Yes, the founders should be home working 95% of the time. That still leaves a few hours each week to "explore opportunities". I can think of many reasons to go

Yes, the founders should be home working 95% of the time. That still leaves a few hours each week to "explore opportunities". I can think of many reasons to go to networking events (disclaimer: I organize a startup conference[1], I used to organize a meetup for co-founders to meet, and I used to have a business networking over lunch startup[2], so it's a topic I care about) When I network, my ROI horizon is 6 months or more. In my personal experience, if I need something right now (find an angel to give me $250K, find a developer to write my MVP), it won't work. However, people I met 6 months ago, who I found interesting (but had no particular need for at the time), turn out to be a life saver. Don't be selfish: network for others too. If the person you are talking to is looking for something specific, and you happen to know someone who could help, offer to make the introduction (assuming both parties pass your quality threshold). Quality of events matter: if you are a new entrepreneur and doesn't even know what vesting or 83(b) is, you need to chat to people to catch up to the average level of entrepreneurs around where you are. At some point, you will "graduate" from those events. You can tell because when that happens, you can help pretty much everyone at that event with confidence. When that happens, you need to move to higher quality/more selective events. Pro tip: if there is no such event near you, start one. [1] http://thestartupconference.com http://thestartupconference.com [2] http://colunchers.com http://colunchers.com