Spent 6 months building a network in Denver, realized I was just collecting business cards the whole time

I went to like 30 meetups and networking events from January to June, got maybe 200 cards, and not one real lead came from it. Last week I finally got a solid referral from just grabbing coffee with one guy I actually talked to for an hour. Has anyone else found that most networking events are basically fake?

2 comments

2 Comments

nancy82019h ago

The 200 cards thing sounds like a lot, but I bet half of them are from people who just hand them out like candy. I've been to maybe 15 events in the last year and I swear 80% of the people there are just trying to sell you something or get you to sign up for their newsletter. That coffee thing though, thats real. I did the same thing with a guy I met at a tech meetup, we just talked about video games for 45 minutes, and he ended up hooking me up with a freelance job a month later. So yeah, maybe the big events are a waste of time, but its not like the whole idea of meeting people is fake.

shane75113h ago

kinda feels like everyone just overcomplicates this. like yeah @nancy820 is right, most of those big events are just people trying to sell you stuff. but also I dunno if the coffee meetup is that much of a game changer either. I mean maybe it works sometimes but one good referral out of six months doesnt exactly prove anything to me. feels like people get way too wound up about "networking" when really its just luck and timing most of the time. the guy you clicked with over coffee could have just as easily been a dead end too. the whole thing just seems like a lot of hype for something that might not be that deep.