20A – Growing Your Social Capital

Domain Expert

1) Who they are and what their background is.

Founder of a online recruitment portal startup

2) Which 'slot' you are filling with each person (i.e., domain expert, market expert, supplier), and how the person fills the spot.

Domain Expert

3) A description of how you found the person and contacted the person.

A peer of mine during my diploma days and a good friend 

4) The nature of the exchange you have with the person -- what favor did they do for you? What is the return expectation? 

I helped his startup a bit and we meet occasionally. Had talks to having collaborations in the future for mutual benefits for our own companies

5) How will including this person in your network enhance your ability to exploit an opportunity?

As an entrepreneur, he can provide insights and connections to resources that I would need in the future

Market expert

1) Who they are and what their background is.

They helped on-board merchants onto visa

2) Which 'slot' you are filling with each person (i.e., domain expert, market expert, supplier), and how the person fills the spot.

Market expert. Because on-boarding merchants and businesses onto a payment system is important for my idea and they are the primary consumers

3) A description of how you found the person and contacted the person.

My colleague at my previous internship. I found out about their background while attended an event with them ( I met them several months ago)

4) The nature of the exchange you have with the person -- what favor did they do for you? What is the return expectation? 

Offered insights to on-boarding merchants when I talked about my idea. No real promise but potential collaboration

5) How will including this person in your network enhance your ability to exploit an opportunity?

Able to find out what pushes businesses and merchants to adopt a service , especially a payment service

An important supplier

1) Who they are and what their background is.

He is a founder of an advertising firm 

2) Which 'slot' you are filling with each person (i.e., domain expert, market expert, supplier), and how the person fills the spot.

An important supplier to my industry. Because many companies in the industry rely on advertising agencies to help promote their product.

3) A description of how you found the person and contacted the person.

Attended a blockchain conference and cold-approached them

4) The nature of the exchange you have with the person -- what favor did they do for you? What is the return expectation? 

He shared how his created his start up and shared insights on the industry and critiques of the business idea I had in a general form (more about similar business models of mine in the industry)

5) How will including this person in your network enhance your ability to exploit an opportunity?

Meeting other entrepreneurs will enable me to connect with other entrepreneurs he knows and access other resources and networks

Reflection:

How will this experience shape how you participate in any future networking events? Did this experience differ from your networking experiences in the past? How?

I will attend more blockchain conferences as well as other networking events as you just never know who you will meet.
The experience pretty similar in the past in general but as I said you will meet all sorts of people and never know who to expect but I always learn something.