networking is a scam

Sep 16, 2025

it's 10:47pm.
you're scrolling linkedin in bed. that guy from your batch just posted about his "incredible evening at the product conclave." 147 likes already.

you were there. you saw him. standing by the coffee station for 20 minutes, opening and closing twitter. eating his third cookie. just like you were.

but his post makes it sound transformative. "fascinating conversation with the cto of [series b startup]." "key takeaways on scaling engineering teams." "grateful for these learning opportunities."

bullshit. you both know what really happened. the cto was trapped by 6 people pitching their dev shops. the panel about "ai in 2025" was just chatgpt demos. the networking break had 300 sales people in a room selling to anyone who said “hi.”

yet tomorrow, you'll do it again. another event. another evening pretending this works.

weird thing for me to say, right?
i run india’s top community for professionals. we have 4,500 paying members. my entire business model depends on you believing networking matters. but what we're going to read today might not even sound like networking.

today i’ll cover how to choose the right rooms to be in. what it actually means to add value. how to do this at different stages of your career i.e. early (3+ yrs), mid (7+ yrs) and senior (12+ yrs).

wait, that sounds like networking?
that's why we network, right?

then why the fuck does every networking tip focus on what events to attend, what to say, how many events per month?

ughh. maybe because we're to blame.
yes, we are. we want things to be given to us like an instruction manual, we want cookbooks, we want step by step guides.

how do you find that serendipity?
how do you build surface area of luck?
how do you network without the scam?

here’s my take.
it’s simple.
and has three rules.

1/ choose environments over events.
sokrati wasn't an event. it was an environment that selected for ambition. find places where the default behavior matches your aspirations.

2/ take actions, not meetings.
i didn't schedule coffee with abhishek. i edited his article. he didn't pitch me his ideas. he wrote them. actions create connection. meetings create calendar blocks.

3/ give them value.
curate, filter the noise for them or teach them something specific or do anything that actually helps their specific problem.

let’s dive deeper
pay attention.

1/ choose environments

aka communities.

see the real problem isn’t events.
it's that we think networking is about meeting people. it's not. it's about choosing environments. it's about becoming someone worth knowing. in the right room.

but what about luck, UD?
oh yes, serendipity. meeting your future spouse in a random party that you almost cancelled going, meeting your co-founder on a foosball table (that's abhishek & i 😉).

isn’t this all serendipity?
serendipity is basically luck. and luck has a surface area to it. want to get lucky at something? do more of it. luck is by definition more likely to strike. but we discount all the actions and circumstances that led us there. we take that moment to be lucky. what about everything you did to put yourself in that position

here’s how i met abhishek.
abhishek and i met on a foosball table at work (sokrati). cute story. but we both chose sokrati for the same reasons. sokrati encouraged young people to take ambitious bets, not play safe. not kidding, abhishek literally walked out of his job at tech mahindra in the first week, he didn’t find any learning there. i chose sokrati because i got to work with ashish (founder & ceo). he was amazon's lead pm in 1998, building their growth products like recommendation engine, ad optimisations etc. every time i spoke to him he would send me chasing to the most ambitious goal, and i loved it.

what exactly is a community?
is it a newsletter you subscribe to?
a whatsapp group you're added to?
a slack workspace with 50,000 members?
a conference you attend twice a year?
no yaar, that’s not a community.

a community is a group of people who believe in the same thing, or care about the same problem and are chasing that journey together.

and people matter.
oh do they fucking matter. wayyy more than we can ever give them credit. think about just where you learnt everything you know today. did it come from courses? nope. books? nope. it came from actually working. in your professional life. it came from being in a room with sharp folks at work. someone asks a smart question, your mind lights up. "interesting. why didn't i think of that?" it subconsciously pushes you harder.

energy is contagious.
when someone's killing it, their drive feeds the whole room. when someone's being a downer, they kill the entire mood. just like that one person who ruins a road trip vibe.

communities just work.
and let me tell you- communities are not new. contrary to twitter and linkedin belief, it might feel like communities have been invented by tech bros. nope.

what's the oldest community?
can you take a guess?
it’s religion :)

all religions exists to solve the problem of "finding clarity - why am i here? what’s my purpose in life? why do feel so lost?" people who believe that certain practices and actions get them to that clarity, come together.

political parties are communities
ideologies on how to solve the world's problems.

sports clubs are communities
shared suffering, shared wins, shared identity around performance.

even the foodies
standards of craft, appreciation of technique, pursuit of perfection.

communities work because
people aren't there to "network." they're there because they believe in something. they're pursuing something. they're becoming something.

that's why networking events fail.
there's no shared belief except "maybe someone here can help my career." that's not a belief. that's desperation.

so which community should you join? but before you do that, you need to know the destination. think about where you want to go.

is it becoming ai first?
or becoming the best at "X skill"?
or maybe becoming a founder in 2 years?

once you know this,
look for three things in any community.

first: extreme curation.
communities aren’t about headcount. they’re about density. the denser the ambition and experience inside, the sharper the conversations you’ll have. and density only comes from curation.

you should look if the community actually rejects people? most claim to be “selective” but let in anyone who says they’re building. that leads to noise and shallow takes. paid communities usually beats free because money forces intent. long applications beat open doors because friction signals commitment.

second: values alignment
you can tell a community’s values from the outside if you know where to look. start with the marketing copy. if it screams “top 1%” or “10x your growth,” run. that’s not ambition, that’s filler. then look at who’s already inside. are they actually building things, or just talking about building things?

watch how people meet. is it 100s of people packed into a hall, or 8 people solving real problems around a table? the structure tells you everything. the same goes for design choices. websites, products, even the way members write or speak: ALL of it reflects the values of the group. don’t ignore the red flags just because the logo looks nice.

third: the access.
communities come in two forms.
the online ones and the offline ones.

online is always on, the place you go when chatgpt doesn’t cannot answer your question, when you hit a wall and need a sounding board. for most professionals, this happens twice a week. the value lies in how quickly people respond and what they share. are they posting real struggles like “i can’t crack this growth problem” or are they writing linkedin poetry about their “thrilled to announce” moments? the difference tells you everything about the quality of help you’ll get.

offline is where texture comes in. debates, problem solving, rants, or just plain bakar over a table. the format matters. if meetups feel like mini conferences, you’ll walk away empty. if they feel like dinners where conversations flow and walls drop, that’s where trust builds. and trust is what makes the learning stick.

once you find a community that passes these filters, what do you actually do?

2/ take actions

not meetings.

once you meet the right people.
don’t network. take actions.
let me explain.

remember how Abhishek & I met?
we met at the foosball table in sokrati, we met because we choose the right environment (ambitious over safe jobs). but not everyone i met in sokrati are in my network. abhi & i took actions. we took actions that help us bond. how? i was leading sokrati’s seo charter for a while. i was looking for highly smart folks working on cutting edge adtech strategies and make them public. who better than people who were working at sokrati. the company was managing more than 6,000cr of ad budgets. abhishek wanted to write about his learnings, but he hadn’t written earlier, i edited his first article at sokrati. post that conversation we both knew we loved "growth."

do you remember that startup summit you went to last month? you took selfies with 10 people. posted about "amazing connections." how many have you spoken to since? zero. that product conclave where you sat through 3 panels? you learned nothing you couldn't have googled. those 147 linkedin connections from last quarter? you can't remember 10 names.

real connections form through shared work. debugging code at 2am. writing together every friday. sharing actual numbers, real problems, real failures. shipping that side project. losing that client. trying again.

communities harness this.
but most of us think it's about meeting successful people. it's not. it's about finding people heading to the same destination as you.

at different career stages:
you have different destinations.
some simple (learn a new tool).
some hard (build a company).
what matters is going there with others.

early career?

your destination is competence. you're trying to prove you can actually do the work. not talk about it. do it. this week's small destination might be learning cursor. you've been procrastinating for weeks.

post this: "exploring cursor tomorrow at thirdwave, 3pm. been putting this off forever. anyone else?" two people show up. by week 3, you're all using it daily.

this month's bigger destination could be shipping something real. "building my first side project. 30 days. starting this weekend. who's also been talking about this but never starting?" watch how accountability changes everything.

this year? become undeniable at something. "doing 100 days of public learning on growth. daily posts. who wants to pick their own topic and do this together?" by day 100, you'll have a body of work nobody can ignore.

are you mid-senior?

your destination is ownership. you know how to execute. now you need to own outcomes, not just tasks.

gather people for real work:
"tearing down our competitor's pricing this friday. painful but necessary. anyone want to do their own analysis sitting together?" suddenly you're all speaking the language of business, not just product.

ship for revenue:
"shipping something that makes $1000. not talking about it. doing it. 30 days. who's in?" nothing teaches ownership like customers paying you money.

build a brain trust:
find 3 others transitioning from IC to owner. meet monthly. share actual numbers. real p&l discussions. real feedback. no linkedin poetry.

did you know?

this is how growthx originated, literally! AP & I were transitioning from IC to owner. shoutout to Sunil N and the OG gang. you’ll know who you are.

are you a senior exec?

your destination is leverage. start building in public: "writing what i actually know. every friday, 4pm, starbucks. who else is scared of looking stupid?" vulnerability at this stage hits different.

teach what you know:
"running my first workshop. free. need practice. who else wants to test their teaching?" teaching forces clarity you didn't know you lacked.

build systems
create a playbook with 2 others.
open source it. let juniors build on what you've learned.

because you know what?
senior execs should start building.
the network follows.

3/ give them value

not advice.

you might not be able to build with others all the time. and that’s okay. you can still add value to people. but adding value does not mean commenting "insightful!" on linkedin posts. sending "let me know how i can help" messages.

here's what fake value looks like:
"congrats on the launch! 🚀"
(public comment)

here's what real value looks like:
"saw you launched. your onboarding is confusing at step 3. lost me at the api key part. maybe add a screenshot?" (private message)

fake value says
"let me know if you need anything."

real value says
"saw you're hiring engineers. here's our interview rubric. steal the coding round structure. saved us 20 bad hires."

see the pattern?

fake value is
vague. public. performative. makes you look good.

real value is
specific. private (mostly). actionable. makes them succeed.

"but i don't know what value i can add."
wrong. you're just not seeing it.

naval calls it specific knowledge.
stuff you know that others don't.
not because you're special.
because of your specific path.
your upbringing.
your parents.
your city.
your specific mistakes.
your specific wins.

here’s how you can add real value

early career?

you have more than you think. you have time. everyone else is drowning in meetings. you can spend 3 hours researching their competitor's pricing. compile it. send it. they'd pay a consultant 10k for this.

you have fresh eyes.
they've been staring at their product for 2 years. you got confused in 2 minutes. that confusion is gold. share this with them. every wtf moment. every dead end.

you test with beginner's mind.
"why does this button say 'sync' when it actually imports?" they stopped seeing these problems 18 months ago. you still see them.

mid-senior?

you have battle scars.
you have actual numbers. not benchmark reports. real data. "our cac was 847. here's the channel mix. here's what moved it." everyone quotes the same case studies. you have your own.

templates that actually work.
not the ones from blogs. the sales email that got 40% response. the hiring scorecard that prevented 10 bad hires. the investor update that actually gets responses. tested. proven. ready to steal.

connections that make sense.
not "you both do marketing." but "she solved your exact pricing problem at stripe. introducing you. ask her about the pricing committee structure."

specific lessons from specific failures.
"we tried plg. burned 500k. here's exactly why it failed." not theory. not "it depends." what actually happened. with numbers. with names changed. with lessons learned.

senior exec?

your network is the value.
you have introductions that carry weight. when you make an intro, people take the call. not because you're important. because you only introduce when it matters. quality. not quantity.

frameworks that save years.
not generic 2x2 matrices. the actual framework you used to evaluate acquisitions. the actual playbook for international expansion. the actual reorg structure that worked.

access to rooms others can't enter.
board meetings. investor dinners. executive councils. you can surface their problem to people who can actually solve it.

no matter how you add value
always remember that you should think in decades when you add value. don’t think of roi or reciprocity.,

this is a small ecosystem.
like veryyy small. the more you grow in your career you will realise how incredibly small our ecosystem is. your reputation travels with you. that random favor you do today? comes back in 5 years when you're desperate. that intern you help with documentation? they're hiring in 7 years. value compounds. but slowly. invisibly. over years. not quarters.

giving value will help you.
the act of helping others keeps you sharp. their questions expose your assumptions. their energy reminds you why you started. their problems teach you the fundamentals again.

summarising today’s article.

this what builds careers.
this is what real networking looks like.
this is not scam. but this is hard.
so are all good things in life.

do only ONE thing today.

ask yourself.
what kind of network do you want?
the one with 100 events. fake smiles.
linkedin posts that sound bigger than they were.
how many of those people still matter?
now think of the 5 you actually call.
the ones who’ve seen you screw up.
who’ve stayed in the room.
that’s the only network worth building.
build wisely.

Inside the GrowthX community

Remember everything I just wrote about choosing environments over events? About taking real actions together? About giving specific value?

That's what we built at GrowthX.

4,500+ members who lead product, marketing, and growth at companies like Apple, CRED, Microsoft, Google, Netflix, Zerodha. Not a networking club. A community of practitioners who actually ship.

No panels about "the future of AI." Instead: learning programs taught by people who've actually scaled. A private community where you can't hide behind fluff: you share real numbers, real problems, real solutions.

Every month, in 11 cities: not mixers, but working sessions. Roundtables where you bring actual problems. Deep dives where you learn specific skills. And of course some bakar ;)

Abhishek & I built GrowthX for people who are tired of networking. Who want to choose their environment carefully. Who want to build with others, not just meet them. Who have specific knowledge to give and specific problems to solve.

If you're serious about your craft and tired of the conference circuit, you know where to find us. We are selective of who we accept. To see if you’re a fit you can check your eligibility below.

Check Eligibility.