Entrepreneurs-Journey.com

It’s 2006 and this year I’ve set myself a goal to make more friends with similar interests as myself. I could call this networking, as in the title of this blog post, but I’d prefer to form friendships with like-minded individuals first and let networking type business results develop naturally, if at all. Networking should always be the result of friendships in my opinion, and I value friendships a lot more than pure business relationships, although you can’t be friends with everyone. Sometimes a pure business relationship works better to get the job done.

I don’t know enough people working in the same industry (the Internet) as myself and I’ve only come across maybe one or two women doing the Internet or small business thing. Brisbane is not a tech-town, I’m sure there are people out there making money online but they are few and far between and many prefer to hide (there are a few porn kings in Brisbane apparently).

I’ve been extremely grateful with what blogging has done for me regarding networking with other bloggers, entrepreneurs and small business owners around the world. With thanks to Skype and this blog I have a handful of new friends working in the same field as myself and maybe one day we can meet in person. Unfortunately for most of my new web friends and contacts there is a big ocean to cross before we can meet.

Face-To-Face Communication

Nothing compares to face-to-face communication and that is what this post is all about. I’d like to meet some of my readers, my fellow bloggers, entrepreneurs, and small business owners. I’m making a call out to anyone in Brisbane interested in meeting up to talk shop. It doesn’t matter what stage you are at with your business as long as you share a passion for the things I write about on my blog I suspect we have commonalities. Please feel free to email me to introduce yourself.

I’m Coming To Melbourne, New York And Toronto

January

I’m heading to Melbourne for the Australian Open tennis so if you live in Melbourne or will be there during the third week of January send me an email and maybe we can meet up. I’ve already got plans to say hello to Darren Rowse and I’m sure there are some other Melburnians that read this blog too.

July

Around July this year I will briefly visit New York and very likely afterwards relocate to Toronto for a few months as I did last year. I’d love to have a few friends and contacts working a similar life as myself to meet up with, so please introduce yourself if you are located in these great cities.

Of course as always I’m happy to communicate with almost anyone, no matter where in the world you are, over email or Skype. I do have a screening process with Skype and it can be overwhelming keeping up with all the contacts, but generally as long as you are not simply trying to sell me something or looking to convince me of a “great business” you want me to partner with or you have a website you want me to promote (i.e. you follow the conventions of friendship communication, not hardline salesman), then please say hello.

Business Networking

I’m sure you have heard it all before but I’ll say it again - networking is one of the most important tools an entrepreneur has access to when growing a business. In fact I would say it’s almost impossible to grow a solo enterprise into anything much larger than a “salary” sized operation without the benefits of networking. Networking gives you opportunities for new business, access to specific talents, intellectual resources and people with experiences you don’t have. No major business today would be where it is without the owner having been a prolific networker as the business grew.

Yaro Starak
Networker