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An entrepreneurs adventures in global networking

06 June 2010

“Hi! I’m Byron. I’m from Australia. I represent Sentralize, a startup web company from Tasmania. Nice to meet you.”

This is pretty much how I start all my conversations when I network with people around the world. I am honoured to have the opportunity to share my entrepreneurship story here about my recent visit to San Francisco, why, and how I ended up visiting this amazing city. I hope you will find my story helpful to you as an IT entrepreneur.

The company I represent, Sentralize, helps businesses monitor their choice of trusted sources (anywhere on the internet) for targeted topics or trends (whatever interests the user) so that they can link the filtered content they discover onto their existing website as a monitored feed or keep the results private for research purposes.

We are a small company. Apart from me we have a full-time manager, a full-time junior programmer and 2 part-time senior programmers. Both senior programmers are responsible for the majority of the work but when they are not in the office they are working on their honours degree at the university.

Setting the Scene

Hobart is a small city, with a population of approximately 200,000 people, it ranks 11^th when compared to other cities in Australia. Being a startup web company based in Hobart, Tasmania, you run into the problem of having difficulty gaining access to people with the right skills, knowledge and experience that can help you in your journey.

To challenge myself further, for the past 2 – 3 years I was working full-time as a Medical Doctor in Hobart. I’ve always had Sentralize running on the side working with friends, trying out new building new exciting web applications. Late last year I decided it was time for me to leave my medical career and work full-time on the business because the team has completed a major prototype. The prototype demonstrated promising applications and is now responsible for the service Sentralize currently aim to deliver.

Because of the dramatic change in career and lack of access to the professional network within my new industry, gaining access to resources in a larger city becomes an obvious step to take but which city, how, when and why. No one could really answer all these questions for me and not forgetting the fact that I also lacked access to the right people to ask.

Behind Every Successful Business there is a Mentor

A simple but very useful resource I first accessed was to engage a business mentor. The Tasmanian Business Mentor Services matched me up with Brad. He has rich experience of being in charge of business development for an IT company in Sydney so suited me best as he was able to evaluate my business idea and gave me tips on how to run a business. He also reaffirmed the need for me to access a bigger market and approach people with deeper networks within my industry.

I must say I was very fortunate to work with Brad as I learned so much from him. It is often not easy to find the right mentor. The ones that possess the relevant knowledge and experience as well as the time to spare are few and far between. However, someone who listens to your ideas and gives you feedback are a different group altogether. They are easier to find and can help shape your ideas before you even need a mentor.

Although Brad performed on many occasions above and beyond his duties, for which I am grateful, I feel that a mentor’s invaluable role is to help by imparting their knowledge and experience. A line I recall fondly from the movie, The Matrix, when Morpheus tries to explain to Neo about freeing his mind, he said, “…I can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it”. That is what I think one should expect a Mentor’s role to be.

Being at the Right Place, Right Time, and armed with the Right Question

Earlier in the year I attended a Funding Connect event organised by Melbourne’s Slattery IT that took place in Hobart. The speakers from various Venture Capital firms talked about what they look for in a business they would invest in and what businesses should do to evaluate themselves and become ‘investment friendly’. I think it is great to find people willing to share their insights and opinions about the way they do business.

One of the speakers also reminded us of the size of our market by approximately describing how, “Australia is 2% of the world and Tasmania is 2% of Australia”. Hearing that made me feel very small but it also made me realise what I needed wasn’t funding because seriously, even if they have given me all the money I could ever want, I wouldn’t know what to do with it. Without access to the right people and human resources, I was unable to estimate the amount of work required or clearly demonstrate the need for funding.

Fortunately I made sure I make the most of the networking event and spoke with as many people as possible. It was a game. It was a challenge. But I needed something to talk about, so I thought, apart from having a pitch about what I do, why not follow it up with a question for the person I am speaking to. I decided it can’t just be any random question so I asked, “Do you know anyone in my field that might have access to human resources or know someone who does and could point me in that direction?”. That’s when things started to change.

Before the end of the day, I met with Phaedon, a very enthusiastic, well-networked and knowledgeable man who has had experience in helping IT startups and ‘spoke the same language’. We organised a meeting and he helped me answer that question.

Knowing and Attending the ‘Right’ Event

Finding out about the Funding Connect event was rather incidental. Brad and a friend brought it to my attention a week before the actual event and they knew about it from the off chance of hearing from someone else. It seems knowing about the ‘right’ seminar, conference or networking event could be as simple as finding out from a passing conversation, a small article on a newsletter, a brief article in a magazine or an email from a friend that goes, “Have you heard about…?”

The opportunity to attend the event then depends on timing, a vacant spot in your calendar, or the ability to make time for it. Apart from knowing what the event is about from the flyer or website, you can never know what it will truly lead to, so there is really no ‘Right’ event. The best thing you can do is try to attend as many as relevant ones as possible, whenever time and resources permits.  So perhaps you can say events, meetings, networking are pretty much like lotteries; you have to be in it to win it.

Attending isn’t enough

The events you attend will almost always involve some sort of networking session. This is where you have the ability to influence the outcome of your day and make the most of your networking opportunities. The first thing you have to remember when it comes to networking is, don’t be shy.

It is amazing how often you see little children walking up to strangers with a smile. For us, we tend to hesitate and get stressed, some more than others, about walking up to a stranger at a networking event and saying hello. Perhaps we have somehow lost that childlike fearless attitude when our parents taught us not to talk to strangers. We are adults now and can fend for ourselves. So whenever appropriate, we should remind ourselves to step out of our comfort zone and go talk to that stranger.

And I am glad I took the initiative at the Funding Connect event to speak with as many people as possible and managed to get to know Phaedon. A week later, he introduced me to a number of people in Sydney which led me to organise a quick trip away.

Making the most of Sydney

The objective of my trip to Sydney was to grab hold of leads, push boundaries, meet people, and learn from others. It involved trying my best to fill every single day with people to meet and events to attend.

Day 1: the eye opener

The first day started with attending a Friday drinks networking event called the Silicon Beach at the Grace Hotel and met with like minded people congregating in a relaxed environment where ideas are shared, discussed and evolved. Coming fresh out of Hobart, it was an eye-opener for me. At the time, I thought to myself, perhaps Sydney is where Sentralize belongs but it is still too early to tell. There is still so much more to see and learn.

At Silicon Beach, people I spoke with were interested to find out about what I am doing and more importantly how I end up there in the first place. But because there were so many people and you can’t quite spend enough time with each one of them, soon it appears that the more I talked, the less I gained. I decided to be succinct, say less, pay attention and give others opportunity to voice their opinion. In the end, I learnt that although I may have plenty to say, I gained more when I listened instead.

Day 2-3: The surprising weekend catch up with friends

During the weekend, I organised to meet up with an old healthcare colleague, and some Korean friends who used to live in Hobart. A casual visit to my colleague’s home ended up becoming an introduction to his wife who used to run a web company in Hong Kong during the dot-com boom. She shared her experiences with me and provided constructive criticisms.  I appreciated the fact that she is upfront and honest with her opinions and I learnt a lot from our unexpected meeting.

The next day, I joined my Korean friends for a get together bbq and again was surprised to find out that all these years I didn’t know one of them followed the footsteps of her father, who heads a school of computing in South Korea, and also became an academic in the field of IT. She shared her opinion about my business and even introduced me to a local IT entrepreneur who has recently sold his business.

From this experience I discovered that pre-conceived expectations can distract and blind you from other things you do not expect. I learned that it is always wiser to enter into a meeting or conversation with an open mind. Don’t focus on what you can gain. Objective-oriented mentality should be reserved for certain well-defined tasks. Focus on building and maintaining relationships instead, they have the potential to open up opportunities that you can never imagine.

Sydney Day 4 – Strategy and Coincidences

Two of Phaedon’s contacts that he introduced me to happen to both agree to meet me on the same day. Day 4 turns out to be a day of change. In the morning, I demonstrated my service to Phil from Pollenizer and he pointed out that I don’t seem to have a clear target market. He said, “Even though the service can be applied to a broad horizontal market but what you need is a specific vertical. You should try to identify customers belonging to a specific market segment, look straight in their eyes and know exactly why they are going to buy from you”.

He also pointed out a few likely competitors from his understanding of what I intend to deliver. Soon enough I noticed this process of comparing competitors becoming a common exercise whenever a pitch, demo, product or service is examined. He suggested that I should know my competitors well, if I never heard of a company that’s being mentioned, jolt the name down and do some research after the meeting so that the next time someone mentions the company I should be able to point out exactly what makes my business different. His criticisms made me realise that I have to be highly receptive, flexible, adaptive, and be prepared to change. There are many ways to skin a cat; there are many ways to achieve a goal. Make sure you never stop trying and changing new angles of approach to arrive at your goal.

Later in the afternoon, I met up with Adrian who is a CTO working with a San Francisco VC firm. He happened to be in town that day and I was very lucky to have an opportunity to meet with him. Instead of the usual, pitch, discuss, listen, rinse and repeat that I expected, we found something in common, we discovered that we both left the Medical Doctor profession for the IT industry. I briefly spoke about my business and promptly moved on to hear of his experiences as he is very knowledgeable and has so much to share. He mentioned that he will be returning to San Francisco soon and suggested that I pay him a visit when able so that he could show me around. I remember feeling a lot less lonely at the end of the day.

Preparing for San Francisco

Now that I have met Adrian, there is virtually no excuse not to visit San Francisco. I was stoked because I have never been to the States, let alone San Francisco. However, I couldn’t just pack my bags and go. My team is still finding their feet. We just hired a new junior programmer and we’re rushing to beta launch our new service. My main concern is, will it still be business as usual while I am away? How long should I spend in San Francisco? And when is the right time to go?

By a random twist of fate, there was a delay with my visa, and I was able to spend some time setting up a temporary management structure and delegate critical tasks. I also had the time to plan my trip more carefully and decided to spend 3 full weeks in San Francisco that will allow me to attend 2 separate conferences and plenty of time to meet up with people.

I also got in contact with government bodies, namely Andrew from the Tasmanian Austrade office about my intended visit and applied for the Export Market and Development Grant (EMDG). Andrew was very resourceful and helpful. He got in contact with Brian, an IP Lawyer based in Melbourne for some general advice and also hooked me up with people from the Austrade offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles. 

Apart from government contacts, I also got in touch with Phaedon, who introduced me to Australians who have expanded into San Francisco, started their own businesses there, or have moved there to work. I didn’t forget to harness the power of online social networks such as facebook and twitter to get my circle of friends to introduce me to people they know in San Francisco.

As part of the preparation, I also brushed up on my pitch. Many people tell me that Americans are great performers and they pitch well because they learn and thrive in the right environment. I wasn’t going to turn up looking second class so I restructured my pitch, and spent plenty of time practicing with people which helped improve it. I finally settled on the most concise, succinct and to the point pitch and know it like the back of my hand.

Right before I left, I also signed up to the CouchSurfing Project, a popular hospitality exchange network used by avid travelers and locals who are friendly and welcoming, to find ways to meet the locals, know the place better and expand my social network. Once everything is in place, I booked my flight to leave the next day.

San Francisco is Tech Showcase Central

During the 3 weeks in San Francisco, I attended 2 conferences (Ad-Tech and Web 2.0). Many companies from around the country and the world came together to exhibit, speak and do business at the Moscone Convention Center. If you have something you want to share with the technological world, you can’t miss San Francisco.

At the conference, I made sure I spend plenty of time going through exhibition booths to try to understand what they do and find out about their value proposition. However, I can’t help but notice the number of exhibitors that doesn’t seem to have a clear pitch about what they do. Obviously the key goal of exhibiting is to showcase your work and effectively getting the value of your product/service across to the visitor standing in front of your booth. But if the visitor can’t get a general idea of what you do without speaking to your marketing team or if the message doesn’t match, something is wrong. No use enticing them with freebies. I would probably save it for a new marketing team.

Be on Your Best Networking Behaviour

Most social events in San Francisco have a strong emphasis on facilitating networking. And because there is such a high concentration of techies in the area, whenever you attend a social event, you will almost always find someone in the crowd who is also working in the same field. Basically, there are plenty of opportunities for you to meet people who shares similar interests with you. You just need to discover them and the only way to do that is to keep talking with people.

For starters, when you are at a conference/expo networking event alone and you have no one to talk to, look around; there are always plenty of others like you. Take the initiative to introduce yourself; they will secretly thank you for it.

Identify people you meet by how you relate to them and not categorise them by stereotypes or pre-conceived judgements. This will help them relate to you and there will be plenty of things for the both you to talk about. But remember to never overstay a welcome.  If you notice that after the initial introduction or conversation starter the person you’re speaking to doesn’t seem to share the same level of enthusiasm as you do, you’re probably right, it’s time to move on. Think of it like speed dating.

Sharing is Caring

When able, be prepared to share ideas, help others if possible and don’t under-estimate good karma. Try to build bridges not only for yourself but also for others. It doesn’t hurt to help someone out from time to time. But make sure you don’t expect something in return. If you do, you are doing it for the wrong reasons, so don’t bother, you’re only setting yourself up for some self-inflicted disappointment.

Don’t forget to stay positive and don’t give up if you find that people don’t seem to respond in the way that you hope they would. Maybe sometimes it’s because they are shy or purely not interested, and that is a fair reason. But sometimes it could be your approach. Social skills are best learnt through good observations, awareness and practicing continually. It’s not something that gets taught or something that you’ll be able to pull off straightaway.

If you do attend work related networking events alone and has trouble keeping conversations flowing, perhaps you could try to find someone at the event that you get along with and suggest to meet people together. This way there will be plenty of things for the two of you to talk about and keep the conversations going. If you want you could even learn from each other by sharing your observations and feedback.

An eventful 3 weeks around the globe can give you plenty to talk about

Icelandic Volcano – affecting flights and businesses worldwide (here)

Lost IPhone 4G – Surprising find in bar at San Jose, CA leads to Apple vs. Tech Blogger drama (here)

Arizona Immigration Law – Governor passes state law enabling law enforcement officers to detain anyone that they ‘reasonably’ suspect has entered the States illegally (here)

Flooding/Tornado/Hurricane in the State of Tennessee (here)

Nuclear Treaty then Space Armament (here)

Failed NY Times Square Bombing (here) – eventually found to be the work of Pakistani Taliban

Deepwater Horizon oil spill at the Gulf of Mexico that is still ongoing (here)

Euro region and Greek financial Crisis (here)

UK Hung Parliament (here)

And, of course the regular seismic activity around the world

Competition? What competition?

Entrepreneurship is a lonely career. While you are out and about networking, you will more than likely find competitors. When you do, don’t resent them. Embrace them instead and learn from them. It’s great to find someone who shares a same passion with you.

Always remember to pick your battles, form alliance, and be able to accept defeat. You don’t have to get cut up about losing. As a startup, losing market share is nothing like losing ground. Unlike large grounded corporations, being a small and adaptive startup, there is still room for you to pick other market segments or even make new ones. It’s not your idea or what your business is about that makes it successful, it’s your actions.

Put on your best behaviour. There’s no need to throw tantrums, offend people or burn bridges. Ok, I may be exaggerating a bit but it’s amazing how some people can behave sometimes. As I am writing this by the bay, I can’t help but notice that the seagull that makes the most noise and shows the most hostility during a feeding frenzy usually ends up missing out on the chips/fries/frites.

Closing up (still work in progress)

Armed with the right attitude, skills and knowledge, you may begin with meeting a few people. Keep doing the same during your venture and you may arrive at a completely different destination that you could never dream of. But don’t forget the journey.

Entrepreneurship is about taking the driver seat to arrive at your desired destination. You can’t only focus on the destination without paying attention to the journey. It is the journey that will help decide your destination. Often what you learn and discover during your journey can help lead you to a better destination.

And as for me, I don’t know if I am anywhere near my destination but at least I know that I am enjoying every moment of it.

Written by: Byron Teu

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