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| The guy on the top left is me |
Mingling is not be core competency (this is a huge understatement). This is why I choose carefully the conferences and exhibitions I go to. When I attend an event, I typically listen or try to find only relevant persons to talk to, do my thing and vanish quickly.
Two things happened to me this week that changed it in the Garage Geeks
The first one is that I heard Yossi Vardi speaking with a tech-crunch interviewer about conferences. He said that he goes to many of them to meet people and this is not less important than the agenda of the conference. I thought to myself, "well, I will try to be less shy this time"
The second thing is pure luck. I had to buy a medicine for my kid at a specific pharmacy close to the place where the even took place. The event was scheduled to 8:30PM, but I was there before 7:00PM since pharmacies are closing at 7:00PM.
The result was that I was the first person to arrive to the site. Since I had to make myself useful I offered my help in organizing the place and a nice conversation started to take place.
It was still early, and the stream of people arriving was thin, so it was easy to start discussions with new people that arrive. As a result I was really able to speak with tens of people. I spoke about my start-up, asked for new ideas, directions, connection, etc. AND, people really like to help.
I met people that I wanted to meet for a long time and had no idea how to connect with. With one of them I started to talk since he blocked my way to the pizza and he "had to" hand me one :)
Finally, the event was great and insightful. I've already started testing a social aspect to my product.
To those of you who have not been in Garage Geeks, you should really go.
The conclusion is simple. Don't close in a shell. Go out and meet people. You never know where the lead/direction/connection you need will come from. You can also provide a useful advice to another person that needs it.
Don't take yourself too seriously.
Amir
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