I don’t know what sort of founder you are or what you are looking for. I have been a founder and am currently an exec at an early stage startup. There is close to zero value in talking to other early stage founders most of the time. I never cared about the “startup scene” because it’s complete irrelevant to my company. Can you get me customers or engineers? That’s all I cared about. I am curious what you hope to get out of these convos.
Sparks of inspiration for both individuals that make both of them collectively better!
I agree this is a far cry in today's dog eats dog world driven by inflation and protectionism but Silicon Valley actually flourished because of this very spirit of pay it forward which seem to be missing today :(
All the founders I know (warning - not many, so take it with the grain of salt)
a) don’t waste time on mingling with random people b) more than happy to chat and connect with anyone with a specific goal explained upfront. As long ad this goal is relevant to their current or future work.
“Bouncing off ideas” or “coffee chat” may sound not like a waste of time only if your work is very relevant to other founder’s work (like you are a head of competing product, or a professional with unique skillset they are looking for).
Agree. Ideas about what to build are dime a dozen but ideas about how to execute them successfully are not that broadly shared except when the founder becomes a big success and gets their own biography written by someone.
Perhaps I should have clarified I meant bouncing off ideas about execution and coffee chat on sharing inspiration on how they landed them against all odds.
People are busy struggling with their own execution challenges including myself. My point is they may not have to struggle alone by 1)learning from each other and 2)paying it forward.
Are you bringing anything to the table? Or are you mostly looking for ways to improve yourself.
Both are fine, but its not clear from your post which you are chasing. And clearly it kinda matters to the people you are contacting.
If you have a specific set of challenges and you're looking for advice, then say so. If you have been successful and are looking to advise others then pitch that instead.
Given that my specific industry context is different from yours, given that your experience is likely in a different country (or city) to me, I'm not really sure what you're looking for, other than being away from home and looking for people to socialize with.
Perhaps it would be helpful if you articulate your goals better.
It's both.... mutual sharing of learning to improve the space without immediate expectation of a return to any one party.
You are assuming that the founder seeking to connect is less experienced and more desperate than the founder who is busy working on their idea and does not find the need to share anything.
Google shared the Attention paper with the world. What did OpenAI bring to the table?
Tesla open sourced all their EV patents. What did BYD, KIA or Ford bring to the table?
These companies are stronger because they compete on their confidence to execute and because they make the entire ecosystem better.
In doing so they improved each other and the industry as whole. Hope this makes sense. It's not a zero sum game! :)
My point is that when you're reaching out it's helpful to articulate what you are looking for.
Since I've never met you, if you reached out to me using the post above, I politely decline since I don't see what I'd learn from you. I expect you're not Bill Gates or Steve Jobs etc (if you were you wouldn't be hitting me up).
Now it's possible you could learn from me, but (shrug) probably not. There's a million places you can go online to read much better things than I could say. (I most certainly am not Steve Jobs.)
I think you're suggesting we meet as "peers" - but you're giving me nothing to suggest er are peers. Since my default position is "nothing to see here", I'm just moving along.
I think if you want to make contacts you need to narrow down your search a bit.
People love to talk about themselves and what they're doing. I don't think there's any barrier; if you know the right way to approach these conversations, they'll dump ideas on you.
I believe it might be selection bias. Founders who are building things are not joining networking events. I tend to avoid co-working spaces too ever since I realized it's full of the people I block on Facebook.
There's people who bounce ideas, and then there's some form of idea tire kicking. They talk about how vibe code is the future and going to change how we live and work, but they have never downloaded an AI IDE. These people are there to kick ideas around all day and they'll pay for a co-working space so they can kick their ideas at strangers and ignore all feedback. It's exhausting and it's possible that you might be viewed as one of those people.
IMHO Networking events are but marketing and sales events for the sponsors or VCs.
We need bring back our modern day version of the Homebrew Computer Club.
The one's building amazing things are far and few in between due to lack of mentors in the community and hyper focus on "what's in it for me" mindset.
We do have some like the Homebrew Computer Club, but not (yet) as elite. Kuala Lumpur has some talent, but not the density of talent. I may join once every two years. Every time I do there's a founder who ends up public listed. One even had enough success rate to become a VC, but it's hard to tell which one will be who.
But so far the sales events have had a higher hit rate. There's very talented people joining whatever new thing AWS is launching, or the hackathons.
If anything, founders are good at building things. Hackathons are an excuse to experiment with a new tool for some, a sport for others. I think a lot of friendships today are forged in the heat of the hackathons. I met this guy who wanted to build an "AI assistant" with Gemini, which I dismissed as a dumb idea because Google has been building AI assistants for years. But his idea went much deeper than that and he won the hackathon car.
I don't want to be sold to, I don't want anyone trying to dump my brain either. Let's say you are a total stranger and wanted to meet with me, there are 2 things that will interest me. 99% my interests. 1% you are doing something amazing. The thing is most people think they are doing something amazing, but most people don't find it so and it doesn't match their interest. Instead of trying to meet folks, put what you are working on out there and let people try to meet you, they will try to if they find it interesting enough.
Why are skilled people not
willing to, in the best case, perform free labor, and in the worst case, expose themselves to multiple physical and non-physical risks?
I know of only 2 places for this : SF, and Canggu.
I've lived in Paris, London, Cambridge(UK), NYC : there are obviously also founders there, but they're too spread out.
Yes depending on the profile and achievement of the person reaching out for sure. What happened to meeting inspiring people across the world?
Protectionism supports incrementalism and can kill 10x impactful innovation However, I recognize that economic challenges like inflation and intense competition can make exploration and discovery more difficult.
Are you an inspiring person? What are your profile and achievements? All we have to go on here is a profile created 7 years ago with zero activity until today. No offense intended, but this doesn't really feel all that different from a cold caller being frustrated that their calls aren't being picked up.
I have been there and done that. Sent LinkedIn messages but never got any response. I understand where you are coming from. I do.
Then I reflected on that and thought about the many times I rarely responded to any LinkedIn messages sent by someone who I have not met or had no common connection what-so-ever. I realized everyone is busy and also may not want to spend any time or energy on someone who they have no connection - or want to protect themselves from potential spammers.
What is in it for them? - That's the hard truth that rarely anyone wants to spend any time or energy on someone who they have connection. It doesn't matter if you are from the same school, city or an entrepreneur like them.
Silicon Valley is the only place in the world where startup culture is a significant part of the general business culture because it is the only place with the depth of venture capital networks.
I don’t know what sort of founder you are or what you are looking for. I have been a founder and am currently an exec at an early stage startup. There is close to zero value in talking to other early stage founders most of the time. I never cared about the “startup scene” because it’s complete irrelevant to my company. Can you get me customers or engineers? That’s all I cared about. I am curious what you hope to get out of these convos.
Sparks of inspiration for both individuals that make both of them collectively better! I agree this is a far cry in today's dog eats dog world driven by inflation and protectionism but Silicon Valley actually flourished because of this very spirit of pay it forward which seem to be missing today :(
All the founders I know (warning - not many, so take it with the grain of salt) a) don’t waste time on mingling with random people b) more than happy to chat and connect with anyone with a specific goal explained upfront. As long ad this goal is relevant to their current or future work.
“Bouncing off ideas” or “coffee chat” may sound not like a waste of time only if your work is very relevant to other founder’s work (like you are a head of competing product, or a professional with unique skillset they are looking for).
People are busy building things.
Agree. Ideas about what to build are dime a dozen but ideas about how to execute them successfully are not that broadly shared except when the founder becomes a big success and gets their own biography written by someone.
Perhaps I should have clarified I meant bouncing off ideas about execution and coffee chat on sharing inspiration on how they landed them against all odds.
People are busy struggling with their own execution challenges including myself. My point is they may not have to struggle alone by 1)learning from each other and 2)paying it forward.
Are you bringing anything to the table? Or are you mostly looking for ways to improve yourself.
Both are fine, but its not clear from your post which you are chasing. And clearly it kinda matters to the people you are contacting.
If you have a specific set of challenges and you're looking for advice, then say so. If you have been successful and are looking to advise others then pitch that instead.
Given that my specific industry context is different from yours, given that your experience is likely in a different country (or city) to me, I'm not really sure what you're looking for, other than being away from home and looking for people to socialize with.
Perhaps it would be helpful if you articulate your goals better.
It's both.... mutual sharing of learning to improve the space without immediate expectation of a return to any one party.
You are assuming that the founder seeking to connect is less experienced and more desperate than the founder who is busy working on their idea and does not find the need to share anything.
Google shared the Attention paper with the world. What did OpenAI bring to the table? Tesla open sourced all their EV patents. What did BYD, KIA or Ford bring to the table?
These companies are stronger because they compete on their confidence to execute and because they make the entire ecosystem better.
In doing so they improved each other and the industry as whole. Hope this makes sense. It's not a zero sum game! :)
My point is that when you're reaching out it's helpful to articulate what you are looking for.
Since I've never met you, if you reached out to me using the post above, I politely decline since I don't see what I'd learn from you. I expect you're not Bill Gates or Steve Jobs etc (if you were you wouldn't be hitting me up).
Now it's possible you could learn from me, but (shrug) probably not. There's a million places you can go online to read much better things than I could say. (I most certainly am not Steve Jobs.)
I think you're suggesting we meet as "peers" - but you're giving me nothing to suggest er are peers. Since my default position is "nothing to see here", I'm just moving along.
I think if you want to make contacts you need to narrow down your search a bit.
People love to talk about themselves and what they're doing. I don't think there's any barrier; if you know the right way to approach these conversations, they'll dump ideas on you.
I believe it might be selection bias. Founders who are building things are not joining networking events. I tend to avoid co-working spaces too ever since I realized it's full of the people I block on Facebook.
There's people who bounce ideas, and then there's some form of idea tire kicking. They talk about how vibe code is the future and going to change how we live and work, but they have never downloaded an AI IDE. These people are there to kick ideas around all day and they'll pay for a co-working space so they can kick their ideas at strangers and ignore all feedback. It's exhausting and it's possible that you might be viewed as one of those people.
IMHO Networking events are but marketing and sales events for the sponsors or VCs. We need bring back our modern day version of the Homebrew Computer Club.
The one's building amazing things are far and few in between due to lack of mentors in the community and hyper focus on "what's in it for me" mindset.
We do have some like the Homebrew Computer Club, but not (yet) as elite. Kuala Lumpur has some talent, but not the density of talent. I may join once every two years. Every time I do there's a founder who ends up public listed. One even had enough success rate to become a VC, but it's hard to tell which one will be who.
But so far the sales events have had a higher hit rate. There's very talented people joining whatever new thing AWS is launching, or the hackathons.
If anything, founders are good at building things. Hackathons are an excuse to experiment with a new tool for some, a sport for others. I think a lot of friendships today are forged in the heat of the hackathons. I met this guy who wanted to build an "AI assistant" with Gemini, which I dismissed as a dumb idea because Google has been building AI assistants for years. But his idea went much deeper than that and he won the hackathon car.
Some of the comments in this thread actually highlight the crux of this issue: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43957010
I don't want to be sold to, I don't want anyone trying to dump my brain either. Let's say you are a total stranger and wanted to meet with me, there are 2 things that will interest me. 99% my interests. 1% you are doing something amazing. The thing is most people think they are doing something amazing, but most people don't find it so and it doesn't match their interest. Instead of trying to meet folks, put what you are working on out there and let people try to meet you, they will try to if they find it interesting enough.
Why are skilled people not willing to, in the best case, perform free labor, and in the worst case, expose themselves to multiple physical and non-physical risks?
What cities did you go to ?
I know of only 2 places for this : SF, and Canggu. I've lived in Paris, London, Cambridge(UK), NYC : there are obviously also founders there, but they're too spread out.
You don’t get to hang out with the cool kids unless you bring something to the table. Looks, money, or influence what’s your currency?
Next time, ask if they do one-off consulting meetings, and offer to pay for their time.
> nerd out about startups
I'm not building anything, but I'm happy to "nerd out" about startups. Will you meet me?
What's in it for them? From the perspective of local founders, perhaps nothing?
Would you respond to cold emails and out-of-blue LinkedIn messages?
Yes depending on the profile and achievement of the person reaching out for sure. What happened to meeting inspiring people across the world? Protectionism supports incrementalism and can kill 10x impactful innovation However, I recognize that economic challenges like inflation and intense competition can make exploration and discovery more difficult.
Are you an inspiring person? What are your profile and achievements? All we have to go on here is a profile created 7 years ago with zero activity until today. No offense intended, but this doesn't really feel all that different from a cold caller being frustrated that their calls aren't being picked up.
There is a difference. Cold caller is calling to sell you something.
I have been there and done that. Sent LinkedIn messages but never got any response. I understand where you are coming from. I do.
Then I reflected on that and thought about the many times I rarely responded to any LinkedIn messages sent by someone who I have not met or had no common connection what-so-ever. I realized everyone is busy and also may not want to spend any time or energy on someone who they have no connection - or want to protect themselves from potential spammers.
What is in it for them? - That's the hard truth that rarely anyone wants to spend any time or energy on someone who they have connection. It doesn't matter if you are from the same school, city or an entrepreneur like them.
Try offering money for a consultation. They don’t have any reason to speak to you.
The startup scene is a business scene. The core value of business scenes is trust and adding business value is the core reason for collaboration.
Good luck.
If Xerox park had invited Jobs for adding business value we would have never gotten Apple! Spirit of Silicon Valley is to pay it back.
Silicon Valley is the only place in the world where startup culture is a significant part of the general business culture because it is the only place with the depth of venture capital networks.
TL;DR - Learn from each other. Pay it forward. It's not a zero sum game! :)