How to build a founder network from scratch

Ten useful people beats a thousand contacts

A network is only worth what it will actually do for you at 9pm on a Tuesday when something breaks. Ten founders who know what you're building and will reply is a functioning network. A long connection list is not.

This matters most at the start, because your early asks are small and frequent: read this page, is this price mad, does this email make sense.

Who to look for

The most useful people are rarely the most visible. Founders six to eighteen months ahead of you remember the details you need and are usually happy to be asked.

• Someone slightly ahead in your stage, they remember the specifics.
• Someone in your industry but a different function, they see your blind spot.
• Someone outside your industry entirely, they ask the naive question that matters.
• Someone who is also starting out, you'll grow together and trade help evenly.

The first message

Reference something specific they made or said, say what you're doing in one line, and ask one answerable question. No preamble about admiring their journey.

If you can be useful first, a broken link, a confusing sentence on their pricing page, a customer type they haven't considered, say that instead of asking.

Follow-up is the whole thing

Most founder relationships die because nobody closed the loop. When someone helps, tell them what you did with it and what happened. It takes two lines and it is the single strongest signal that you're worth helping again.

Set a rhythm you can sustain: one update to two or three people a month is plenty.

A first message that gets a reply

Hi Priya, your write-up on switching from usage pricing to seats answered something I've been going in circles on.

I'm building a scheduling tool for independent clinics (pre-launch, solo). I'm about to make the same switch at a much smaller scale.

One question if you have a minute: did you grandfather existing customers, or move everyone at once?

Either way, thanks for writing it up, it saved me a week.