The 2010s was the decade of the Entrepreneur.
The 2020s will be the decade of the Investor.
“The nice thing about a network is that, with the right effort, it grows naturally. You plant the seeds early, nurture the relationships and, over time, great things blossom. As such, you need to build your network before you can really harvest it.”
Katie Lewis & me
I was due to give a talk at UCL’s School of Management yesterday but the trains from rural Hertfordshire conspired against me so I didn’t make it.
However I didn’t want the talk to go to waste, so I tidied up my notes and shared them with Alastair Moore to pass onto the students, but also thought it would be something you might also want to read.
My talk was about how I accidentally became good at networking — and how I’ve done that through 9others, the global founder community I co-founded, with some lessons learned that are useful for entrepreneurial students (and you).
Below is the talk in full…
Hello & thank you
Thanks to Alastair for inviting me in today and apologies for the train issues that meant I couldn’t join you in-person. Alastair has been kind enough to come to many networking events I’ve hosted over the years so I’m really pleased to be able to tell you what I’ve been up to and to share some experiences that have helped me and I hope they’ll help you too.
I know that a lot of the learning here at UCL is, on the surface, more specifically related to technology, innovation and entrepreneurship in Europe but something I think often gets overlooked but is of critical importance is your network and how to start, build and maintain relationships.
Critically you need to build your network before you really need it.
Intro to me, Katie & 9others
That’s me on the left, above (we had some fancy headshots done a few weeks ago so I take any chance I can get to show them off). The other person in the picture is Katie Lewis, my co-founder, and she’s been instrumental in the networks I’ve built and been part of since we started working together back in 2011.
First a little background for context:
I have worked with startups and investors since 2010 and I absolutely love it.
I’ve worked with VCs, (U)HNWIs and have angel invested my own money.
I have made 24 investments and have had five exits (one partial) and six of my investments have failed. So that’s 14 still going, some incredibly well.
My undergraduate degree was in Computer Science from Durham University.
I have an MBA from Imperial College.
Before that I had a (pretty boring and miserable) career in financial services technology working for banks and software companies.
My intro to ‘networking’
I remember being in Business School and on the first day the Principal told us all to look around, because the most important thing we’d get from the MBA was the network of people around us.
Bullshit, I thought.
I thought 'networking' was just so naff and not at all for me.
I just wanted the letters MBA after my name, I wanted to update my CV and I wanted to get a better job.
That probably tells you more about me and my insecurities back then than it does about an MBA or networking…
But to be honest, as an introvert I found it incredibly hard to network with people and sometimes still do.
I got through that though and I now recognise that it’s been because of the network I’ve built (some of it serendipitous, some very strategic) that I’m happy with where I am and optimistic about where I’m going.
The first good meal with 9others
Essentially I found a higher level purpose to make me push through my nervousness. There’s a bit of context in the year beforehand, but in December 2011 Katie and I co-founded 9others. Above is a photo of the very first one.
The short story is that Katie and I, while working for VCs, had been hosting some dinners with investors and founders so that the founders could pitch the investors, answer their questions and hopefully that would lead to follow up meetings and investment.
And they did! That series of dinners throughout 2011 was incredibly successful — people did deals, grew startups and made lots of money.
But…. At the end of each dinner, the last 20 minutes or so, the founders would huddle together in the corner just talking to the other founders. It used to drive us nuts! We’d got them there to talk to the investors but they weren’t doing that!
Then after a few dinners we realised what was going on — the founders were talking to other founders who were ‘in their shoes but not in their business’. They were talking about the everyday business-of-business challenges that they just didn’t get to discuss anywhere else. After all, as the founder of a startup everything has to be brilliant, right?
So Katie and I wondered what we could do to help the founders and thought it would be a good idea to bring together a deliberately small, loosely curated group of founders to talk about those very challenges that the founders were facing.
And that was it — 9others started as a deliberately small (oneself and nine others) meal for founders to come together to share a challenge and to help each other out.
It became many, many more than 9others
9others started as a bit of a side project — and it still sort of is in some ways — but since 2011 we have grown the network to over 5,000 people in over 45 cities around the world. The photo above shows just a selection including London, Berlin, Sydney, Kyiv and Port Moresby.
And the thing is that now, almost 14 years since the first meal with 9others, that little side project and the network it’s produced powers everything I do.
Since the that first meal with 9others
45+ cities
500+ meals
5,000+ people
1 question: What’s keeping you up at night?
As a reluctant networker, I’ve learned to network.
I’ve not had a proper job since 2013, I’ve been in some incredible places – I’ve been to No10 a few times, went to Buckingham Palace to meet The Queen and I’ve been involved with some incredible startups, invested in 24 and been part of and negotiated transactions ranging from £15k to £50m.
This network has given me everything, so as a ‘networking convert’ I’m keen to pass on any lessons I can to encourage you to start, grow and maintain your own!
The Social Introvert
It was during Business School that a classmate labelled me a “social introvert”. Like I said, I thought networking was naff, I just wanted an MBA and a better job — I liked being a bit social but I thought networking wasn’t for me.
So I’d like to share the things that may be more useful to the reluctant networkers amongst you, but even if you enjoy networking I hope some of my experiences and lessons will make you get more out of it and be more successful.
So how can networking enable you (entrepreneurs and innovators) to achieve success?
I find it amazing how poorly people network – people seem to expect the other person, and serendipity, to do the work. People wait for what comes into inbox and play ‘defence’, not ‘offence’.
So let me tell you about a few people who’ve been to the meals with 9others over the years, what they did to make networking successful for them and their business while on their entrepreneurial journey.
Be deliberately vulnerable
People think being successful is all about projecting how great things are and what’s going well.
However to get the most out of others you have to be deliberately vulnerable. The best people want to help you and if you share some challenges you’ll be amazed at what people turn around and do (and it’s only the people not worth bothering with who look down on you, so forget them!).
That’s what Chris Sheldrick, above, did in 2013 when he was launching what3words. It was a pretty whacky idea back then (some might say it still is!) but Chris knew he had to get out there, talk to people and hear what they had to say, even if that was difficult and he got a lot of criticism and rejection.
Recommended Actions
Make yourself deliberately vulnerable — say to smart people, hey — can I run this challenge by you…?
Don’t be afraid if ideas aren’t fully formed — if it’s not, just say so — say you’d like their take on something you’re chewing over.
Listen. When you share a challenge just sit back and really listen to what people say.
Especially listen to the questions they ask back — these can help show you where you need to be clearer.
Be the lynchpin
Yusra Hussin, above, wanted a support network that didn’t exist, so she started it.
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