When Band was in college, he hated the idea of socializing with people – to the point at which he considered going home on the weekends. The previously introverted software developer, however, really started getting into the habit of meeting people after graduating: According to Band, though, he wasn’t really networking for the sake of networking; rather, he was really just trying to meet new people – to genuinely want to learn more and know more about other people. And through this innate desire to genuine want to connect with people on a personal level, the networking know-how kind of just came about: With the increasing amount of networking in which he engaged, Band old the audience that more and more opportunities somehow just made their way to him – that things kept happening at the right time and at the right place, just by having met the right people. Most notably, Band said that when he first started Contactually, all of their initial business was from the connections he’d made in the past. He adds that, at Contactually itself, they’ve implemented these same kind of connection-building practices, which has opened the company to Networking, however, takes a lot of practice, and a person really needs to get over their initial hesitations or fears in order to actually go out there and begin to connect with people. For Band, he thinks that the number one mistake that people and startups make is this inability to actually go out there and build these connections. He believes that it takes a lot of effort to start engaging in various networking practices, but much like any positive human habit, we can end up benefiting once we’ve got the routine down:
