

Notes from The Valley: The real social network - antgoldbloom
http://www.brw.com.au/p/entrepreneurs/notes_from_the_valley_the_real_social_1lwpTy9E75KEjQUdI5V0FJ

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rbn
If you have a shitty product, it doesn't matter if you hang out with
Arrington, Kevin Rose, Paul Graham. your product will still suck. Yet if you
build a great product with real users/customers everyone will flock towards
you.

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ardit33
"Submitting a resumé to a website is about as useful as throwing a coin into a
wishing well."

Not true if you are experienced, (and an engineer). The above is true only if
your resume is not interesting. ie. 1. You don't have any position on
interesting companies on your resume that are known for good technical talent.
2. You don't have any significant products, or side projects to show. 3. The
company is not looking for somebody like you right now.

If you have shown to ship products (and good ones), then you always get a call
back. Most startups do actually check and screen inbound resumes.

~~~
jamescham
ardit33 is right. My experience is that most successful startups are so hungry
for talent that they really don't care where you come from or who you know.

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michaelochurch
This is yet another thing I hate about the brogrammer culture of VC-istan: the
idea that if you can't get an introduction to that person specifically, you're
garbage. Perhaps that applies to upper-middle-class males who were in Silicon
Valley since they were in junior high school. But there are a lot of good
people-- 40-year-old programmers who spent their career-building years
Milwaukee for family reasons, but who studied on their own and became really
good-- who end up at front doors because it's all they have. It's not fair to
assume that he's an idiot and a loser just because he's at a front door.

You need social proof to get around all the purple squirrel requirements. A
company that mandates 5 years of experience in a 3-year-old technology won't
be able to hire outside of its immediate social network... which is sometimes
fine, and sometimes crippling.

~~~
Aloisius
Getting an introduction to a VC requires a relatively small amount of
networking. You show up at any one of the tech networking events that are
constantly being hosted and cultivate a relationship with someone who can
connect you. Once you meet with one, most VCs will be happy to make more
introductions.

It is the same kind of networking you'll probably need to find a good team,
get early customers and generally be successful in most startups.

I'm sorry you think it is stupid. The rest of us who are not natural
networkers (even those of us who grew up here) just buckled down and learned
how to do it.

~~~
michaelochurch
_I'm sorry you think it is stupid._

That's not what I was trying to say. I think that for people like us, it's not
a major barrier. We can "buckle down" and meet people.

I'm just irked by the implicit assumption that others who don't have the
resources or knowledge are somehow inferior. It's the "everyone should be
exactly like me" attitude of the unknowing privileged that makes VC-istan so
irritating.

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joonix
As advanced as we think we are a species, tribalism still reigns over much of
our behavior.

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jeromesalimao
Guess I should just go out and buy a ticket hey...

