
Ask HN: Can we brainstorm a better way to find a co-founder? - tropchan
I haven’t seen a great solution to this problem - have you? Many thought leaders have weighed in from Drew Houston who summarizes the dilemma well (http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.quora.com&#x2F;How-do-I-find-good-technical-co-founders) to Jason Freedman who gives great advice from the perspective of a non-technical person (http:&#x2F;&#x2F;humbledmba.com&#x2F;please-please-please-stop-asking-how-to-find). The reality is that entrepreneurs come from a range of backgrounds across all sectors and finding someone you know well, trust, and is fully committed launching a biz (especially an unproven concept) is really hard. The advice many people offer is to use your network, go to meetups, and try online tools like http:&#x2F;&#x2F;founderdating.com. I have tried this, but frankly it’s not a quick process unless you are willing to pick someone you barely know (this works sometimes a la Kevin Rose).<p>So what’s the solution? My process is to put myself around the “type” of people I need to meet (this could be technical, a specific skill, etc). For me, I want to meet a CTO. However, instead of rushing the process I am simply looking to meet people as determined to build a company as myself. If they are technical or non-technical it doesn’t matter, but I believe opportunities will come from simply getting to know like-minded people. In the meantime I am following this approach:
1) Learning to code (at least the basics)
2) Do as much as possible to validate your idea (talk to customers&#x2F;users, presell, etc)
3) Find a technical adviser that you trust (help with finding the right person)
4) Paying someone to prototype ($1-5K isn’t a lot to test a business)
5) Get to know potential Co-Founders<p>What do you think of this approach? Would a private facebook group an interesting ice-breaker to show what you are working on, get feedback, and make friendships - with the goal of helping and getting to people rather than solely finding a co-founder. If so, I made this: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.facebook.com&#x2F;groups&#x2F;842762052466224&#x2F;. What&#x27;s your solution to this problem? I am open to any and all ideas.
======
quantisan
I was a developer that partnered with a stranger. He's an MBA with a purely
business background. I'm the full stack + product guy. I'm never co-founding a
business with a stranger ever again.

We failed probably because of not what you're thinking. My business co-founder
brought more to the table than I could imagine. I've gained a lot of respect
for the hard work of sales, marketing, fundraising, and the people that make
these tasks seem so easy.

We got hundreds of customers, made $10k revenue per month, and had a staff of
5 at one time. All bootstrapped over the course of 12 months.

The thing is, we were not happy working with each other. When shit hits the
fan (which happens often in a new business), we just get on each other's
nerves. On paper, we have perfectly complimentary skill set. He's a charming
people person. I'm a proficient developer. In reality, the fact that we're so
opposite means that we're always seeing and doings things differently. When
we're in a grind, he wants to hi-fives to boost morale and I want to put my
head down to ship faster.

If I were to do it again. I'd find a smart, hardworking person that brings me
energy and that I'd bring them energy when the shit hits the fan. I wouldn't
care if they're a CEO, CTO, C-whatever-O. I'd look for someone that I'd enjoy
working with above all else.

~~~
late2part
A thousand times this. Life is short, don't work with assholes, and more
appropriately, don't work with people you don't respect and enjoy.

In larger companies you have to work with people you respect but don't like.
Don't do that in a startup, it takes away the passion and the motivation.

~~~
blazespin
This is the mistake everyone makes. Don't think in terms of someone being an
asshole (unless it is you). Think in terms of chemistry.

------
jasode
>For me, I want to meet a CTO.

You have to realize that it's harder for a "business" guy to attract a
technical cofounder rather than for a programmer whiz to attract a business
guy. It's definitely a handicap. The programmer can _build_ something and that
can jumpstart the cascade of people (including business people) to join the
cause.

As a non-tech person, what do you offer potential tech cofounders? If you give
off vibes that _" I'm the idea man!"_ or _" I'm the guy with the big
vision!"_, it will not impress quality programmers.

Therefore, you have to play up your strengths if you have notable ones. For
example, perhaps you can call up some friends & family and raise $750,000 in
cash to launch your product idea. A lot of programmers don't have the contacts
to raise funds like that. Or maybe you want to create a digital music
distribution website and you have Beyonce, Taylor Swift, and Lady Gaga's
personal cell phone #s on your speed dial as potential first wave of
customers. Again, the typical programmer isn't going to have social
connections like that.

~~~
shalmanese
I disagree. I've found in my experience it's far easier in theory for a
business guy to attract a technology co-founder than the other way around.
This insight isn't clear from the outside due to a) the existence of
"business" guys who do no business and complain vocally and b) the existence
of tech+some business guys who know enough business to get their product off
the ground and then find a good business guy to balance them out. Every purely
tech guy I've seen come to me looking for a co-founder, I've had to tell them
I could help you find one but you'd basically have to throw away all your code
and start again from scratch. For the tech guys for which their code is their
baby, this is not a welcome message and they instead go find someone else to
tell them how they've made the best mousetrap in the world.

Here's how to be a non-technical co-founder that makes tech guys excited and
willing to hop on board:

* Articulate a vision that's broad, compelling and unique. Filter tech guys by the ones who are already excited by that vision rather than trying to convince them away from their pet cause.

* Become so educated in the field that you can confidently answer any of the tech guy's questions and that you can educate and provide insight into the field from the very start of the conversation.

* Talk to customers, find ones for who this is a hair on fire problem, take a short video of those customers explaining their needs and edit it down to a short sizzle reel.

* Create a landing page, put in a field for explaining why leads are signing up, demonstrate to the tech guy that you're not just capturing random email addresses but passionate fans.

* Use that same landing page to A/B test pitches, show data on how you can hone product/market fit via experimentation.

* Get signed Letters of Intent from businesses detailing what their purchase commitments are willing to be if a set of well defined features were to be built.

* Map out a series of go-to market strategies, research the pros and cons of each one, demonstrate you have some unique insights or resources that would give your startup an unfair advantage.

* Build out an early front end prototype using non-technical tools. Have it hooked into a completely human powered backend (it's surprising how far you can get with just SMS for example, or email), run the entire system yourself to better understand the user's needs. Show how a small piece of technology could immediately super charge both the quality and scalability of the operation.

* Go out and raise money contingent on finding a co-founder and search for co-founders contingent on raising money. Both groups are risk averse and like to see validation. Providing the mutual validation gets both to hop on board at the same time.

* Learn programming in your spare time using free tools. Demonstrate to your tech cofounder that you're committed to understanding where they are coming from and respect the work they do.

* Help everyone you can in your local community. Offer advice, intros, free work (but not too much) and be known as the connector and who everyone needs to know. Follow up with people on a regular interval and ask how they're going and see if there's anything they need help with that you're uniquely suited to do. At the same time, be cynically strategic about this. Like hangs out with like and you eventually get connected with higher ability tiers of people if you demonstrate the value you can bring. Find people slightly above your talent range and deliver the world to their plate. Skill up and repeat.

* Just, in general, be a nice person and someone people want to work with. There's many different shades of nice and you also have to be someone authentic to your personality. Don't be afraid to be polarizing, I'm personally the "asshole nice" person in person and that turns quite a few people off but the ones who it clicks with, we click really well.

In general, when I meet a non-business co-founder who's in the process of
trying to get something started, I advise them not even to start looking for a
technical co-founder yet. You can get so much done nowadays without touching
technology and the class of people you're able to attract exponentially
increases the further along you are. The people who get excited about hearing
this message, I pay attention to more and try to help in any way. The people
who balk at this, I can't see them ever getting far.

edit: Another psychological factor that makes a huge difference is shifting
from what I call a "scarcity" mindset to an "abundance" mindset because
scarcity attracts scarcity and abundance attracts abundance.

For example, it's immensely frustrating to me when I meet people who are job
hunting and I ask them what they're after and they reply with some version of
"Oh, I could really work anywhere". The reason they say that is because they
think any job is better than no job and better to be overly broad so as to not
miss out on any opportunities. In actuality, it's the opposite, telling me you
could work anywhere means I can't find anything for you.

Instead, where I can really add value is if you outline a set of broad theses
about what you're excited about and I can suggest companies working towards
those aims I know people at. During the course of that conversation, other
areas of interest or other companies come up and by the end, there's usually 3
or 4 very strong intros I can send. The reason why these people are successful
is because they are in an abundance mindset where they feel like they could
work at a lot of places and are really more concerned about finding the right
place for them and they're willing to be polarizing to do it.

For job hunters, especially junior ones, I'm willing to go through the work of
shifting them from a scarcity mindset to an abundance one and help them when
networking with other people in the future. If you're at the co-founder stage
though and you're still in the scarcity mindset, I have no sympathy for you
and I'll just politely disengage.

~~~
rokhayakebe
Honestly, most of the things you list above make one sound like a semi-
technical founder.

~~~
shalmanese
What about it sounds semi-technical? I've helped two people (a doctor and a
restaurant chef) who I was the first person they've ever talked to who knew
programming and I helped push them through these steps and they got pretty
far. But they were people who were in the top 0.1% of something else and were
thus, willing and able to be helped.

------
11thEarlOfMar
It's like asking if we can brainstorm on a better way to find a spouse. Do you
really want to find a spouse quickly? Or would you be more comfortable
marrying your high-school sweetheart?

The YC folks will say founder breakups are the most common reason for start up
failures. So what I'd want to see is a highly granular failure analysis of
founder break ups. It's psychology, right? So something like the actual
stories of 100 randomly selected startup failures would inform us as to the
most common causes. Could be working styles, asymmetric effort, personality
disorders, personal/family issues, health,... Once you have a histogram, find
a way to test for those failure modes before getting hitched to a co-founder.

~~~
morgante
This list of 92 startup failures was recently shared on HN:
[http://autopsy.io/](http://autopsy.io/)

------
alain94040
I gave a presentation on "how to find a co-founder" several times. Guess what:
by slide 2, I give away the answer: the best co-founder is someone you already
worked with. Not helpful? That's the truth.

Instead of trying to find a co-founder quickly, find a good contributor to
your project. They may grow into becoming a co-founder over time, or they may
"just" be your first employee. No one can really tell until time passes. So
give it time, resist labels, and keep making progress.

From the perspective of the potential co-founder, the co-founder title is
earned. "Be so good they can't ignore you" is exactly the mantra you want to
become a co-founder. Make your contribution to the startup so significant that
everyone will think of you as one of the founders.

Don't be that "paper co-founder" who negotiated the title but never put in the
effort.

~~~
joeyspn
> ... the best co-founder is someone you already worked with. Not helpful?
> That's the truth.

Not really.

I started-up with a co-worker (of 2 years) and a guy whom I hadn't worked with
before and guess who was the first to bring problems to the company and quit?
The guy I previously worked with...

Truth is you don't really know a person until you're both in a seriously f*ckd
up situation. That's what my experience has taught me.

~~~
crdb
I think what Alain is saying is you don't know how somebody is until you have
worked a significant period of time with them, including stressful times where
things went wrong (my own benchmark of whether someone is trustworthy is
pretty much how they behave in such times - agreeing with your experience).

Going with a stranger might still be a good option if e.g. your previous
company had bad quality staff, or if you were a business person and never had
any contact with any technical people, but it's still akin to playing
roulette.

------
shalmanese
The explanation for why there's no good answer is because the people who most
want a co-founder are the people who least deserve a co-founder. People who
are easily able to find a co-founder just do it instead of asking questions on
the Internet. This is intensely frustrating to the people asking because they
feel like life owes them a co-founder somehow and if they only found the right
hacks, one would magically appear. Instead, the answer is simply to be more
impressive and tell more people how impressive you are and things by and
largely fall into place.

I'm also highly skeptical of any marketplace solution like Founder Dating. The
median outcome of a startups failure so a median quality co-founder will
almost certainly result in failure. You need to find people on the extreme end
of the bell curve for success to be likely. Those people are highly unlikely
to frequent marketplaces since they have more demand than supply. To the
extent that any successful startups get formed from Founder Dating, I wager
it's more accident than engineered.

------
Ixiaus
If you're technical looking for a cofounder, you should have a prototype built
already in order to attract good business / operations people and you should
understand that you must own everything and toil for endless hours to get that
product built.

If you're business / operations looking for a cofounder, you should have some
money raised already and you should understand that you must always be
raising. It doesn't stop. Ever. Just as building the product doesn't stop.
Ever.

Operations focused people should be really fucking good at sieving hires.
Heart, skill, engagement, and team coordination are critical in an early stage
startup and hiring one grumpy butt or that intern you think is smart but cheap
could really screw you badly.

(just a few thoughts on my numerous lessons learned over building four
startups)

------
paulscliu
My approach is the following: 1\. Learn to code 2\. Build the prototype 3\.
Try to sell the prototype to verify the market 4\. Bootstrap the business 5\.
Get the business going then people (co-founder, investor,etc...) will show up

~~~
smaili
I couldn't agree more with this. People will come to you once you have
something that works.

------
bhayden
I would stop focusing on finding a co-founder and focus instead on starting a
business. A CTO isn't the solution to wanting something developed and not
having money to pay someone. Find something you can do by yourself. If you're
capable you will find and hire a CTO later.

------
EliRivers
Why is a co-founder needed? What are you expecting a co-founder to bring that
an employee won't? Is the real question here "how do I find someone with the
needed skills, willing to work for peanuts in exchange for shares in the new
business?"

------
meira
There is no such a thing as "technical co-founder". A developer can start and
test a project faster alone. Smart "business" guys with money sometimes meet
with someone that could do it alone and find a way to share the ride. If you
want to develop something, I'd suggest you to learn how to develop. Or spend
enough money to hire someone to do so. But for free, as a "co-founder", it'll
always be hard and when it happens, usually it don't last long. And the fault
is on the "business" side. Technology is not about business. If you start a
free/open source project with a great purpose, you'll find tons of developers
willing to help your endeavour.

------
baristaGeek
You just don't "search and find" for a co-founder. I think it's rather that
you already know him but you don't know he will be your co-founder sometime
soon.

Engage in a lot of side-projects, it doesn't matter if you are in high school,
college or a full-time job. You'll know what people you like working with, but
most importantly, like as a person.

Now, the question is: Once you have a group of talented and smart people which
you have a background working with and who you like their personality, how do
you choose just 1 or 2 of them? That's a hard question. The good thing is that
you're scratching your head not because you have a potential co-founder
deficit, but rather a surplus.

------
brudgers
If a business founder is looking for a CTO to double staff from one to two,
it's already a bit of a lost cause. The title doesn't add value and suggests a
mindset that isn't focused on whatever it takes to get things done. Instead it
emphasizes a tendency toward bureaucratic partitioning.

If I were a technical person, the primary trait I'd want in a co-founder is a
willingness to do whatever needs to be done, and an aversion to structures
that allow "it's your job, not mine" discussions. There's a difference between
complementary skills and specialization. At 30 people specialization becomes
hard to avoid, at two people both need to own everything.

Good luck.

------
andreasklinger
Imho:

Get traction with whatever you got at your hands.

There is nothing more trustworthy and attractive than traction.

Not being engineer has never been an excuse not to get traction. Not in the
last hundred generations and wont be in the next.

Business != Building != Engineering

Good luck!

------
88e282102ae2e5b
Those two articles you linked to were spot on, but I don't think you really
took to heart what they were saying. I'll make it explicit (and know that this
comes from a place of tough love): The reason it's hard to find a technical
co-founder is that you don't bring much value, if any, to a startup.

You don't have a proven track record running technical companies, because if
you did, you wouldn't have this problem.

You don't have a programming background, so you won't understand the
implications of your decisions on the product (basic programming won't help
you here, I'm afraid, though it's a good start, and I absolutely encourage you
to continue).

You can't make hiring decisions for technical staff, because you can't
evaluate their skills.

Perhaps you have some great idea. But great ideas are a dime a dozen. The
moment you gain any momentum, a dozen clones will pop up. Execution is what
matters, and that's up to the CTO to deliver, for the most part.

A CTO could just hire you as a strategy consultant, salesperson and/or market
analyst, just for a salary. You need to be able to say why you merit equity
and decision-making authority if you want to be CEO. Could you answer that
question if you were being totally honest with them? If you can't, perhaps you
_should_ look for work outside of the C-suite for now.

------
jules
The real question here is what you bring to the table in an early stage
startup. You can put yourself around the type of people you need to meet, but
at the end of the day they are not going to be your co-founder unless you
bring something to the table. Why do they absolutely need you in order to
succeed? Maybe:

\- You are a sales or marketing wizard

\- You have domain specific knowledge and experience

\- You have critical connections

\- You have funding

You probably need several of these to be an attractive co-founder. Another way
of saying it is: what will you be working on every day that will cause the
startup to succeed? The technical co-founder is going to work on building the
product every day. Without that you can't succeed. Why does he need you to
succeed? That is what you need to communicate to potential co-founders.

If you have a good way to convince potential co-founders that they need you,
then how to find them? It could be that you are successful with founder dating
programs but starting a startup is a huge commitment. Do you really want to do
that with a stranger? I think it makes a lot more sense to do it with a
college friend or a former colleague.

------
mkagenius
While at it, its important not to forget the amount of founder disputes which
kills the company as often as any other factor. Going solo can be hard but its
not impossible. If your vision is clear as a business guy, you can hire
freelancers to get a prototype, and market it yourself to get the early
validation. Worrying about co-founders before that would be a waste of time in
my opinion.

------
ttaylorr
I don't know if there is a good answer to this question simply because I don't
think we're looking at it the right way.

In my mind, a product/business/whathaveyou should be a collaboration between
two or three individuals, who, should the project grow, become cofounders.

I don't think the process should be:

    
    
      1) create idea
      2) idea becomes business
      3) "oh shit who will help me cofound this co.?"
      4) find cofounder through means described in this thread
      5) run successful business
    

...rather, the process should be:

    
    
      1) with friends, create idea
      2) develop idea
      3) create profitable business, with the aforementioned friends as cofounders.
    

In my mind, the later described process works with a high success rate since
you have essentially "vetted" your friends in step 1. However, I don't know if
you really can vet your friends against the challenges described in step 3,
but perhaps that is what dooms a large percentage of startups.

Who knows.

------
kumph
Maybe you're looking for me?

If you're interested in becoming co-founder of a growing, cash-flow positive
business in a giant market, please reach out.

In short, Forkable is "Pandora for Lunch". AngelList profile:
[https://angel.co/forkable](https://angel.co/forkable)

My email can be guessed from my first name, "Joe"

~~~
bshimmin
I absolutely love these "$EXISTING_BUSINESS for $TOTALLY_RANDOM_THING"
startups, and this might just be my favourite. What does "Pandora for Lunch"
even mean? Is it Pandora the streaming radio service or Pandora the jewellery
company? Neither seems at all applicable to lunch!

~~~
kumph
The streaming radio service. You sign up, tell us about your diet, and every
week we email you a calendar of lunches from awesome local restaurants. Easily
modify the suggestions with our online interface, or just sit back and let the
good food come.

As for the "X for Y" meme, I agree they tend to oversimplify. Nivi of
AngelList provides compelling arguments why they are worthwhile anyway:
[http://venturehacks.com/articles/high-concept-
pitch](http://venturehacks.com/articles/high-concept-pitch)

~~~
bshimmin
That article does little to justify the "X for Y" meme. The reason for it is
that "X" is famous and successful already and people are trying to capitalise
on that, and because a three word summary is pithy and easy to remember.

As to your startup - Pandora is a streaming radio service which actually, you
know, streams radio, as a service. Emailing lunch menus (or calendars, or
whatever) is not as to lunch as streaming radio is to traditional radio, so
your "X for Y" makes very little sense!

~~~
kumph
If you agree with the underlying premise that a good high concept pitch is
essential to a startup, then those seem like pretty good reasons to adopt this
sort of meme, at least if the comparison holds.

Anyway, I'm surprised you don't see how this particular comparison holds.
Pandora auto-suggests and delivers musical content over the course of a few
hours or so. Forkable auto-suggests and delivers "nutritional content" over
the course of a week or so. Does that make sense to you?

~~~
bshimmin
Pandora delivers music that you can listen to; unless your startup delivers
food that I can eat, I don't really see how the two are all that similar -
unless you're suggesting people print out the emails and then eat them.

But hey, perhaps I'm too stupid for your startup (usually I just make a
sandwich for lunch, so I'll probably cope either way!).

~~~
kumph
I see the where confusion is coming from. We do in fact deliver the food. I
stated that in the above comment. It's also in our AngelList profile and I
alluded to it in my first response ("let the good food come"). You don't seem
stupid to me. But perhaps you are reading too quickly?

The image of people printing out emails and eating them is pretty amusing,
though. :)

~~~
bshimmin
I've been known to print out the more objectionable emails from my clients and
eat them...

OK, great, you deliver food. If your AngelList profile is your main publicly
visible page at this point, you should - in my humble opinion - make it really
clear what it is your service actually does: however slowly I read "we send
you a calendar of lunches from awesome local restaurants", it doesn't suggest
to me that you actually deliver food. The second paragraph does mention
delivery. Make your copy accessible even to people who read quickly and don't
care very much and you won't go far wrong (with your copy, anyway!).

~~~
kumph
That's a good point. Thanks.

------
EC1
You're not going to find a better way than founderdating (already
established), LinkedIn (already established), and networking events in person.

You're not going to tick off some company-optimized checklist and magically
fall into the lap of your perfect co founder.

People work for months or even years with a co founder only to realize they
aren't a match.

You even said it yourself:

>I want to meet a CTO. However, instead of rushing the process I am simply
looking to meet people as determined to build a company as myself.

Networking events, Linkedin, Founderdating, Angel.co etc. Your facebook group
is tiers worse than the above listings so I'm not sure why you posted at all
if your "solution" is a facebook group.

Sorry to be a dick but this doesn't remotely solve the problem. You just made
Facebook group #1857126126.

------
AndrewKemendo
I don't think this is actually broken. The traits needed for quality
cofounders are actually pretty rare and even more so for founders who get
along well enough to make a great company.

I see this the same way as I do looking for a spouse. You can't shortcut this
process and founder "dating" sites or mixers will have the same problems as
dating ones. You have to make sure you are bringing to the table the skills
needed to fill the roles you will be playing. In this regard it's a bit more
straight forward than dating because you should be able to point to a history
of accomplishments that prove you can fill those roles.

Beyond that though it's just a series of interactions that make the other
person feel comfortable partnering with you.

------
codingdave
I think one key is to find someone who has the same motivations as you - are
you aiming for the same goal? Do you have the same drive? Why are you looking
in the first place?

But I also don't frequently see this drive to "find a co-founder" outside of
discussions tied to YC. For YC, yes, having a co-founding team is a key
component. But outside of YC, if you want to start a company, you just do it.
Maybe you have other people involved, maybe not. Circumstances vary. Finding a
co-founder is an option, and maybe even a good idea, but is not a road-
blocking milestone.

------
baristaGeek
For people who have absolutely no technical skill and are extremmely business
oriented, who want to build a high-tech concept but don't have the time to
acquire the skills, I'd recommend to outsource the development of an MVP and
start monetizing. If a technical co-founder sees that he is more likely to
join.

------
rokhayakebe
If you are non-technical invest your time into learning how to build, or
paying someone to build MVPs. Once a product has some traction, bringing in
talent will be easier and certainly cheaper (equity-wise).

If you are a technical founder, invest your time into learning marketing. It
really only takes trial and error.

------
msutherl
I'm not looking to found a startup, but I have spent some time thinking about
how to network effectively. I agree with others here that there are no
shortcuts, but I've had success with some of these tactics:

1\. Do put yourself out there. Go to a lot of events, accept invitations, make
it known that you're interested in meeting more people (encourage friends to
make introductions).

2\. Don't let social events fatigue you: get in, get what you want, get out.
However, once somebody opens up to you, i.e. invites you for dinner or drinks
after an event, you need to switch modes: put in the time, treat them well,
even if it compromises other parts of your life. If you're not giving
something up, you're not giving anything.

3\. Make friends in different cities or countries, then travel and stay with
them. They will introduce you to their friends, who may then introduce you to
_their_ friends, etc. (Best, of course, if you're invited.)

4\. You must actually be worth meeting, so be sure you've already put in the
work and thought out a narrative that ties your past accomplishments into a
story building toward future success.

5\. Be interesting. Read, think, write, have a point of view.

6\. Be interested. If you talk too much, you reveal that nobody wants to
listen to you. If you show authentic interest in other people, doors magically
open.

7\. The best "hack" I can think of is to make use of the Facebook, Twitter,
and LinkedIn social graphs. Pay attention to the suggested friends / follow
feeds. For people you particularly like, go through who they follow and
identify potential friends, allies, collaborators, social gateways, etc. After
you have a list of people you might like to meet, you can start to be
strategic about framing yourself and putting yourself in the right places to
meet (and interest) them.

8\. Remember that meeting one person is an opportunity to meet their friends
and anyone they think you should know. After you've gotten to know somebody a
little bit, it's ok to ask if they know anyone you should meet. Or you may not
have to ask: if you get an invite to an event, always accept it – you never
know who you might meet.

9\. Think in terms of building a social graph. Read a bit about the study of
social networks including "social capital", the roles of different nodes in
the network, strong ties vs. weak ties, etc.

10\. There's no excuse for bad social skills. Learn good manners and be
prepared to adapt to new cultural expectations.

Again, as others have emphasized, there's no easy way. High value people are
already overwhelmed by demand. As a friend once advised me in regard to
dating, "be the flower to the bee."

