Comment on Get Psyched! (suggested by Carleen Hawn)

Jack, I think another great post would be a few “How to’s” on Networking. Installment #1: how to BUDGET for networking. We all know we need to network, but it can be hard for many of us. Actually “budgeting” for it may not be something that everyone would consider doing, but it’s good practice for when you have your first marketing budget, right?

Will – I want to challenge the assumption that you need to know a lot of people before you can start a company. Certainly you need to be in the field working for a few years before taking on the world. And you need to network often and wide. However, when I started Baynote, my connections (after being Interwoven CTO for 8 years) were not near to be enough. I allocated $5,000 to buy people breakfast, lunch, dinner and drinks just to get their feedback. I didn’t know Prof. Cliff Nass and Prof. Rajeev Motwani, the two professors at Stanford who helped me PROFOUNDLY for the foundation of Baynote. However I knew people who knew them. The 6 degrees of separation told us that we are all very closely connected. For starting a business, the important people are within 2 or 3 degrees from you. If we cannot find those advisors to exchange ideas, how can we later find customers to test and sell our products?

About Jack Jia
Jack is a founder and CEO of Baynote, Inc., developing innovative technology to power the business web via the Wisdom of Invisibe Crowds. He was the founding VP engineering & CTO of Interwoven (NASDAQ: IWOV) for eight years. Prior to Interwoven, he was a founder and CEO of V-max America. Prior, he led operating systems and applications development at SGI, Sun Microsystems, Stratus and NASA for over a decade. Jack is a contributing author to several books including the “Content Management Bible”, and writes regularly about key technology issues and trends on his Baynote blog at: http://baynote.typepad.com/

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