Be Too Busy to ‘Do Coffee’

People want to “do coffee” and build relationships. That’s fine early in your career, when you’re still exploring. But later in your career—when you’re exploiting, and there are more things coming at you than you have time for—you have to ruthlessly cut meetings out of your life.

If someone wants a meeting, see if they will do a call instead. If they want to call, see if they will email instead. If they want to email, see if they will text instead. And you probably should ignore most text messages—unless they’re true emergencies.

A busy calendar and a busy mind will destroy your ability to do great things in this world. If you want to do great things—whether you’re a musician or entrepreneur or investor—you need free time and a free mind.

If you think you’re going to “make it” by networking and attending a bunch of meetings, you’re probably wrong. Networking can be important early in your career. And you can get serendipitous with meetings. But the odds are pretty low.When you meet people hoping for that lucky break, you’re relying on Type One luck.But you’re not getting Type Three ... See more

You have to build up credibility. For example, when a tech investor looks at a startup, the first thing they want to see is evidence of product progress. They don’t just want to see a slide deck. Product progress is the entrepreneur’s resume. It’s an unfake-able resume....  You have to do the work. To use a crypto analogy, you have to have pro... See more

You have to be utterly ruthless about dodging meetings. When you do meetings, make them walking meetings. Do standing meetings. Keep them short, actionable and small.

People will meet with you when you have proof of work  Busy people will take your meeting when you have something important or valuable. But you have to come with a proper calling card. It should be: “Here’s what I’ve done. Here’s what I can show you. Let’s meet if this is useful to you, and I’ll be respectful of your time.”

A busy calendar and a busy mind will destroy your ability to do great things in this world. If you want to do great things—whether you’re a musician or entrepreneur or investor—you need free time and a free mind.

You have to do the work. To use a crypto analogy, you have to have proof of work. If you have that and you truly have something interesting, then you shouldn’t hesitate to put it together in an email and send it. Even then, when asking for a meeting, you want to be actionable.