9others: Compounding Goodwill
Your success requires the aid of others
Summary:
Having a trusted network is something no entrepreneur should be without and creating this network for the ‘others’ has been at the core of 9others
After having hundreds of dinners with thousands of entrepreneurs since 2011 I have learnt a lot
By being a 'default giver' goodwill compounds over time and the return on that is immeasurable
What is 9others?
Established in December 2011 by myself and Katie Lewis a 'good meal with 9others' is a dinner with a deliberately small (only ever 10, oneself and 9 others) loosley curated group of entrepreneurs, startup founders and other interesting people.
Above: The September 2019 meal with 9others, London
At each meal one-by-one the guests very briefly introduce themselves, but more importantly (and confidentially) share what's 'keeping them up at night'. For each in turn we spent around 10 minutes discussing the challenge and everyone gives suggested solutions, insights from their own experiences and connections to others who may be able to help.
After each meal the guests are connected over email, a summary report of the challenges and solutions is shared with the group, and they are added to the 9others Slack channel, which only contains those people who have attended a meal.
What is good about 9others right now?
Goodwill compounds over time and those being helpful without expecting anything in return will end up receiving immeasurably more than they can imagine.
Now, after almost eight years of having meals with 9others each month the deep learnings of being exposed to so many good people, their challenges and their opportunities are huge. And it will only get better.
Starting and strengthening relationships with entrepreneurs, compounding goodwill and being helpful without expecting anything in return is now also feeding deal flow and insight into the DMG Syndicate, which I co-founded in 2016. The best way to a diligence startup (or indeed any business) is to observe the execution of the founders and management teams over time. With startups, investors often feel pressure that they must make a rapid investment decision on little data or diligence. Helping many entrepreneurs via 9others allows for a long term ‘non-investor’ relationship to develop and many dots of data to emerge.
What are the challenges 9others faces?
Monetisation is not easy. Each person pays to come to the meal and that simply covers the cost of the meal as well as the small costs of running the 9others website. Only hosting one meal a month in London (and typically one or two elsewhere in the world each month) will not make 9others lots of money.Â
Proving beforehand that this works and gives value is impossible. Katie and I have no idea what good things will happen with who and when, but we just know that if we keep hosting the meals then those good things will happen.
What must 9others never stop doing?
I’ll meet (pretty much!) anyone on a Tuesday — that’s my meetings day and I typically meet entrepreneurs, investors and interesting people back-to-back in King’s Cross, Old Street or Mayfair.
Meeting good people and inviting them to the next meal with 9others is the key to the success of 9others.
To get in touch email me on matthew@9others.com or connect on Twitter @mstafford.
In a future post I will attempt to summarise what I’ve learnt having dinner with over 1,000 entrepreneurs since 2011.