Arlo Guthrie tells a famous story about being accosted after a concert in 1972 by a skinny short guy who wanted to play him a song. Arlo said "How about you buy me a beer, and as long as I sit here drinking my beer, you can do anything you want?"
The skinny short guy was Steve Goodman, the song was "City of New Orleans", which became Arlo's biggest hit.
"That turned out to be one of the better beers of my life."
There is this video of Kevin Rose advising startups on how to hack the attention of the "top guys" at conferences.
Instead of paying a fortune and getting 5 mins with say a Fred Wilson, Scoble or Mark Suster; you and your pals can club together and offer to buy them breakfast/lunch/dinner. You will end up having almost an hour having a decent conversation which they will almost remember.
The idea is not that they need your lunch money, but that you were smart enough to fit yourself in the context of pleasant things they still had to do.
I may be in the minority here, but I've received more than a few of these emails (people offering to buy me lunch to discuss an idea) and I always turn them down. Here are my reasons:
1) I typically go to lunch with my friends/coworkers and talk about projects we're working on together, and usually we come up with some deeper insight than we have together in meetings. I'd miss this.
2) My lunch time is my personal time during the day where I unwind from the morning's activities and take a break. If my brain has to "be on" for a deep conversation, I wouldn't get much of a break and might a) get tired, b) get sloppy, c) lose motivation later in the day.
3) Lunch is what, $20 tops? Closer to $10? My time is worth more than $10-20 for an hour's worth of conversation about someone's project. Say I have some interesting idea/insight/solution and we talk about it, and that idea/insight/solution ends up being really important to them. I ended up getting free lunch, they could end up making a bunch of money. The scales are not even.
I'm fully aware that other people (maybe most people?) would be excited about getting free lunch, so maybe I'm an outlier, but I thought I'd drop my two cents in.
His intention was to get people to be a little more considerate when asking for people's time, not turning relationships into dollar-per-hour transactions. We in the nerd community often have problems empathizing with others, and thinking more about turning a request (check out my new startup) into a nice experience for the other guy (how about free lunch?) would go a long way toward getting people to hear us out.
This is mind numbingly obvious. I'd even say that it doesn't really come to the best conclusion, because going out to lunch takes far more time than lunch at your company if they cater. Skype is the clear winner in efficiency.
Want to have more efficient office hours? Split an hour into three parts and post the times to ohours.org or any of the other such sites. I did this when I had a bit more time a few months ago and loved it.
A side note: one of my favorite social dances is knowing that the other person is going to pay for lunch or coffee but reaching for my wallet anyway. I'm happy and capable to pay for myself - hell I'd buy your meal if It makes you happy. But that moment when you start a lean and reach is the trigger to hear "oh, it is on me!" and it is golden
It is similar to bending forward when with a group of people at lunch to imply everyone should now stand and leave.
Mark Suster's advice is directly contrary to this - he says to NEVER ask a busy person to lunch, since that's a large chunk of wasted (and in my experience, if the conversation isn't well, essentially captive) time.
Where they crossover, obviously, is emphasizing making a request that considers the other person's schedule and needs when you are asking for something.
Somebody should start a website were interesting people could sign up for free lunches and startups could pick and choose who they wanted to get feedback from.
I am almost completely opposite in how I evaluate these emails, phone calls and messages.
I was raised with an "I can do anything" mentality and so i reached out to probably dozens if not hundreds of people when doing my first couple businesses as nothing but a kid.
Truth be told the only real thing I had going for me is that I was too dumb to know I should have failed and too stubborn to give up when for all intents and purposes I already had.
When I get emails these days asking for help I usually try to gauge one thing.
How bad does this person want it?
If they truly care it comes off in their tone and if there is passion in what they are doing they are very likely to succeed whether the odds are stacked against them or not.
If they seem less passionate I typically dont really bother meeting with them or discussing anything much further.
But in kind of a pay it forward mentality I realize that I could never give back to the people that gave to me at least to the extent some of them contributed. So the best I can do is help those who are in need now.
Often someone will ask me to go to dinner and pick my brain about certain things or get my opinion on a subject, some just simply ask for help, but when I take those dinners I usually buy.
And then I spend the time with them telling them everything that other people spent their time telling me and some things I wish I would've been told.
What the author of this post should know is that you get out of life what you make. and sometimes the obvious answer to "What's in it for me" is the least helpful part of that entire equation.
I have learned so much by giving others advice and learning from their downfalls and strengths. Most of us can.
But some of us never will if we walk around worrying about what we will get out of it.
The reason why I maintain a solid circle of honest friends in my tech community is that we exchange services and gifts rather than money.
I frequently tell oblivious entry level developers and aspiring musicians to show respect to those who consult them as friends and associates by giving back to people who give them substantial advice...
You would think this was common knowledge -- We have no problem in going to College and paying 100k+ for an education, but when someone mentors you or gives you honest feedback that greatly will or does immediately impact your success, it shouldn't be taken likely, nor overlooked as their obligation to teach us. Show people your thanks for honest help, its one of the primary rules in being successful.
How cool that would be! To be a respected blogger, and get paid for my leads via lunch too. Instead of having to do footwork, interview startups, come up with inside information worth blogging about by talking to all those boring people.
So what? I don't know about others, but my parents are theater actors and the critics that go to their plays certainly don't pay the ticket price.
Just like the engineer gets paid $1 for the chalk and $49999 for knowing where to put it, he supposedly worked to be a respected blogger and now he's rewarded for that.
>he supposedly worked to be a respected blogger and now he's rewarded for that
Supply and demand makes that the situation that he can tell people if they want his attention they need to buy him lunch, what it doesn't do is make him any less of a douche for doing so.
No no no, I'm not selling my attention or a review on my blog. That never happens. What happens is companies asking me for advice and asking it for free and expecting me to invest my time. I think I made that pretty clear in the post...
But isn't that like saying an experienced software developer is a douche for asking for a salary higher than minimal living wage?
He brings value to the startups, seems perfectly OK to me to ask them to pay him back for his time, and a lunch is hardly expensive in exchange for the publicity.
Maybe it's some social convention I'm missing, but personally I have no problem with what he's doing.
I would put it in another context. It's like giving your developers a room to play games, read books and relax. You are basically attracting them by cool/nice things that aren't really expensive.
If you're talking about people wanting you, The Blogger, to cover their startup, I think you have a point. As for all those other leads, you're on the giving end of the lunch idea.
I want to +10 this. I get asked for advice/my feedback on lots of local startups and turn them down often because of the inconvenience to me. I'd go to a free lunch though most of the time.
In short: the corporate wining-and-dining culture we like to shun as corporate-fat-cat-ism otherwise? Obviously very practical and even hackers want to be wined and dined...
The skinny short guy was Steve Goodman, the song was "City of New Orleans", which became Arlo's biggest hit.
"That turned out to be one of the better beers of my life."