I recently gave a presentation on networking to New York’s CTO School. The focus of the talk was on ways to provide value to others and how to bring an intentional, targeted approach to networking:
Video:
Slides:
To accompany this talk, I created a page for CTO School with other resources on networking. Feel free to check it out.
Stop Applying to Startups.
This was the title of an excellent post by Quinten Farmer on the challenges of landing a startup job through the traditional application process. The bottom line is it’s very challenging to stand out amongst a barrage of resumes if you don’t already have a connection to a company or taken the initiative to create one.
Fear not. There’s still hope to land your dream job. One way to accomplish this is to create a clever application or hook to stand out. I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight a few case studies of how people have done this so that resume drop jockeys can see what this looks like:
Alec Brownstein – Y & R
Using the assumption …
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I’ve learned a lot from New York entrepreneur Vin Vacanti through his blog “How to Make it As A First Time Entrepreneur“. Recently he wrote a post on advice he would have given himself 5 years ago. It’s a great read that I suggest you check out.
Vin’s post inspired me to do some reflecting on my own journey. Here’s 10 things I wish I knew before entering the workforce 2 years ago:
Nothing is more valuable than a mentor. When anyone young approaches me for career advice, I tell them to find the person whose best at what they want to get good at and go work for them – assuming you’re simpatico of course. I’m all about baptism by fire – but …
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Getting started on twitter can be daunting. What does RT mean? Who do I follow? Is there etiquette on here? Why did @sexylexy46 who follows 45,000 people and is followed by 5 just follow me? I wondered all these things when I started out and did a lot of stupid things in the process of trying to build a digital presence. I have a lot of friends trying to “break in” to the startup scene, so I figured I wrote a post on my learnings to help them avoid some mistakes I made.
This is my unofficial guide of how to get started and build a digital presence on twitter – something that’s really useful for people looking to break into …
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Between most of my college friends hating their jobs and my unconventional career path, I find myself talking to a lot of young people about career advice. The conversations take many forms, but I always come back to the same piece of advice: work for someone who is genuinely interested in your personal and professional development. But what does that look like? How can I determine whether that’s the case?
If I was graduating college today or switching industries, I’d try to work for someone that embodies the following qualities:
Relevant domain mastery:
You should work for someone who is very good at what you want to get good at. I’ve experienced the spectrum of …
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The first two parts of this post are good context for the third and final part below. It probably makes sense to read part 1 and part 2 here.
Now let’s talk about where BD came into the picture.
While I was working on Sfter I got to know Charlie O’Donnell through his softball team which I joined through twitter. I was excited to get back on the diamond, but I have to admit that a strong motivation stemmed from the desire to get to know Charlie. He’s definitely a cornerstone of the New York tech scene and someone I wanted to know. I had a great time that season and enjoyed getting to know Charlie.
It was through Charlie …
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In the part 1 of this post, I described how I broke and entered the startup scene. This outlines the initial trajectoryof how I ended up in BD. It probably makes sense to read first before continuing.
During the denoument of my YouAre.TV days, I secured a product consulting gig for a technology consulting firm. My initial outlook was that this would keep me afloat while I saw my subscription commerce project through. I had met the founder of the firm that hired me through an event I put together. I guess I must have made an impression on him. My assignment was to figure out how to make their consumer web product that was receiving little traction “work.” The gig …
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A lot of people have been asking me how to get into BD recently. Similar to Venture Capital, I don’t think there is a boilerplate prescription for getting into BD. There are definitely things you can do to put yourself in a favorable position like networking, blogging, and gaining an understanding of what BD actually means. That’s all great, but I’m here to tell you that I think getting a job in BD is about putting yourself in a position to capitalize when a “right time, right place opportunity” presents itself by working your ass off.
I think it’d be useful to outline how I got into business development by re-telling my startup journey. More than anything else, I want …
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