Networking in Silicon Valley
I believe that there is some truth to the saying "your network identifies your success" — so I am taking this opportunity to share with you my experience establishing and scaling a social network in Silicon Valley (including San Francisco, Palo Alto, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, and San Jose). To give you some perspective, the first week we lived in the Valley we added several new contacts.
Geographically, Silicon Valley is not one single city, but rather the area from San Francisco down to San Jose, and up to Oakland in California. Steve Blank’s blog post provides a terrific explanation of the Valley and beyond. Actually, his entire blog might be a great resource if you're looking into moving to the Valley.
Meetups / Events
If you're not familiar with Meetup.com, please take a moment to familiarize yourself with this amazing platform. It is a community where people post events (paid or free) that you can sign up for. Eventbrite is another website for you to find events, although they are usually used over Meetup as a way to issue tickets and collect payment for their events. Oh, talking about payment… Bring your checkbook, because you will need it. I estimate 60% of Valley events ask for a donation or door fee.
I actually became a member of more than 90 Meetup groups 2 weeks before arriving in California. Some of the groups were easy to become part of, while others require you to complete a few questions about yourself and your interests before getting accepted. This can be time consuming, so do it ahead of time. It’s also worth noting that a lot of the venues are limited in space, so you need to keep an eye on the calendar and RSVP ahead of time.
We went to an event for hardware companies at Google Developer Launchpad in downtown San Francisco. Google estimated our travel time from Mountain View to be 1 hour. We left early with intentions to network before the event, however, we showed up 45 minutes late — we were stuck in traffic for half of the time. On a positive note, we were welcomed when we entered the event, quickly signed in and were able to snag a free veggie burger and kombucha free of charge.
Through this one event we listened to 4 Venture Capitalist (VCs) talk about their vision of hardware for the upcoming year. When the host asked the audience if they had questions we took the opportunity to ask questions to the VCs regarding our industry. Regardless of the question, we wanted to stand out among the audience. After the event we hung around to ask a VC some questions and get input from him. Long story short, he gave us his email and asked us to coffee the next week.
Coffee Shops
Speaking of coffee… Silicon Valley doesn’t lack coffee shops. They are on every block. Some coffee shops are chains like Startbucks and Peets, others are not-for-profit. Red Rock is a well known coffee shop in Mountain View, Ca. with two floors. The first floor you can order coffee and sit to have casual conversation. The second floor is more like a library, with chatter at a minimum. Perhaps the coolest part about being in a coffee shop in Silicon Valley is that you can hear bits and pieces of various conversations. It’s so cool. You hear people talking about manufacturing, raising money, signing a term sheet, and basic startup jargon. If you overhear them talking about their need, don't be shy to say you know someone or you are that someone who could help them with their need. It's pretty awesome to be in that environment — you never know who you might need that could totally change your mundane day.
Exploring Around Town
Downtown Mountain View is a busy place. Mexican, Vietnamese, Indian, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and American restaurants line the street — note that they always have waiting lines. But what is really cool is that engineers from Google, Facebook, Tesla, Apple, 23andme, and LinkedIn coexist here. Steins Beer Garden and Restaurant is usually packed with developers and startup enthusiasts wearing their startup t-shirt to get people to learn about their brand.
We had planned to meet a friend that works at Autodesk at Steins Beer Garden. We arrived early to network. I ordered a flight of beer with a price tag of $13 + $2 tip. The first person I met at the bar worked at NASA. He explained his job as a type of forensic mechanical engineer. He is responsible for identifying problems in the space shuttles. In any case, some come for the beer, others celebrate their birthdays, others just come for the food — and some like us just come for meeting up someone and hope for some spontaneous networking. Keep in mind that it’s hard to meet people in a group. If you are there alone, you need to be extra creative about how to break the ice and start a conversation. Good luck.
Our friend was later than expected for the beer meeting. We told him the prices were a little high at Steins Beer Garden, so he suggest a dive bar called Mervyn’s. It was such a relief finding this hidden bar because the music was low enough to have a conversation and the beer was only $4.50.
If you are lucky enough to have a friend (or a few friends) that are social whales, it really helps. It's like an exponential effect where one person introduces you to two people, and those two people introduce you to two more, and so on. To illustrate that, we were invited to a potluck dinner the first week we arrived in Silicon Valley. We met really cool relaxed people that worked at Google X, Autodesk, Tesla, Cisco, and a variety of other well known companies. We connected through LinkedIn and one of them told us about another event we should check out where we ended up meeting other people. If you can get invited to a potluck, you're in luck because networking is just a piece of cake in such a friendly setting. I’d guess these friendly gatherings are more common during the holiday season around Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years. It's also worth noting that a lot of the people we met are not from the area— not even from the same country — so they end up gathering with friends for holidays since their families are far away.
The Outdoors
If you are not an outdoor person, then you need to be. People in the SF area enjoy their outdoor activities. We were invited to Lands End Trail that overlooks the Golden Gate bridge (super worth visiting, by the way). We carpooled in 2 cars for the hour long journey where we drove from San Jose to downtown SF. Doing a hike is a great opportunity to spend quality time visiting and getting to know friends and friends of friends (the exponential effect I spoke about earlier). Do a hike or join a Meetup hiking club. Consider social groups who engage in game nights, sports or other activities that allows you to be social.
The Most Important Thing I Learned From Networking
Perhaps the most important thing to remember when you're networking is to ask other people what their interests are. Don’t focus the conversation around you and your company. People tend to like you more when you show genuine interest in who they are and what they do. It’s easier to make friend and get referrals when you let other people talk. After all, they love talking about themselves.
I hope my experiences can help you learn and build or enhance your social network. Don't be afraid to put yourself out there — the best way to learn is by doing. But don't forget to always lead a conversation with the other person's interest in mind.
About the Author
Hi, I'm Derek. I have been an entrepreneur in Tech for the last 10 years. In my blog I share with you what it's like to keep up with the ever-changing world of technology; the highs and the lows of being an entrepreneur; what it's like to do business in China; and how to simply be successful at managing work-life balance. If you like what you read, give it a nice round of applause and add me on LinkedIn — I love connecting with my readers.
