My first time networking as a student
A glimpse into how Forward College students can easily build a network in Berlin just by going to class every day, thanks to the magic of CIC Berlin and Venture Café! To kick off the year, I wanted to push myself to attend my very first networking event – the Thursday Gathering at Venture Café Berlin, hosted at CIC Berlin. Here’s how it went, what I learned about student networking in Berlin, and why I’m already glad I showed up.
I was holding on to my paper cup for dear life, a sticky note on my t-shirt read my name, surname and number of events I had attended in the series (a tiny “1” figured in brackets, slightly embarrassed in the face of the double-figures that surrounded me). My first time at a networking event.
Last Thursday, Venture Café Berlin celebrated its first anniversary by hosting a big networking event at CIC Berlin. Venture Café is an “Innovation Ecosystem Activator”, as stated on their website – that is, a nonprofit organisation that hosts community events and programs that support early-stage entrepreneurs. Their flagship programme, Thursday Gathering, is a weekly appointment for founders, entrepreneurs and innovators of all kinds – and, why not, investors – to come together and exchange ideas, projects, and grow their network. Through this sort of engineered serendipity, Venture Café is able to “connect innovators to make things happen”. And, indeed, things do happen.
The Thursday Gathering I attended was not an ordinary one, in that it celebrated one year since the birth of the Berlin division of Venture Café, whose mother organisation was founded in Boston at the original CIC (Cambridge Innovation Centre). Various partner companies were present at the celebration, each with a little stand, leaflets, and Forward College also had a stand in the venue, where our campus manager and student ambassadors were presenting the university to curious guests, and around which I gravitated for the first minutes. Drinks and a cake served as an ice breaker.
Albeit not entirely representative of how a typical Thursday Gathering might look, it was the perfect way to gently ease myself into the whole thing: a little introductory speech, multiple things going on at once, so you can pretend you have something to do, lots of people to blend in the crowd… But I couldn’t help feeling a little intimidated. Still, I forced myself to go up to as many stands as I could and ask about the projects, to practice my networking skills. The first company I found myself reading about was called Founders Running Club. I was immediately greeted by a lovely lady who introduced herself, shook my hand and proceeded to explain what her company did. “We are a global community with more than 30.000 members across the world, and we are active in 32 countries on five continents! We host weekly runs where founders and investors can meet and establish an initial connection to build new projects together.” Cool, right? Indeed. But, guys, these people meet every Saturday morning. Saturday. Morning. Running.
Anyway, she was really nice and described to me how the community operated in Berlin, and then we chatted a little bit about running and how I would love to pick it up as a serious habit, but, you know, maybe I’m just not there yet. 8 am. Running club. After our little conversation, she asked if I had LinkedIn and if I wanted to connect. “Sure”, I was beginning to spell, when she promptly pulled out her phone and a QR code to her profile, maximising efficiency. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I don’t have my phone with me right now” (true, my phone screen was unfortunately broken and undergoing repair that day). No problem, I’ll just type my own name on hers. I clicked on the “follow” button. She looked at me with a condescending smile and said, “I’ll connect too, alright”. Now I know you need to click on the three dots and then “connect”. In my defence, I have not yet graduated from the level of opening the website on my laptop from time to time, having the app downloaded on my phone’s home screen.
The rest of the night, despite my tension, went quite smoothly, and I managed to connect with two more people on LinkedIn, go up to six more stands, and practice presenting myself as a Forward College student. Notable mentions are: a kickstarter kit for safe finger sex, a coffee-maker that doesn’t spill chai (chai is apparently a very spilling-prone drink to make yourself), a company producing cosmetic packaging with bamboo canes, and three different startup incubators. I was actually very excited about the bamboo packaged shampoo – did you know bamboo is one of the fastest growing plants on the planet, and can absorb up to 5 times more CO2 than a typical hardwood tree?
Overall, I’m very glad I went to this first Thursday Gathering at Venture Café Berlin, and I’m excited to keep building my network during my time at Forward College. For any student who feels a bit intimidated by networking, Berlin is full of friendly, curious people – and events like this are a great place to start. Who knows, maybe that next conversation at CIC Berlin will lead to my dream job. Until then, I’ll be practicing my introduction – and you’ll be the first to know how it goes.
