It's also a good way to guage interest and road test the content.
How do I do that? Sorry if I sound pretty simple but having never done it before there's a barrier to break. I didn't use the word "terrified" lightly. Where are these groups of people that aren't just friends and family, that I can present products to?
I've always been amazed at how poor companies are at simple timesheet tracking. For example, the company I'm at now is a s/w dev company and we are still expected to fill in bloody Excel forms for managing time spent on specific projects/customers. We also have to fill in holiday forms in Excel, with the result that people (including my manager) never know when I'm on holiday until they are surprised by the Out of Office email reply.
So - a simple time tracking system, then. I would probably make a SaaS version online, and one which you could purchase and install locally yourself (or pay me to come and set up for you). And we can assume that it's going to be the awesome of awesomeness.
I'd probably write enough of it to make a minimally viable product that looks juicy and could take to customers. How would I go about finding these potential customers? Do I have to go door to door in my local area? Google Ad-words?
On the other hand, the market is very large and there's lots of room for different companies.
I haven't seen a variation so far that doesn't annoy me.
patio11 has more insight and practical advice on this sort of stuff than I can offer. A recent comment of his, for example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5657402 .. although I imagine jumping in head first to creating a local event is probably not what you want to do (yet).
Set some basic goals for yourself like meet a new person each week. Get some cards.
If you're really starting from zero in terms of networking, go to a meetup and start talking to people, then aim to spend a year practising networking. You'll find out what constitutes quality in terms of networking soon enough.
Also check out Ruben Gamez's course on mixergy.com/premium called "networking for introverts", and his interview is good too.
In fact, just go watch mixergy :)
If you'd like to have a longer discussion about networking feel free to email me iain@workingsoftware.com.au
I used to think networking was for losers, but done right it's surprisingly non-spammy, fulfilling and lucrative!
I did one in London and they made me get out on the street, stop people and talk to them.
Uncomfortable? yes. Eye opening? yes.
In 3 days we made an mvp, got out and sold product. Literally the MVP was some html page on some vps. Sales were meeting people in person for cash!
1. Cut a hole in a box.
1. Go to Central Park on a summer afternoon.
2. Ask 100 random strangers out on a date. No fancy approaches or bullshit
pick-up lines. Just start a conversation, and ask before a minute's
up. Oh, don't ask for a phone number (you might get a fake, or
non-returned calls, and that's worse than a flat-out rejection).
Ask for an actual date.
3. Your median outcome will be zero; some people get lucky
and get 1 or 2, but don't count on it ...
4. ... but you've now been rejected 98-100 times and you're still alive.
Maybe if it's a rare occurrence, but I think it would get irritating before long if a lot of people took the advice of asking out random strangers.
It also imposes an externality on any other potential ask-outers, in that it makes them less likely to be taken seriously.
When you pick an obscure tactic, the whole point is to trade on the fact that others aren't doing so. If by chance that particular tactic does get popular, you simply pivot and pick another obscure tactic, or move to a field where there are fewer players.