Be a High-Value Connector & Networker
Be a High-Value Connector & Networker
Chat with Andrew Yeung (Founder & Investor; ex-Google; ex-Meta)
Welcome to this week’s free article of Level Up: Your source for career growth solutions & community by retired Amazon Vice President, Ethan Evans. If you’d like to become a paid member, see the benefits here, and feel free to use this expense template to ask your manager.
Business Insider dubbed Andrew Yeung the "Gatsby of Silicon Alley."
Andrew is an ex-Google and Meta product leader turned tech and hospitality entrepreneur and investor.
He hosts the hottest events:
Andrew's Mixers (1,000+ person tech rooftop mixers)
The Junto Series (C-suite and tech leader dinners)
Lumos House (a multi-day, multi-city experience in a private mansion)
The OOO Summit (a full-day event for Owners, Operators, and Outliers to learn and network in NYC on August 17)
Attendees include founders of billion-dollar companies, media personalities with millions of followers, and Olympic athletes turned entrepreneurs.
In our fireside chat, Andrew and Jason Yoong (Ethan’s Operating Partner) discuss:
How to get your foot into the door.
How do you instantly establish rapport with anyone?
Uncommon ways to engage and keep your network updated to invite opportunities?
How Andrew balanced performing as top tier at Meta and Google with his founder path.
The biggest mistakes people make when "networking".
Live attendance was exclusive to paid newsletter members.
Takeaways
(1) Build goodwill BEFORE you ask for something.
When you ask someone for something (e.g. intro to someone, job referral, advice on XYZ) the person is thinking “Who are you and what have you done for me?” Answer this by being a value-add person before making an ask.
Have a 51/49 mindset where you provide 51% of the value.
Important: Make sure what you add/give is actually deemed valuable to the person (not just what you think is valuable).
When meeting people, Andrew asks “What is on your roadmap for the next 6 months?” and closes the loop after doing research/work/meeting other people in a way that is valuable to them.
Example: Andrew meets a lot of founders fundraising and connects them with very specific investors. This matching has compounded to include angel investors and talent for hiring companies.
Important: Most people never close the loop. You stand out by doing that in a valuable way.
Accept the fact that networking is transactional. It can be a transaction of information, energy, skills, etc. Once you realize this, you gain clarity and a value-added first approach.
(2) Effective cold outreach = researched, specific clear proposal or ask, proof of value, and concise.
Andrew’s first hire (now his Chief of Staff) came up to Andrew after an event, shared that he’s been to a few events, introduced himself, made his clear and specific value-add proposal, and offered to work for free for 3 months (handling all operational work and events) to prove effectiveness, trustworthiness, and results.
When reaching out to someone notable who gets a lot of inbound (e.g. Mark Cuban), you stand out by asking a question or pointing out a detail that very few people notice (e.g. “In podcast episode XYZ, you mentioned ABC, I did [explain interesting value-add tie-in / comment that highlights how you can help them]…”).
Important: Offering to work for free itself is not value-add because it requires work from the other person (e.g. onboarding, granting access, question of trust).
(3) Don’t be in the room…create the room.
For those who are shy and do not like to “work the room” or “schmooze” or “be the center of attention” a route to consider is to create the event or be the behind-the-scenes host who brings people together (this is what Andrew does).
You become a magnet for the type of people you want to attract.
This also includes creating content that attracts people you want to connect with.
(4) “The Rule of 3” when networking.
Speak with 3 people. Share 3 things about yourself (focus on what is important to you for the next 6 months). And learn 3 things about each person.
Put calendar reminders to stay in touch with people and follow up with something interesting and valuable (every 3 months seems to work). Multiply that over 2 years and you will build a relationship.
(5) How to be rated Top Tier at FAANG.
Excel at the 3 skills / activities / buckets of work that are valued in your organization (figure out the currency of your org, more here).
Proactively manage the expectations of your leadership chain.
Eat the Frog for your manager.
Build a brand internally (e.g. Andrew owned and created numerous internal resources that scaled to the broader Meta and Google teams and they saw his name everywhere).
Do not underestimate the influence of an internal newsletter (more here).
Ask your manager what it takes to get the highest tier rating (e.g. every month, Andrew asked his manager what it takes to get to the top rating, and he found that he needed to get 6 peers to write a reference letter and rating, specifically 2 teammates + 2 cross-functional peers + 2 leaders who sponsor your workstream).
Follow Andrew on LinkedIn and subscribe to his newsletter to stay updated.
» Andrew is looking to build the SXSW of NYC. If you (or someone you know) have experience organizing large-scale festivals like Coachella or SXSW, reach out to Andrew at - andrew AT andrewsmixers DOT com - or share in the comments. Andrew is also seeking sponsors who want to reach founders.
» And, don’t miss Andrew’s event on August 17 in NYC: The OOO Summit - For Owners, Operators, & Outliers:
It's a full-day event, with talks, activities, networking sessions, and of course a “party”, for you to learn from the top experts in the biz and meet some of the most ambitious, curious, and inspiring people in New York City.
If you have even the slightest itch to build something, then you might want to consider attending.
A strong network is your most powerful, portable long-term career asset. If you found this advice helpful and want to go deeper to learn how leaders build great networks and use them to their advantage, consider Ethan’s on-demand course, Leadership Networking.
Level Up Community: Inside Look
In Slack, what members are talking about and how they are helping one another:
Hiring / open roles:
Multiple Bay Area and Bangalore engineering roles at Harness (AI-Driven Software Delivery Platform).
Senior Software Engineer at Workday (in Seattle).
Chief Technology Officer (CTO) & Co-Founder for stealth pre-seed startup focused on delivering personalized news search and discovery experiences. The CTO will play a crucial role in defining and executing our technology architecture and strategy, ensuring it aligns with company mission and goals (US-based, open to remote).
Do graduate certificates help when applying for new jobs?
Once making an offer (matching top of their range + going beyond what candidate was asking for comp wise) - how much time is usual for them to consider the role? At what point does it become a red flag?
How do you celebrate milestones for yourself and/or loved ones?
Why is Meta choosing to open source with a performant model?
5 Olympic Lessons for Communications and Community at Work.
Fine-tuning Meta LLAMA 3 with custom data.
New video game launch (created by a community member).
Solopreneurship journey half-year update.
In-person meetups and virtual networking events. Below is what one member said about our latest Level Up Virtual Networking Event:
This was my first virtual networking meet-up; impactful 30 minutes. Not only did I get the opportunity to meet 3 awesome people, I've had some great connections via LinkedIn & now have some follow-ups chats on the calendar. I'm mostly introverted, so showing up to virtual meet-ups hit like work-outs: I'm rarely excited prior to attending, but always leave feeling recharged & grateful. If you need another reason to attend: highly recommend Adam Grant's Give & Take which gets into the research around types of relationships which lead to impactful outcomes.
If you’d like to become a paid member, see the benefits here, and feel free to use this expense template to ask your manager.
Existing members, if you want to join our private Slack Community, click the Slack link in this member-only weekly Friday article.
Connect With Ethan & Jason
Level Up is your source for career growth solutions & community by retired Amazon Vice President, Ethan Evans.