I have been going to business events for over ten years. There was a time when every company built its own booth. The owner, two people from the team and a screwdriver. This year I showed up at Reshoper the day before and there was almost nobody in the whole hall I knew. Just hired builders.

It took me a while to work out what that meant.

Czech e-commerce has grown up and I saw it in the screwdrivers

This is not nostalgia. It is good news. Companies have grown to the point where they outsource the booth build. The owner has no reason to be there the day before, because that is what people are for. He shows up in the morning, when the doors open.

Except the people who show up in the morning are exactly the ones I wanted to ask something.

So I prepared one single question and spent the whole day carrying it around the Industrial Palace.

Which one contact changed your business?

I asked it of eight people who count for something in Czech e-commerce. Owners, CEOs, people from the leadership. I expected them to agree at least a little. They did not. The answers split into two camps, and one of them hit me so hard I did not know what to say.

Here is what I found out.

One: it comes from somewhere you are not looking

Jakub from Leadhub told me how one Friday afternoon he got a text from someone he did not know. We are looking for a salesperson, heard you left somewhere. He took it as a completely random message. They met, they talked, and today he works there.

“So that genuinely changed my life.”
Jakub Honzák, Leadhub

Dominik from Grizly put it more broadly and landed on exactly the same thing.

“In the end the best business comes from someone you would never have expected it from. It pays to be open and to take an interest in what people actually do.”
Dominik Píchal, CEO & Founder Grizly

This came up with almost all of them. Nobody named a person they had picked out and deliberately gone after. It was always a coincidence, and it only happened because that person showed up somewhere.

Two: it did not work out quickly for anyone

This is the part I should probably stick on my monitor, because it runs against everything that gets written about networking.

Dominik from Grizly met his future investor eight years ago. Then they spent a year and a half talking about whether to do it or not.

“It was really about building the relationship, about having the same values and the same intent, not just the money up front.”
Dominik Píchal, CEO & Founder Grizly

Miloš from DPD reached back even further. His answer was twenty years old.

“When I met my original boss, who had emigrated from Czechoslovakia back in the day. He gave me a few pieces of advice on how to move around the business world, and I am still grateful for that.”
Miloš Malaník, CEO DPD CZ

Neither of them talked about a contact from last week. They talked about something that started years ago and paid off much later. Which is a little uncomfortable, because it means you will see the result of tonight somewhere around two years from now.

Three: it is not a sales channel, it is insurance

Petr from Boost.Space named this one for me, and it shifted how I think about what we actually do.

“The moment I am dealing with a problem, I have people around me who have already dealt with it and can give me some inspiration on where to go next. And the other way round, when I have a problem, I have enough people around me I can help.”
Petr Gyüre, Demand Generation Manager Boost.Space

Most people go to networking events wanting to sell someone something. Then they are surprised it does not work. Because it is not selling. It is insurance you pay for up front and claim the moment something goes wrong. And something always goes wrong.

And then someone told me it all comes down to money

All day people had been telling me how important relationships are. Then I lay down on a sun lounger next to Dan from Buzzoons and asked him when was the last time someone helped him and wanted nothing in return.

“This is pretty hard, because I am a fairly transactional person. Damn, I have to be honest about myself here. So it all comes down to money.”
Daniel Rykr, CEO & Founder Buzzoons

I asked him who it had not been about money with, at first glance. He said nobody. Then he added that his parents help him in business, but they want something too. Not money, but driving out to see the grandmothers and taking care of them.

I could have left that out, because it does not fit a nice article about networking. Except it is the most honest answer I got that day, and I think more people have it in their heads that way than are willing to admit it.

One of them answered: none

Honza Tlapák from Ecomail was the only one of the eight who said he has no such encounter. And then immediately added that, well, there was this one meeting in a pub where they said they should start some kind of email tool.

So that meeting is Ecomail today.

He says about himself that he is not a conference person. And when I asked him what brought him here today, he answered that he lives nearby and it is on his way home.

The most honest sentence of the day

Then I ran into Honza Hospodka, CEO of Shoptet. The company that runs the whole of Reshoper. I asked him the same question.

“Generally I would say that since I became CEO, a lot more people want to talk to me than before.”
Jan Hospodka, CEO Shoptet

And he added something most people in his position would never say out loud.

“I do not really prioritise networking in my life. What matters more to me is talking to people I consider important from Shoptet’s point of view.”
Jan Hospodka, CEO Shoptet

I stood there for a moment afterwards and did not know what to say. Because he is right. When you are high enough up, your position does the networking for you. You do not have to go anywhere, people come to you.

Except there is one thing he did not say. Someone had to introduce him to the right people before he got there. Nobody put him in that seat fully formed.

One answer I did not want to put in here

Because it was awkward to write. Monika Frintová, CEO of IPEX, answered the question like this:

“Definitely André and Meet&Deal. You genuinely bring so much excitement into business life. The community is becoming something lovely and the businesses really are connecting. It is a business family by now, not hard business business, but an actual family.”
Monika Frintová, CEO IPEX

I am putting it here fully aware that it looks like I ordered that quote. I am leaving it in, because cutting the one answer that is about me would be the same manipulation as making it up.

And which contact changed my business?

I would be a hypocrite if I asked eight people something I will not answer myself.

I do not have one name. I could reel off dozens. But if I have to narrow it down, I will say four: Ondra Klega, Ruslan Skopal, Milan Šmíd and Milan Polák. Each of them either shaped me into starting Meet&Deal or helped me significantly once I had. Thanks, guys.

I met all four through networking. But not one of those interesting deals came out of the event itself. They came out of the countless private coffees and drinks that followed.

And this is the single most important sentence in this article. An event is not where business gets done. An event is where you meet the person you will do it with a year from now over coffee.

And that is exactly why we run Meet&Deal the way we do. I cannot hand you that one specific contact. It is never enough anyway, and the fit probably would not be there. But I can get you into a room where there are several of them, and the odds that the one who matters to you is sitting there are decent.

So it is never about one person.

Where all this happened

We had our own Meet&Deal LOUNGE at Reshoper, on the first floor of the Industrial Palace. A bar, standing tables, networking bingo, a rock paper scissors tournament and one thing we were trying for the very first time: the networking complaints department. If someone let you down, you come and file a complaint and we find you someone better.

Our connectors and community hosts spent the whole day introducing people to each other. If you want to see what it looked like in there, we made a vlog out of it: https://youtu.be/6VMORfK7LAo

What is next

We are running vol13, the Lucky 13 Edition, in Prague on 5 November. If it occurred to you while reading this that you have not met your contact yet, you know where to find us.

And write to me about which contact changed your business. I am honestly curious, these are exactly the stories I collect.