Tech Capital Partners Blog

Those of you who know me well know I’m passionate about people, always willing to meet new folks and figure out how they fit into my world. I’m sure this passion stems from a traumatic experience I had during one of my first “real” job interviews (age 25). I was asked “Who do you know?” My response was, “Well nobody… I’m pretty much fresh out of school.” The interview went downhill from there and, needless to say, I didn’t get the job…*

From that point on I vowed to make meeting people, getting to know them, and building relationships a big part of my life. I remember being incredibly frustrated with the whole “networking” process early on in my career. Nobody really wanted to meet with me… What value could I bring to the table? Who else did I know? Who could I connect them to? What could I do for them? My networking activities centred around going to Communitech events and peer2peer groups, getting a group of people together to play poker, volunteering — every opportunity seemed to be “event” driven. Over time, these group activities morphed to coffees and lunches and discussions became more intimate, focusing on mutual interests and how we could each benefit from working together.

I wish someone had suggested early on (while I was still in school) that I keep in touch with my friends from university. Thanks to Facebook and LinkedIn I’ve managed to reconnect with a bunch of these folks and have reached out to some of them who are working in related industries. It’s amazing to see where your friends end up 10 years after graduation. What an amazing group of people. I would highly recommend pulling out your old yearbooks and reconnecting with old friends.

Social networking technologies have revolutionized my ability to reconnect with old colleagues and build new relationships with people (yes “relationships”, not superficial meaningless contact databases). I’m straddling two worlds at the moment (as I’m sure many of you are). One world that has embraced these new technologies, understands their impact, and is using them to effectively build networks and companies, and the other that doesn’t quite understand what all the fuss is about. It’s difficult to comprehend the impact “online social networks” can have before you’ve developed your network and it takes time to build your network (although not as much time as it would if you were to go for coffee or lunch with each person).

Here are a few concrete examples of how these technologies have helped me connect over the past few days:

1. I twittered that we are pulling together a list of “strategic partner” type companies to invite to this year’s Entrepreneur Week. I received a bunch of suggestions from my friends on Twitter. Some of these people work at startup technology companies and have identified specific companies they’d like to meet; while others work at larger technology companies, want to get some exposure, and peek under the covers to see what’s being developed here.

2. A local technology company, High Jump, announced cuts to its Waterloo workforce due to a change in corporate strategy. I did a search on LinkedIn for High Jump employees based in Waterloo Region and reached out to them directly and through my LinkedIn network (because Tech Capital portfolio companies are hiring as I’m sure you all know: http://www.techcapital.com/careers.asp). I also “tweeted” that I was looking to connect with employees from High Jump and several folks passed my message along.

3. I reconnected with Marcel LeBrun and David Alston of Radian6 (formerly of iMagicTV) who I haven’t seen since my days at PixStream.

4. I gathered some information: David Crow on StartupNorth: “Ten Web Startups to Watch” (he forgot a few…) and Michael Hiemstra posted a link on Facebook that Open Text has acquired a division of Spicer.

5. I tweeted that Andrew Abouchar had posted to the Tech Capital blog: So you are looking for the next RIM are you?

I also use Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook regularly (and now FriendFeed although I’m just getting started there) to build and maintain relationships with people who are geographically challenged (you know… folks in the Valley, Boston area). And I recognize that I need expand these networks beyond Canada and the US to other places where our portfolio companies are doing — or want to do — business.

I’m having a blast meeting and working with really interesting people from all over.

[*Note: 5 years after the job interview, the same guy who didn't offer me the job emailed me to go for coffee... He was looking for a new job and a number of people had suggested he speak with me. Sweet.]

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