Naval Ravikant: “Networking is overrated... Do something great and your network will instantly emerge"

Naval offers the following advice to startup founders:

“Don’t spend your time doing meetings unless you really, really have to. I really think networking is overrated. There’s all these articles about how you’ve got to network more, and it makes me want to vomit.”

Instead he suggests:

“Go do something great and your network will instantly emerge. If you build a great product or if you get a good customer base, I guarantee you will get funded.”

Recruiting (customers and employees) and learning from really smart people are two exceptions. But don’t worry about building relationships with VCs or going to conferences early on. Just focus on your product, your team, and your users.

Full video: PandoDaily “PandoMonthly: Fireside Chat With AngelList Co-Founder Naval Ravikant“ (Nov 2012)

More popular advice from Naval Ravikant

Naval Ravikant shares the most valuable advice he’s received “It's the same [piece of advice] that everyone who's been in the business for a long time and has a lot of gray hairs tells you… whether it's Warren Buffett telling you about public investing or whether it's an experienced venture capitalist telling you about private investing… They'll all tell you, ‘It’s the people, stupid.’” (full article).

Naval Ravikant shares the common thread he sees across the great companies “I was thinking to myself: What was the common thread amongst each of them? It’s very hard to draw a common thread across such a large group. And I realized that the entrepreneurs were extremely deliberate in every early decision that they made. They were not haphazard. And the reason is because they really felt like they were laying the foundation for a 10-year business. None of them were thinking of it as something they would try and flip.” (full article).

Naval Ravikant on how a startup can build a great recruiting pipeline "You have to build a great pipeline. Your best pipeline is going to come from your personal contacts. You literally have to sit everyone at your company down and tell them to name the 10 best people they've ever worked with or gone to school with. I don't care what they're doing now. I don't care if they're getting their PhD. I don't care if they're starting their own company. I don't care if they just joined Google a month ago." (full article).