How I Discovered Content-Based Networking

In Jan 2000, I made a hard break.

I moved across the ocean after having grown up in Philadelphia, back to Poland where I was originally born. It was the tail-end of the dotcom hype cycle.

In a new city where I didn't know anyone, I had to build a professional network from scratch. While I discovered and attended networking events around dotcoms, I didn't have a clear story of who I am and why I was there. At best, I was a recent English major grad from the US with some interest in the stories unfolding before my eyes.

In my downtime, I jumped on my modem and scoured the local websites to find out what was going on. In retrospect, I had the benefit of time, which the more experienced businesspeople and professionals didn't. Many of them had years of business experience, but couldn't figure out this dotcom thing.

As a result, I:

pieced together a 30 page report on the state of the Internet in Poland,
got a handful of copies printed and bound,
and then started handing it out to selected local influencers in this space.

Based on the merit of what I'd written, I started getting consulting and advisory gigs. A lot of doors opened. When finished, I would get introduced further. Quite quickly I was fully plugged in...two years after graduating from college.

In retrospect, the content I created spoke for me. While I still had to distribute it, my readers appreciated the shortcut my research gave them. And in a context where relationships were really important, it created those relationships from scratch.