As a New York tech start-up owner that is based in Silicon Alley, I am always developing my network and meeting people who are often other entrepreneurs themselves. We then attempt to bond by discussing current ventures and business practices. Sometimes these conversations have a competitive nature and other times genuine help is offered, but, nonetheless, I have found that techies love to pontificate more than they like to program.
What I have also found is that a prominent trait amongst tech owners is a general sense of arrogance that will only be pacified until they have beaten why their product is superior to competition to death. Thus, the average tech owner is living a paradox; they compromise the human element of vulnerability by objectifying relationships. They meet someone whom they feel the need to show value to, which they achieve by feigning strength and glossing over weaknesses until their legitimacy is “established”, and by the end of their peacocking, they have disenfranchised their audience by objectifying them as a judgment panel rather then human beings.
The point is that people like other people. It sounds obvious, right? People do not want to just communicate with someone else's personality veneer and defense mechanisms. They want to talk to another person, which includes the personality faults and lackluster professional performance that most entrepreneurs are actually experiencing in their every day lives. Start-up owners are not all going to be special and revolutionary, but experienced business people that can offer contacts, advice, or funding already know this. Just because you are not the next revolutionary product does not mean that people will not want to help you to the best of their abilities. In fact, people often times love the underdogs without funding, a network, or experience because there is a higher likelihood that they can help them, which is a rewarding practice.
So, as a business person in any space, I implore people to stop trying to be Richard Bransons and be more like Oliver Twists. Be earnest, honest, and humble and I know that you will find the help that you need.
