Building Social Capital for Underrepresented Founders
Capital is more than just the dollars. At the root of it are trusted relationships — one’s “Social Capital”. With a COVID reset as we emerge from our isolated WFH caves, we have an opportunity to be more thoughtful of why, who with and how to connect deeply. This is especially a challenge for underrepresented founders lacking family or professional brand networks. In this article I’m sharing some reflections from experiences this year and resources to deepen our own social capital and those we champion systematically!
One of the books I kicked off 2021 with was by Harvard Kennedy School Prof Robert Putnam called “Bowling Alone” which highlighted how over the last 50 years we’ve seen a decrease in social capital. In general we spend less time in engaging deeply with others in political, professional, charitable or informal relationships.
This has been exaggerated further with social media platforms where there is a higher weighing on short termism from the number of likes, followers, speaking opportunities and awards being announced than deeper content engagement and relationship building.
Over the decades not only have we become more individualistic, we have also found it easier to judge institutions and people different to us into opaque black boxes. At a systemic level the implications of this in addressing the grand challenges of this century at scale is concerning. As an alum I was fortunate to engage further into this topic through this years’ 50th St Gallen Symposium whose core theme was — “Trust Matters”
In recent years, public trust, especially of younger generations, in political and economic institutions, emerging technologies, and the media has eroded. Currently, in light of unprecedented global challenges, finding ways to preserve and strengthen trust is key for a sustainable recovery.
Interestingly our perspectives on both systems and strangers too are shifting. In her TED talk Rachel Botsman describes while we used to place our trust in institutions like governments and banks, today we increasingly rely on others, often strangers, on distributed and reputation based platforms like Airbnb and Uber and through technologies like the blockchain. This new era of trust could bring with it a more transparent, inclusive and accountable society.
Trusting systems or strangers isn’t easy especially with a fear of the unknown — a different profession, country, racial or gender profile.
(Re-)Building Social Capital with the “Gather, Ask, Help” framework
Social networking was already pretty hard for underrepresented founders lacking family or professional networks to make the warm intros.
In this COVID hybrid working-networking model many people feel strange reconnecting in person after an extended period working in physical isolation. Susan McPherson the author of the book The Lost Art of Connecting and in her HBR podcast interview discusses shaking off the rust through a “Gather, Ask, Do” framework. I have updated this with relevance for underrepresented founders:
- Gathering oneself through filling up your own trust cup and identifying the purpose/ key themes you’re passionate about within your venture.
Filling our own trust cup comes first, as by trusting oneself we can open doors for others to trust us. Rachel Botsman mentioned previously highlights this well with this chiasm of trust leap that every entrepreneur would relate to:
We also need to be clear on the why and with which groups we want to build relationships with. These stem from deeper reflections on one’s values, passions, purpose and considering who are the people in the next 3–6 months who share these themes and you could be co-building your venture with.
2. Asking phase can be the fun bit for extroverts or the painful phase for introverts. Susan describes that it helps in the asking phase to move the discussion from yourself to the person you are talking to- on how YOU can help them.
Either with cold calls or people we know well for years, building deeper personal understanding through the small details (hobbies, family, local news) is even more important for building trust. Taking the time to reflect on a recent meeting, publication or investment an advisor or investor has been involved in is a great way to deepen the conversation on topics of interest.
Alternately, not being afraid to ask help from people who already trust you or you are connected with- one’s friends, colleagues, mentors, sponsors, advisors and current investors are a great avenue to make an introduction. Bobbie Carlton once mentioned this to me that there is nothing as powerful as someone else speaking your story for you, essentially that is what PR is all about.
3. Helping and doing the next steps from a conversation is the most critical step. I have been guilty myself of collecting business cards or contacts at a conference and not actively engaging afterwards. Overtime I have found identifying a tribe of advisors and mentees and actively working with them is much more valuable than the volume game.
Being proactive on the follow up if not on the same day then to actively block time for it later is important. Closing a good relationship building moment with appreciating back when people have been helpful with a specific note of thanks goes a long way for future deepening of trust and value in the relationship.
At Global Bio Fund we call this “helping hand” act of senior leaders and advisors who are in our community as trees bearing fruits. Together as an ecosystem of deep rooted relationships we form a regenerative forest of resources that is able to provide value to our GBX network.
If you wish to be explore this topic of building social capital further for your venture, we are planning a GBX event in mid-September. Please follow updates on LinkedIn, our mailing list or email us directly on info@globalbiofund.org
