All the founders I know (warning - not many, so take it with the grain of salt)
a) don’t waste time on mingling with random people b) more than happy to chat and connect with anyone with a specific goal explained upfront. As long ad this goal is relevant to their current or future work.
“Bouncing off ideas” or “coffee chat” may sound not like a waste of time only if your work is very relevant to other founder’s work (like you are a head of competing product, or a professional with unique skillset they are looking for).
Agree. Ideas about what to build are dime a dozen but ideas about how to execute them successfully are not that broadly shared except when the founder becomes a big success and gets their own biography written by someone.
Perhaps I should have clarified I meant bouncing off ideas about execution and coffee chat on sharing inspiration on how they landed them against all odds.
People are busy struggling with their own execution challenges including myself. My point is they may not have to struggle alone by 1)learning from each other and 2)paying it forward.
Are you bringing anything to the table? Or are you mostly looking for ways to improve yourself.
Both are fine, but its not clear from your post which you are chasing. And clearly it kinda matters to the people you are contacting.
If you have a specific set of challenges and you're looking for advice, then say so. If you have been successful and are looking to advise others then pitch that instead.
Given that my specific industry context is different from yours, given that your experience is likely in a different country (or city) to me, I'm not really sure what you're looking for, other than being away from home and looking for people to socialize with.
Perhaps it would be helpful if you articulate your goals better.
It's both.... mutual sharing of learning to improve the space without immediate expectation of a return to any one party.
You are assuming that the founder seeking to connect is less experienced and more desperate than the founder who is busy working on their idea and does not find the need to share anything.
Google shared the Attention paper with the world. What did OpenAI bring to the table?
Tesla open sourced all their EV patents. What did BYD, KIA or Ford bring to the table?
These companies are stronger because they compete on their confidence to execute and because they make the entire ecosystem better.
In doing so they improved each other and the industry as whole. Hope this makes sense. It's not a zero sum game! :)
My point is that when you're reaching out it's helpful to articulate what you are looking for.
Since I've never met you, if you reached out to me using the post above, I politely decline since I don't see what I'd learn from you. I expect you're not Bill Gates or Steve Jobs etc (if you were you wouldn't be hitting me up).
Now it's possible you could learn from me, but (shrug) probably not. There's a million places you can go online to read much better things than I could say. (I most certainly am not Steve Jobs.)
I think you're suggesting we meet as "peers" - but you're giving me nothing to suggest er are peers. Since my default position is "nothing to see here", I'm just moving along.
I think if you want to make contacts you need to narrow down your search a bit.
“Bouncing off ideas” or “coffee chat” may sound not like a waste of time only if your work is very relevant to other founder’s work (like you are a head of competing product, or a professional with unique skillset they are looking for).
People are busy building things.