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Expanded spheres of influence

 Extract for the Financial Times 29/11/2011 for illustraction purposes only   

When Simon Rabin, the co-founder of London-based mobile commerce business Txt2Buy, set up the company in 2008, he faced the same problem that confronts many aspiring entrepreneurs: how to obtain funding.

He and his partner, both recent graduates, set up shop in Mr Rabin’s bedroom with a couple of computers and a broadband connection and set about building a network that would enable them to launch a start-up. “The only tool we had available to us was the internet,” he says.

They focused on mining the professional networking site LinkedIn to target the type of funder they believed were most likely to favour a business such as theirs: “It was a bit like going to a networking event, holding up a megaphone and saying, ‘Venture capital, London, tech start-up’, and everyone comes over,” Mr Rabin says.

 

But, he adds, for a pair of 23-year-olds just starting out, it offered a credible platform. “It gives you the opportunity to present yourself in a way that means people are willing to engage with you,” he says, pointing out that LinkedIn enabled him to connect with relevant individuals without having to deal with “gatekeepers” such as PAs. He cites one prominent venture capitalist who was impossible to get hold of via the conventional channels. Yet five minutes after Mr Rabin sent him a personalised Linked­In request, a face-to-face meeting was set up. “I would not have got in front of him otherwise,” he says.

 

Mr Rabin’s experience demonstrates how platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are changing the ways in which communities are formed. But it also highlights the importance of making online and offline networking tools work in sync rather than have one replace the other.

 

Networking, of course, is not new. In an article published by Harvard Business Review in January 2007, Insead professors Herminia Ibarra and Mark Hunter described how successful leaders used three types of network. Operational networks, which could include key colleagues, suppliers or customers, enable you to get your job done more efficiently. Personal networks build on professional links with “kindred spirits” outsid

e your operational network. Such contacts might not be essential to accomplishing day-to-day tasks but they provide the types of links, through professional associations, personal interest groups or alumni groups, that can provide important outside information. And strategic networks are about building contacts among those beyond your immediate control who will be able to help you reach strategic, long-term professional goals.

 

To view the rest of this article please visit http://on.ft.com/rFkOJV 

 

 

Filed under: News by andrew | 29 Nov 2011Top