Living the Startup Life

One of the most important responsibilities that I have is to constantly build relationships.  No matter where I am at, be it a coffee house, new web 2.0 site, or at a company event, my job is to meet absolutely everyone so that I can leverage my contacts to benefit the company.  About 2 weeks ago I signed up for an account with Docstoc and I was greeted by the community manager Kat.  Her job is to make everyone who signs up for the site feel welcomed and my job is to build relationships, so it was only natural that we began to chat.  We actually just met with Docstoc today because I made the effort to build a relationship with Kat.  She was able to get me in contact with the CEO and set it up a meeting where my company could conduct a podcast with him.

During November of 2007, I went to a VC event where Mark Terbeek from MK Capital spoke about his company and what he is looking for in MBA students.  I met an Anderson student named Paul Chen and stayed in contact with him all this time.  I met with him last week to catch up at Anderson and he invited me to be a speaker at the Entrepreneur Association Conference on May 9th!  I will be speaking with a panel of VCs, CMOs, and C-suite recruiters.  I was able to get this speaker position because I built a relationship with Paul and constantly followed up with him about my company and the progress that we are making.

You must build relationship.  The relationship you build now may not help you immediately, nor may they help you within the year.  But if you keep a connection, and develop a friendship, then eventually your contact will greatly benefit you one day or you can greatly benefit your contact one day as well.  Remember, the most important thing in a relationship is to give.  Do you best to help out your contact and he or she will one day return the favor.