Networking Insight

Find a Co-Founder Through Your Network

When starting a business, you will have a lot of needs whether it is capital, employees, customers, or other resources. For some entrepreneurs, one of the most important resources early on is finding a co-founder. By having a co-founder, entrepreneurs have another person to bounce ideas off of, share capital expenses, or share risks. Either way, it can be lonely launching a firm on your own.

It is tough to find co-founders, but a great place to start is with your network. Reach out to certain people in your network to let them know that you are launching a business and would like to find a co-founder. You need to tell people just enough about what you want to do so they can think about any referrals. Because people already know you, they should be able to connect you to like-minded people, those who have similar aspirations to start a business, those who have complementary skillsets, or those who have experience in the same industry as the business that you want to launch.

At the same time, you may have a few people who you can reach out to directly to inquire about their interest in starting a business with you. It is important that you understand how other peoples' backgrounds and skills complement your experiences. It takes time to find a co-founder so make sure that you vet a few people for their interest, skillsets, and resources. When finding the right co-founder, you will spend most of your time with this person. So, make sure that you both get along as well.

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Five Ways to Stay Top of Mind with Your Network

Building and maintaining relationships takes time and effort. It can be challenging to stay connected to everyone in your network. As a result, you may lose touch with some good contacts.  By staying top of mind, you will stay more relevant with certain people and you will be able to maintain more of your relationships over the long term.

Below are five ways to stay top of mind with those in your network.

1. Create a newsletter - Develop your own newsletter that you send out monthly or quarterly. Make sure to have valuable content vs you just selling your product or service.

2. Host your own events - From time to time, host your own event and invite those in your network. Events are a great way to bring your network to you.

3. Make introductions - When appropriate, connect people together. Your contacts will appreciate you thinking of them, especially if they end up doing business together.

4. Meet for lunch or drinks - Each week, you should make an effort to meet with someone in your network for lunch, coffee, or drinks. You should have most of your lunches full each week. Face time is important for relationship building.

5. Write articles - Spend time writing blog posts or published articles. Once completed, send them to your network. Branding yourself around a subject matter expertise is a great way for people to remember you.

What other ways can you stay on top of mind with your network?

Find a Business Partner Through Your Network

When choosing to build a business with a partner or co-founder, you want to be very comfortable with that person. It takes time to get to know someone. Make sure that you spend time getting to know one another before getting into business together.

One of the best ways to find this person is to leverage your business network. You may already have someone in mind or you may need to ask others in your network. The more diverse your network the better so you can cast a wide net to find the right person.

Here are some questions to consider when choosing a partner:

- What stage in life in this person? Generally, it is good to partner with someone in a similar stage so you both can put in a similar amount of time or effort. However, treat this case by case.        

- Does this person have the vision? It is important that you choose a partner who has a similar vision with to build and grow a company.         

- Does this person have the same values? Having the same values early on is critical for the business relationship so you start working together with a similar mindset.                                                          

- Does this person have the same end goal or exit strategy? When starting a new business or partnership, it is important to have an end goal. While it may be difficult to be thinking of any exit in the beginning, it is still important to keep this mind.  Some of your business decisions will be made with this in mind. 

What else comes to mind?

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