Networking and making connections is vital for a burgeoning entrepreneur. The right introductions can help catapult a new startup from a roughshod patchwork of ideas and execution in a garage or studio apartment to a fully operational, well-funded machine.
By connecting entrepreneurs to potential clients and mentors, investors and partners, community-based networking businesses can become incubators of growth.
I asked a couple of networking superstars for their advice on how to build a community-based organization that benefits everyone involved. Here’s what I learned:
Understand that you’re in the people business.
Starting a networking group is not not the same as forming a typical business, Scott Gerber told me. Gerber is the founder of the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invitation-only networking group for entrepreneurs that Entrepreneur magazine called “one of America’s most successful communities for business.
“I think many people try to build communities with a business plan mentality,” Gerber said, but “communities don’t work that way. They are human, not widgets or technology. Would-be community builders need to understand they are in the people business. Additionally, they need to have a wide array of skills and traits, such as emotional intelligence, empathy and a strong bent towards hospitality and operational excellence.”
I also spoke with Guy Franklin. Franklin is the leader of the Israeli entrepreneurial community in New York and general manager of SOSA NY, a network for startups expanding to the Big Apple and seeking connections to the local ecosystem in general and innovative corporations in particular.
Franklin told me that networks must be totally focused on the needs of…