there is a real economics that starts happening, and a currency. Perhaps it is unfortunate from an idealistic point of view, but that's the way it works in many conferences, nightclubs, etc. In general, though, if you want to come to events as a guest, you probably want to be invited either by the organizer or by a regular. If it's the organizer, you'd ideally like to bring some "high quality" friends to the event (such as fellow smart engineers) and introduce them to the organizer, so the organizer will want to invite you again. Additionally you can form a little "group" that tells each other about events and invites each other. At these events, when you talk to someone important, you can tout the other people in the group instead of bragging about yourself, and they would do the same for you. As a result, you are able to meet many more people through your "network" who is out there meeting people in 10 different places and filtering them for you, because you yourself can be in only one place at a time. How to start motivating people you know to start networking wherever they are and mentioning you when the opportunity comes up? You have to start doing it for them first. Ask for their business cards. You have to hook people up with opportunities and then ask them to go out and do the same for you. Give them your business cards.
- 15y ago
bootload 15y ago
"... I would venture to say most of what is said about meeting people is either bad, or easily interpreted in a way that will not be helpful. ..." No mention of body language? "Body Language Basics", Navarro, Joe. ~ http://www.psychologytoday.com/print/72334 http://www.psychologytoday.com/print/72334
- salemh 15y ago
  Too minor a point in relevance to the conversation. Perhaps in a highly nuanced discussion of social interactions (different thread / topic).
gigawatt 15y ago
Generally good, though short, advice. I think the author slightly misunderstands the point about smalltalk, though. The point isn't to "talk about the other person," the point is to ask questions. That doesn't preclude you from talking about yourself, it actually makes it easier. Ask questions until you find something in common or that you can relate to. The cold email advice at the bottom is spot on too. In the last couple months, I've had lunch with two rather well-known people in my field who I have tons of respect for. In both cases, I cold emailed them and asked to get together.

115 points by ziadbc 15y ago

The coolest, most helpful people I've met in Silicon Valley make a concerted effort to do just those two things: meet people and get things done. Meet at least one or two new people every couple of days. And, meeting people online... much different than spending an hour with them over coffee. After a few years, you'll be amazed at the opportunities that become available.

ggr 15y ago

If you are an interesting person, you have to put yourself in a situation where you can prove it to others. Find a competition, a hackathon, sport activity or even volunteering and build something with strangers. This is how i made most of my find friends and my connections.

bricestacey 15y ago

I thought I was trying to meet people in the Boston ruby community but I didn't realize how little effort I was putting into it until I contacted two prominent people via railsmentors.org. There are dozens of people that will happily meet with you and make introductions to others. You just can't wait for it to happen. You gotta contact them and plan it. Serendipity is 90% planning.

aklemm 15y ago

Confirmed. This is exactly how the most exciting opportunities in my life have come about. It would be awesome to hear from someone who either doesn't get this or disagrees with it. It seems simple enough, but I bet there are quite a few people who don't get what they're doing wrong.

sivers 15y ago
Here's my conditional disagreement: If you live in a social city, you may find yourself in a situation where you're doing more meeting and talking than actually working. I know a few people that have put such emphasis on the importance of meeting with people and connecting people, that they never get any real work done! Yes, the OP mentioned this: "(1) Do something" - but the problem is that contacting people and meeting up with them, and attending events, meetups, and even posting on HN - can all feel like you are doing something. But sometimes you need to ask yourself if you're using all this people-meeting as a distraction from your real work. Too often, I find meeting people is easy. What's HARD is disconnecting, focusing, staying in, and working through the difficult obstacles to creating something valuable.
- wallflower 15y ago
  > Too often, I find meeting people is easy. What's HARD is disconnecting, focusing, staying in, and working through the difficult obstacles to creating something valuable. From my network marketing days, one phrase sticks out: "Never confuse productivity with activity". I find your statement very interesting. I am convinced that people often focus on what is hard for them/what the lack/what they want more of. For example, my relatively poor artist friends who bounce from job to job (so much that being fired/quitting means nothing) and perpetually have no money but have lots of friends. Contrast that with my relatively successful developer friends who are so busy with projects that they have no time for friends. One more example - the most connected woman I know - very successful founder/CEO - her biggest accomplishment of the past 5 years is completing a 5k run. Because it is challenging for her physically. Have you considered working in an environment where there is energy but you have no connections? Like a university library/cafeteria/commons (library access might be restricted - but sometimes if you pay, sometimes you can get a card as a resident) or a coffee shop in an area where they don't speak your native tongue primarily (Chinatown) or a random hotel lobby with a 3G/4G access point?
- pace 15y ago
  Great comment. Now, there are so many startup events in my city than never before but every time I struggle to go there. The key of meeting people is simple: you hope that you see/find somebody doing something which inspires you and brings new stuff to life. That's the pattern about how we try and learn new things (like children): you see somebody doing something and you say to yourself, hey I can do this too. But back to your comment: If I stay home and dive into a new topic it's always 100% more productive. I remember those days when I was learning Ruby at a Saturday night when my friends were heading to the same clubs they visited every weekend and I knew that they are wasting their time (usually you feel the opposite when a bunch of people you know meet/go out). But the problem is that you usually need a trigger to get productive and just from surfing the web and reading Hacker News it's hard to get this trigger -- don't ask me why but getting active from just reading a blog post doesn't work (maybe there're just too many of them.) So, at the end you need to have a good ratio of being productive and just being active/busy/meeting people. A last thought: if I think back to all encounters on such startup events most stay superficial and lead nowhere. I got the most inspiration out of long-term relationships (coworkers).

wallflower 15y ago

Speaking as someone who has been historically afraid to invite people, it's so true. People want to be led. That doesn't necessarily mean starting a non-profit but something like getting people together for a dinner or a happy hour or an art crawl. Planning dinner parties. I've actually started doing this. I find that it seems to be a lot harder to plan/execute/have a small (8-10 person) dinner engagement than it is to send out a broad invite to almost everyone you know for a 30 person party - expectations of the host/guests? I don't know why (yet). The key for a dinner party is to not to try for a weekend night but a weekday night (e.g. Tuesday or Wednesday) - easier to compete against other events on those days than weekend events (which are usually more important/reserved slots). Having non-shows annoy me (but life happens). Always try to invite some couples - that maximizes the invite/halves the required outreach. I used to consider myself a fairly shy person but the thing is I have run into people at other friends's events who I already know (and my friends are like - you know them already?) Which makes me realize - that I am not as shy as I claim to be. Actions speak more than your beliefs? I like to try to run in many circles (albeit loosely connected). I have not yet managed to bring disparate social circles together on a regular basis (outside of a big party) but that is my goal. I have had at least two instances of people meeting and dating - so by that metric - I have succeeded. As I heard once, it is very hard to be the global maximum (e.g. POTUS). Harder to be the regional maximum. But at your own party, at your own event, by definition - you are the local maximum. The host, the one who brought everyone together. That counts for a lot. Good luck and just get it going. Don't wait for your dinner party/bar crawl to be perfect. All you need is two people with you to not feel like a social pariah. Because you are not one.

alain94040 15y ago

I attended my first lean startup circle lunch last Wednesday in Palo Alto. It's definitely getting easier to meet people interesting people now than 10 years ago. The trick is to be genuinely interested in what other people are doing. If you go to any event trying to sell [yourself|your product] you'll look like a jerk.

mberning 15y ago

I don't think I'm in the minority, but I'll come out and say it. I hate the concept of 'meeting new people'. Not saying that I hate people or socializing, I just hate the whole song and dance of exchanging pleasantries, feigning interest, and proffering bits of information about myself, etc. It's one of those things where you have to go out and press flesh with 100 or 200 people to find one person you REALLY click with. It's overwhelming to me and I'm usually drained after chatting up 10 or 15 people. On the other hand, I have had pretty good luck dropping in on local and regional forums, chatting about topical stuff, building a rapport with people, and then meeting them in person.

wallflower 15y ago
> On the other hand, I have had pretty good luck dropping in on local and regional forums, chatting about topical stuff, building a rapport with people, and then meeting them in person. The three C's: Conversation-friendliness, Community, Continuity https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2800649 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2800649
spodek 15y ago
My social and communications skills weren't great when I started my first company. As a science graduate student before that I didn't think they'd need to be. Nor did I like acting like I did. How much we enjoy something depends on our expectations of success. As you improve your skills and experience success meeting people you enjoy it more. You'll also get better jobs, have better meetings with VCs, etc. Since I came to improving my communication and social skills later in life through exercises, I shared a few of the most effective exercises on my blog -- http://joshuaspodek.com/communication-skills-exercises-6 http://joshuaspodek.com/communication-skills-exercises-6. They've become some of my most popular posts. This is just the type of crowd I wrote them for.

jmspring 15y ago

An interesting experience from last evening. Attending my most recent high school reunion, I mainly showed up to see a couple of old friends. Upon arrival, I looked around and realized two things -- I didn't recognize most of the people there; and those that I did I didn't have an interest in chatting with. Then, a funny thing happened, I realized a number of people were in the same boat, scratching their heads at who these people were. I had a couple of very good conversations with an Accenture Consultant who had travelled to some of the same countries as I have recently; as well as someone I did recognize but never spoke much with who has a startup doing pretty well in the mobile space. My takeaway -- when thrown into a big group, especially one with certain baggage attached, it is best to just let go and take the time to chat. A simple hello, how are you, what do you do/what have you been up to, only takes a few minutes. In most cases, it might be considered a "waste of time" but there will be moments where something unexpected comes about. Furthermore, if you are like me -- someone who tends to prefer the intimate/known to vast wilderness -- it might do you some good to branch out.

genieyclo 15y ago
Curious, why exactly do people attend high school reunions?
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- impendia 15y ago
  As painful and awkward as high school was, there were a lot of really cool people in my high school, many of whom I didn't succeed in connecting with at the time.
- johnnyjustice 15y ago
  To see old friends, that you may have lost touch with. And unfortunately to compare themselves with others. But fortunately, this could be a great opportunity to make new friends based on some commonality and sharing where they are in life.
- 15y ago

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

EGreg 15y ago

Man, I could write volumes regarding meeting people. I made a study of it because I was very interested. Now I should put it into practice. I was just too disorganized/lazy to take my own advice. First of all, organizing things that others will enjoy is certainly a great way. But you also have to motivate people to bring their friends, otherwise you'll always be seeing the same people. People bring their friends when there is something they really want them to experience, so that's what you should focus on. Also, meeting people is a great way to realize that you can outsource responsibilities to others, something that can actually "scale". Often this allows you to network to the right people. The key here is not to be perfect, and not to put too much responsibility on yourself. For example, you want to bring together two groups of people (men and women, say, or investors and entrepreneurs) that would really like to meet each other. You want to cultivate an aura of quality (i.e. the men and women are exceptionally attractive for whatever reason) and selectiveness in order to inspire people to perpetuate this selectiveness and recommend it to their friends. Suddenly the experience is created not just by you, but by this self perpetuating aura of exclusivity. Being the facilitator and helping people meet each other actually gets you a lot of points, which you can use later when you need a favor yourself. If you're coming as a guest, though, there is a real economics that starts happening, and a currency. Perhaps it is unfortunate from an idealistic point of view, but that's the way it works in many conferences, nightclubs, etc. In general, though, if you want to come to events as a guest, you probably want to be invited either by the organizer or by a regular. If it's the organizer, you'd ideally like to bring some "high quality" friends to the event (such as fellow smart engineers) and introduce them to the organizer, so the organizer will want to invite you again. Additionally you can form a little "group" that tells each other about events and invites each other. At these events, when you talk to someone important, you can tout the other people in the group instead of bragging about yourself, and they would do the same for you. As a result, you are able to meet many more people through your "network" who is out there meeting people in 10 different places and filtering them for you, because you yourself can be in only one place at a time. How to start motivating people you know to start networking wherever they are and mentioning you when the opportunity comes up? You have to start doing it for them first. Ask for their business cards. You have to hook people up with opportunities and then ask them to go out and do the same for you. Give them your business cards.

15y ago

bootload 15y ago

"... I would venture to say most of what is said about meeting people is either bad, or easily interpreted in a way that will not be helpful. ..." No mention of body language? "Body Language Basics", Navarro, Joe. ~ http://www.psychologytoday.com/print/72334 http://www.psychologytoday.com/print/72334

salemh 15y ago
Too minor a point in relevance to the conversation. Perhaps in a highly nuanced discussion of social interactions (different thread / topic).

gigawatt 15y ago

Generally good, though short, advice. I think the author slightly misunderstands the point about smalltalk, though. The point isn't to "talk about the other person," the point is to ask questions. That doesn't preclude you from talking about yourself, it actually makes it easier. Ask questions until you find something in common or that you can relate to. The cold email advice at the bottom is spot on too. In the last couple months, I've had lunch with two rather well-known people in my field who I have tons of respect for. In both cases, I cold emailed them and asked to get together.