Introducing Orchard
[ TLDR: We’re building Orchard to make building and maintaining your network easier than ever. If that sounds interesting, sign up for our beta! ]
We’ve all heard the quote: “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know”. From jobs, mentorship, fundraising, sales and more — it’s hard to debate how important personal and professional networks are to driving success.
For the last 15 years, I’ve been lucky enough to be involved in a number of startups as a founder, mentor, and investor. I’ve worked at places like OkCupid and Techstars, whose businesses are based on the power of networks. Along the way, I’ve met, worked with, and formed friendships with a few thousand people.
But in spite of knowing how important networks are, I’ve never been very good at staying in touch with all those great people. There never seemed to be enough time. Sure, we connected on Linkedin or Facebook, both of which seem to think birthdays are super important. I’d see their travel photos on Instagram, or their political leanings on Twitter. Occasionally, I’d see some funny dog photos on Snapchat. But ultimately, because I didn’t stay in touch in real life, many of those personal and professional relationships eventually faded away.
The real truth is that meeting people you want in your network is the easy part. The hard part is maintaining your network — following up, staying in touch, making introductions, and building real relationships.
So that’s why we’re building Orchard.
We want to make it easy to manage, grow, and maintain your personal and professional relationships. Orchard uses your existing data from things you use every day: like your email, calendar, and social media to organize all of your personal and professional networks into a single place. We then use machine learning and relationship science to provide insights on who you should stay in touch with and remind you when its time to catch up.
This isn’t a social network or a new place to connect. If anything, its the opposite. If we’re successful, you’ll spend less time online and more time in person with the people that really matter to you.
Sound interesting? We’d love to have you try it.
Follow us on the web at https://orchard.ai or on twitter @orchardai
Photo by Marina Khrapova on Unsplash
