Let me save you the trouble of reading this post: The "How" part is easily summed up as "I left a comment in a blog". You don't need to read this blog post to learn any more than that b/c there is no more substance in the blog post than what the title suggests. The guy got a job - good for him. But don't visit the link expecting to read lots of interesting stuff...
Well, you might have summed up the blog post, but I think more interesting is the comment thread on Fred Wilson's blog. In particular, I find it extremely refreshing reading Fred's responses to the thread. The fact that Fred was willing to leverage his personal network to help out an anonymous 17 year old who left a fairly crude comment on his blog not only sets an example for how people should treat one another, but is indicative of his investing philosophy. He is always looking for the diamond in the rough, and he isn't afraid to dig for it.
Totally agree with both of you guys (and yes the comment was crude - I can be an asshole).
I agree, looking back the post would've been better minus the 'How' - but it was really as simple as I stated in the post. Leveraging social media to work for your benefit isn't that hard.
From that one comment with my linkedin profile (in the replies of my original) I was given 3 or so offers for other startups/companies. Just from the link. 1 crude comment got the attention of Fred (and about 5 other people who emailed me telling me I was a stupid kid).
Fred connected me with as many people as he could and Boris actually took the time to sit down with me. Now Boris is an awesome guy - but I don't think he would've taken me as seriously without Fred Wilson behind me.
One of the points I'm trying to make is, use whatever connections you can. The old saying "it's not what you know, it's who you know" still is extremely true to this day - of course, once you're in the door you have to know what the hell you're doing or you won't last long.
Now this is the kind of info I hope to read in your next blog post :)
I don't mean to come down on you - that wasn't my intent. It's just that this blog post is fluff - no substance. And I don't say that just to be a jerk; the HN community here is busy enough w/o having fluff posts upvoted. And, since lots of us read the comments before viewing the link, I thought I'd save some folks the time. That's all. Please don't take my comments as anything more than they are and by all means do not let them discourage you from (a) blogging, or (b) posting interesting content here.
Thanks for saving me the time. I wish HN's RSS feed would drop you in the comments for the post instead of sending you directly to the link. Newmogul.com does this and I think it's a better way to serve the feed.
