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The Personal Value of Community
Three lessons I learned about my journey building community
My journey into the world of community started from the ashes of a failed tech startup over a decade ago. I was a co-founder of a company launching an enterprise human resource analytics platform during a time when the world’s financial systems were on the brink of collapse.
While the global economy certainly did not help, the problems with my startup were more profound and self-inflicted. I learned some important insights about startups from that failure:
- Tech startups should not outsource their tech.
- Choose your business partners very carefully.
- Networking with founders, investors & advisors is not optional.
I could write a book just about the first two points alone, but the last point speaks directly to the idea of community. Driven by ego and pride, I was exclusively relying upon myself to figure things out. The problem was that I was getting a lot wrong and making critical mistakes along the way.
The startup folded, but the lesson about networking hit home. It was towards the end of 2009, and I jumped headlong into the growing Meetup culture in New York City (NYC) to start building the network that I lacked during my startup journey. I went on a startup meetup binge, going to an event every evening of the weekday, and sometimes even doubling or tripling up.
