Exploiting the Power of Community to get highest ROI for Infosec Future

I was a guy with almost ZERO contacts when I started my entrepreneurial journey, and launched my first startup. And my path was so fucked up that I hired a fresher from an IIM at a whooping cost just to bring some initial sales. I hardly had 80 friends on Facebook, I was not present on LinkedIn, twitter or any other social network site. I found myself lost when I thought about sales, and networking, and interacting with people, and meeting new people, and explore with them. I was a loner, an introvert, have been a researcher my whole life. 

But everything changed since 11th August 2017, the day I joined PushStart, a facebook community of entrepreneurs.

I started in the most unusual way : Find comments from founders, visit their website, explore about what they are doing, and then send them a message praising about their venture and telling them how great work they are doing through their venture. To my own disbelief, I ended up in making friends with every guy I texted. And even though I was not selling, not even pitching my services, every other guy was eagerly approaching me to collaborate in one way or other (because I was unknowingly building relationships). 

After a month, I started meeting those guys, making better friends, and creating a strong professional cum social network. It helped me so much, that being from a hard core tech background, added with zero sales knowledge, I ended up getting 30 sales within 60 days of starting up. It attracted Neeraj Joshi, founder of PushStart, to go after me for his 2nd (infact 1st) PushInterview. This PushInterview further fetched me more clients.

What I exactly did ? I searched for friends rather than mere connections. I made friends, which converted to connections and then to clients (effortlessly) . To be noted here is that my business model is B2B. And still, my every other friend from PushStart is either my client or have agreed to be one of them in future. In last two months, I started meeting those people. I met more than 30 PushStarters, made friends, from various states, various cities, generated leads, generated business, and above all, made ever lasting relationships.

Where do I stand at present? I have met 30 plus PushStarters, have more than 170 genuine facebook friends, have gathered 19000 plus active followers on LinkedIn, became a semi-influencer on social networks. Professionally, I have got 17 clients through PushStart (40 plus in total), 32 prospective leads (through PushStart only), and a dozen of life long friends, I can truly rely upon them. And with the help of those PushStarters, have already started up two more StartUps, and up for a couple of more ideas.

You should also give this model a try. This is more than worth for giving a try. Even if you will not get business, you will surely get some like-minded friends. Make friends, interact with people, explore with them, get support, give support, discuss, hang out, and chill. This is the only way you can live an eternal life, in people's heart. Forever !