Startup Standups / Field note
Networking Playbook
A better question than “Who should I meet?” is “What role should each next connection play in the problem I am working on?”
Give each connection a job
Do not aim for “five new contacts.” Aim for five relationships that can sharpen, challenge, accelerate, or follow your next experiment.
Find the customer connection
Look for someone closer to the behavior you are trying to understand. Their job is not to validate you; it is to make the need more specific.
Find the operator and skeptic
An operator contributes pattern recognition. A skeptic pressure-tests the frame. These can be different people because experience and productive dissent are different jobs.
Create a follow-up contract
Before leaving, tell one person what you are going to test and when you will update them. That single commitment converts a networking moment into a learning loop.