Ask HN: How can I reach people in a industry I don't have any contacts? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How can I reach people in a industry I don't have any contacts?

30 pointspouta16 comments

After starting to do some customer development for my own software to sell to self-driving car companies I was stuck on how to actually reach someone and find if they are interested in such solution.

I'm quite sure cold-emailing Tesla or Waymo would just go to support...

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1. Join Industry Association and attend their meetings.

2. Attend and/or exhibit at Tradeshows and events related to the industry.

3. Trade Publications, their mailing lists and advertising.

4. Find contacts through LinkedIn and reach out to them individually.

5. Go to your target audience hangout places.

6. Research publications related to your industry. Find appropriate papers and connect with research groups and authors that get you introduction to industry participants.

I'm pretty sure from own experience that supplying solutions to business customers at scale is not easy without being a proven business yourself. The other way round is doing contract work for them, essentially selling your solutions very cheap. In the middle, you may want to become an r&d employee in order to achieve financial security while working on your own project for a single customer aka your employer. In the latter case, bonuses and intellectual rights exploitation may be agreed, if the interest is mutual and your solution is big.

I'm reading answers on this thread and having a strange feeling of some disconnect between the question - or rather a possible interpretation of the question - and answers. Maybe it's just a feeling that answers make some assumptions which could be substantially wrong?

For example, if the question author is a yesterday graduate, he may use the internship route. But then he may not know "the old route" - and mentioning "going past the gate keeper" without elaborating may leave a puzzled look. At least before some figuring out (a.k.a. googling) what's that.

Or if the author had a career in another industry, then the idea of internship may look odd, but LinkedIn contacts could be more promising venue. Unless, that is, the industry doesn't use LinkedIn that much.

Or if the author is from outside of America. Then advice like "join an association and attend meetings" could be harder to follow. Regarding advice "networking is also a possible venue" - for some this could sound both as too long/boring and to vague of advice. Advice "hire a professional" requires finding one, paying him - which may be problematic for some - and those also look like taking time longer than one weekend or even one month.

I don't know, may be some recommendations will be spot on and successfully used. May be the question need to be phrased more specifically.

I feel the problem was definitely on my question being too vague actually. Anyway I got some interesting thoughts I never considered before so this was successful.

The gatekeeper one I have to admit that I had to Google it.

> The gatekeeper one I have to admit that I had to Google it.

I hadn't realized this wasn't a recognizable term. Thanks for the input, though. I'll have to preface my usage of it from now on.

No problem, I managed to learn something new!

The traditional way to reach people in an industry where one doesn't have any contacts is to do an internship in one of the companies, or to perform well in a competition setup within the industry. That's how it goes for graduates in most industries, anyway. One could also look for any awards shared by industry participants. A group of industry participants might setup an award for "best supplier" for a particular good the industry needs. Try to get in one of those gatherings and do some networking.

I even did a google search for you and found something interesting:

http://www.autonews.com/article/20161008/OEM10/310109988/30-...

"Innovations from 30 automotive suppliers representing seven countries have been named finalists for the 2017 Automotive News PACE Awards.

The 34 innovations -- ranging from short-range radar to a direct fuel-injection system to an in-car artificial intelligence supercomputer -- underscore the auto industry's commitment to improving fuel economy, emissions and safety, among other goals."

Can you get a ticket to one of these events?

Thank you for the thoughtful reply. There is some good information there! I'm from Portugal so actually going to one of those events can be very pricey but definitely something on my to-do list

Attempt to hire them.

In the best case - you see value in their connections & insider info and you actually offer what you can and they join you.

In the worst case - you get to understand the market, have a friend who respects you, and possibly references or as in your case - perhaps become your customer.

Worked for me across new verticals i had to break into. (banking, logistics)

This is interesting. You're awesome

> I'm quite sure cold-emailing Tesla or Waymo would just go to support...

Have you heard about getting past the gate keeper? It's an old technique and I don't know how relevant it is in this era, but it's something to look into.

Networking is also a possible avenue.

This question is googable, are you sure there's nothing else to this?

Hire a sales person with ties to the industry. Find them on Linked In. Sales people are always networking.

Cold emailing and calling doesn't work for _me_. I'm terrible at cold calling.

- Go to events, meetups, and conferences for the topic. - Connect via LinkedIn to persons of interest. - Network, network, network.

The fewer the players in an industry the harder it will be. Online forums can be a good way to casually meet people or promote your technology. I'd try posting to Reddit or LinkedIn and develop some relationships.

I work in this industry, can you elaborate on your software and it's capabilities a little more? I will be able to point you in the right direction.

Thanks for the reply! Feel free to contact me via email: moura at oko.ai We are monetizing car traffic using smart contracts between the car owners.

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