Memoirs of an introvert: How to network

I hated networking.

Not a lot has changed, and I still do get tired of it relatively quickly.

Before working around startups, I had maybe two or three events yearly that required me to walk into a room of strangers and converse with them about anything and everything.

Even then my attitude had always been: Talk to a few interesting people and leave when it seemed appropriate to do so (basically whenever I felt overwhelmed or bored).

After getting into the startup scene, I realized that my fantasy of early exits and non-networking-friendly attitude was not sustainable. Nowadays, I’m now either an organizer, blogging-material-hunter, smoocher (my least favourite if it wasn’t obvious), or evangelist. None of those titles let me leave early.

Although I do ultimately have the choice of being that guy sitting in the corner looking at his phone, I realized that I would be missing out on some fun opportunities to talk shop, get content ideas, or even find clients.

At first it was hard

Prior to my current job, I would say that I’d talk to maybe five strangers at most in events. And everyone one of those interactions had no major bearing on my job or life.

Now I’ve learned to pack extra business cards in case my stack on-hand ran out.

The very first event that I attended after joining the startup scene was actually Tech in Asia’s event in Singapore. I was there to meet some of startups, talk about what I did and to look out for any opportunities. We didn’t have a booth which meant that I ended up doing most of the approaching.

I remember the first few conversations were a mess.

At that point I didn’t know a lot about the startup scene, and even less about some of the terminology people like to throw around. This meant a lot of awkward silences, asking for definitions, and by the time they asked me about what I did, I don’t think I sounded very – if at all – credible.

But as the event went on, I got better. By the end, I remember approaching VCs and striking up a conversation. Sometimes I couldn’t shake the fact that they saw me as a kid fresh out of the water. Other times, despite the screw ups, they seem to approve of the fact that I half made sense.

What changed?

What did I learn?