I, too, used to suck at approaching women at bars (I still do!). Rather than polishing up my pickup game, I adopted a different strategy: be interesting. Go to fun parties. Throw some fun parties. Become known as a cool person to hang out with, which results in more invitations to more parties. Create your own momentum.
I suppose the tech-industry corollary here is to do some agenda-free networking, and build up an agenda-free network. You may have a hidden agenda, and that's fine, but push it to the way back of your mind for now. You need to spend time building up a circle. Where to start? If you're in the Bay Area and working on a startup or a personal project, I'm sure you know at least 5 or 10 other folks in the same boat. Start getting together. Set up a weekly dinner or drinks. Start finding out about other peoples' dinners and drinks. Socialize and be interesting. Help other people without any expectation that they will help you.
This is a slow game, played over a longer term than many people are comfortable with. But it's a more organic way to meet and "pitch" people. I'd much rather find a way to become friendly with Big Investor X than find a perfect 30-second pitch for a chance encounter with Big Investor X. I can always pitch a friend, after all, if a bit down the line.
"But none of my friends is interesting / knows anybody cool / has any different friends outside our group."
Time to diversify your social circle, then. Reach out and connect people from different stages of your life: childhood friends, college friends, work buddies from former and current jobs, interest-group friends, and so forth. Go to mixers and meet new people, too.
All of this may sound patently obvious to some folks here, and if you're among those folks, awesome. Just know that this stuff didn't occur naturally to me, and I bet a fair number of people are built similarly. I'd always struggled with the apparent phoniness and strain of "networking," until I learned why: I was trying to compress a long-term process into short-term transactions. It felt unnatural because it was unnatural. I was always approaching people out of the blue and asking for something. That's not a winning strategy for becoming liked and getting helped. You've got to be doing things for others before expecting others to do things for you.
Things are complicated. Beware of the potential phonyness lurking there. "Instead of making a business offer, pretend to be friends long enough so that the other party will (maybe) want to make business with you."
Cool and all, but sometimes a pitch is just a pitch, and a fuck is just a fuck.
Also: personally I would never start a business with a friend I really cared about. Never. It's just like having a "friend with benefits": it can go perfectly or it can be hell on earth.
""Instead of making a business offer, pretend to be friends long enough so that the other party will (maybe) want to make business with you."
That's not what I'm saying. Rather, I'm talking about cultivating a network of friends in and around the business. If one of those friends happens to be an important person, great. If not, great.
It's possible to have a long-term agenda and not to be mercenarily seeking things from people along the way. In fact, the less you do the latter, the better. Ironically enough, you'll probably have an easier time getting help from people if you're not solely trying to get help from them.
To refer back to the girls-in-bars analogy: you'll have an easier time getting laid when you're not trying hard to get laid. When you're simply trying to have a good time and meet interesting people, getting laid is icing on the cake. It's not the goal, but when it comes along, it's a bonus.
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I, too, used to suck at approaching women at bars (I still do!). Rather than polishing up my pickup game, I adopted a different strategy: be interesting. Go to fun parties. Throw some fun parties. Become known as a cool person to hang out with, which results in more invitations to more parties. Create your own momentum.
I suppose the tech-industry corollary here is to do some agenda-free networking, and build up an agenda-free network. You may have a hidden agenda, and that's fine, but push it to the way back of your mind for now. You need to spend time building up a circle. Where to start? If you're in the Bay Area and working on a startup or a personal project, I'm sure you know at least 5 or 10 other folks in the same boat. Start getting together. Set up a weekly dinner or drinks. Start finding out about other peoples' dinners and drinks. Socialize and be interesting. Help other people without any expectation that they will help you.
This is a slow game, played over a longer term than many people are comfortable with. But it's a more organic way to meet and "pitch" people. I'd much rather find a way to become friendly with Big Investor X than find a perfect 30-second pitch for a chance encounter with Big Investor X. I can always pitch a friend, after all, if a bit down the line.
"But none of my friends is interesting / knows anybody cool / has any different friends outside our group."
Time to diversify your social circle, then. Reach out and connect people from different stages of your life: childhood friends, college friends, work buddies from former and current jobs, interest-group friends, and so forth. Go to mixers and meet new people, too.
All of this may sound patently obvious to some folks here, and if you're among those folks, awesome. Just know that this stuff didn't occur naturally to me, and I bet a fair number of people are built similarly. I'd always struggled with the apparent phoniness and strain of "networking," until I learned why: I was trying to compress a long-term process into short-term transactions. It felt unnatural because it was unnatural. I was always approaching people out of the blue and asking for something. That's not a winning strategy for becoming liked and getting helped. You've got to be doing things for others before expecting others to do things for you.
Things are complicated. Beware of the potential phonyness lurking there. "Instead of making a business offer, pretend to be friends long enough so that the other party will (maybe) want to make business with you."
Cool and all, but sometimes a pitch is just a pitch, and a fuck is just a fuck.
Also: personally I would never start a business with a friend I really cared about. Never. It's just like having a "friend with benefits": it can go perfectly or it can be hell on earth.
""Instead of making a business offer, pretend to be friends long enough so that the other party will (maybe) want to make business with you."
That's not what I'm saying. Rather, I'm talking about cultivating a network of friends in and around the business. If one of those friends happens to be an important person, great. If not, great.
It's possible to have a long-term agenda and not to be mercenarily seeking things from people along the way. In fact, the less you do the latter, the better. Ironically enough, you'll probably have an easier time getting help from people if you're not solely trying to get help from them.
To refer back to the girls-in-bars analogy: you'll have an easier time getting laid when you're not trying hard to get laid. When you're simply trying to have a good time and meet interesting people, getting laid is icing on the cake. It's not the goal, but when it comes along, it's a bonus.