A LinkedIn Group: 0-400 in 20 days

Three weeks ago I discovered to my surprise that there wasn’t an active LinkedIn group for London-based members of my ‘profession’ (if you can call it that); startup founders. There are literally thousands of us in our entrepreneurial capital city – but we were, until recently, entirely unrepresented on the world’s premier professional networking site! As a rule, founders are independent minded types and not all that ‘clubbable’, so that may explain some of it. But we also rely on contacts and networks as much as any other profession – and more than most.

So I decided to plug the gap and set up a group; ‘London Startup Founders’. 20 days later, we have more than 400 members and are easily the largest online network of London founders. It seems to be working. The membership, all founders of businesses with ￡100k+ in either funding or revenue, are drawn from the full spectrum of sectors, though with the inevitable weighting towards tech, B2B and consumer products & services (not all that much oil & gas or manufacturing in there!). And discussions are happening; new posts, responses and connections being made and ideas spread every day. It’s very exciting to watch. And who knows where it will go? I’d like to reach 1,000 in the next few months – we’ll then begin to become a fairly noticeable collective voice for our peculiar species; important because we have a lot to say and, already, collectively manage a workforce of well over 5,000 people. We’re having our first meetup in a couple of weeks and I hope that we’ll be able to help each other out in the longer run.

So, what have I learned from it? It’s a nice little case study demonstrating how, when a real latent demand is met, things can happen. That may be a fairly straightforward point, but it was easy to verify in this case; just try searching for ‘London Startup Founders’ (or any similar configuration) in the LinkedIn search bar and you will see what I mean. But it’s not like this happened totally organically; in the first few days, I had to create the momentum that brought others on board. Reaching critical mass was important; so it began with friends and close contacts who had started businesses. They were OK with joining a group with <20 members and no discussions at all! Then came the next layer of the onion; TalentPool clients, prospective clients and friends of friends; as my relationship grew more tangential, the legitimacy of the group grew stronger. I made the decision up-front to be very selective about who joined, and I imagine this helped to validate the project. And as the contacts changed so I moved from personal emails to automated invitations through LinkedIn. The next step was getting the members to believe the group was ‘real’ and could be useful; dialogue. I asked a few of the ‘core’ members to introduce themselves to the members – and others followed suit. There are now reams and reams of founder introductions on the main page, all great reads. The next level is building meaningful relationships between the members, and I suppose that our forthcoming meetup is a natural step in that direction.

It’s a small side-project, but a fun one all the same; and I hope it will benefit everyone involved. So I’d encourage those reading this to think about the group(s) to which they belong and check to see whether you are represented. And if not, perhaps set one up; if you do, I hope you find my experience above of some help.

If you are a founder of a London-based startup with ￡100k in either funding or revenue, please do submit an application to join us: https://www.dhirubhai.net/groups/8535575