Networking counts when you want to succeed in entrepreneurship
After meeting and advising many students and alumni at IDEA, and personally trying to start a company recently, I realized the value of networking to be successful in the entrepreneurship world. Startups are really wonderful — from students to seasoned corporate executives, these individuals dare to go out of their comfort zone to build a company that solves a core problem or help people simplify their lives. This task of starting a company from scratch is really tough and takes a long time, and that is one reason why entrepreneurs must network with other like-minded people and also use the resources available to them effectively.
As a graduate student at Northeastern University, I had built good relationships with some professors whose classes I loved. When I notice that few of them might be helpful for startups, I don’t hesitate to ask for help/advice from the professors. And most of the times they are very happy to help and sometimes prefer to have a long-term relationship with startups for research, business development, etc.
Northeastern University is in the wonderful city of Boston which was recently ranked the best city for startups in the US. The ecosystem in this area is really conducive for startups and entrepreneurs. The university incubators, venture accelerators, tech companies, quasi-government organizations, non-profits etc. all are actively participating and helping grow the interest in entrepreneurship. The recent big events — HUBweek and Forbes U30 summit — are few examples of multiple levels of collaboration by these organizations to better the ecosystem. Students and entrepreneurs should take advantage of these events and programs to learn, network, grow and succeed in their entrepreneurial journey.
Apart from meeting like-minded people in these events, one can learn about new startups in the area, contact investors — angel and VCs, and meet prospective customers and make good friends in these events. And if you plan to raise funding for investors, it is better you meet them early and regularly as they would like to know you personally and observe the progress your startup made from the time you started meeting them to the point you ask for investment.
You can find information about events happening in the Boston area from Eventbrite and Meetup. Some good ones you should not miss that are happening in the next one month are:
MIT Ideation — Biotech and healthcare networking event: November 3
HBS Spark — Entrepreneurship Conference: November 5
Babson Entrepreneurship Forum- Annual Entrepreneurship Forum: November 11
MIT-CHIEF — MIT-China Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum: November 12
NEXPO — Northeastern’s Entrepreneurship Expo : November 14–18
The Capital Network events — Events organized by TCN — “Boston’s Fundraising Authority”
Greenhorn Connect events — List of community events in Boston area
Northeastern’s student-run entrepreneurship clubs also conduct many useful networking events every week in the university, which NU students and alumni can attend for free. Venture accelerators like MassChallenge and Techstars regularly organize community programs and they are really awesome places to go to and see hundreds of startups in action.
For those who are worried about the ticket cost, I recently found that students can apply for a scholarship up to $100 per semester per event to attend events in MA through StayinMA initiative.
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