the unspoken economics of your network
every founder thinks their network is unique. the ones who win figured out what it's actually for.
Had three meetings on February 13th that taught me I've been thinking about network the wrong way.
First: a founder who'd raised from a guy I knew. We spent the first 10 minutes on intro value. But the real conversation was: "How do I think about these investors once they're in the company?" Turns out the intro was 5% of what mattered. The operating relationship was the rest.
Second: someone building in robotics who asked me to introduce them to a competitor. I paused. Why would I do that? The answer: "I need to know if this thing is hard or if it's just hard for us." They wanted a sanity check from someone else in the trenches.
Third: a guy who'd worked with me before on a different thesis. He said: "I keep coming back to you because when I fail, you tell me why, not just 'sorry it didn't work.'"
That's the moment. Most networks are built on transactional intros. The valuable networks are built on people who'll give you real feedback when it hurts.
Everyone talks about "leveraging your network." But the actual leverage is: who will tell you the truth when it matters?
Most of your network will be useful once. The ones you actually need you'll use fifteen times, and the relationship only gets stronger.
What would change if you called three people from your network and asked them for something that was hard to ask for?