The three-times exited British entrepreneur Debbie Wosskow, best known for her startups AllBright and LoveHomeSwap, reframes networking into the more poetic “organised serendipity”. She also credits it as the reason behind a stunning £53 million exit from her home swap business but maybe more importantly, her sense of wellbeing as a founder. In the two decades I’ve been helping Northern small businesses connect to larger ones, I’ve noticed there's a misconception that networking is something you do to directly sell your services – or even sell your business, when really I think it should be viewed in more simple terms as regularly coming together for connection and support.

Our own founder at Venture Cafe, Tim Rowe, who hails from Boston, USA, says to those attending his weekly tech gatherings that “isolation is the enemy of innovation.” No man is an island, and nor are our businesses – we all need to form those serendipitous connections to thrive. This might be the big time investor you bump into again at an event, or the friendly founder who introduces you to someone over a beer.

A report in 2024 from UCL found that, shockingly, 93% of founders show signs of mental health strain, with levels of anxiety five times the national average. That suggests a pretty huge problem which relaxed social connection could partly solve. The same report found 76% of founders feel lonely, which had a negative impact on confidence levels and problem-solving. So, isolation – which people can easily tend towards in the startup world, can negatively impact business.

Interestingly, a lack of movement (also a downside to the heads-down type focus exhibited by tech founders), can negatively impact problem-solving and attention. Movement, say, like traversing a room at an event, activates the prefrontal cortex of the brain, enhancing its executive functions like planning, impulse control, and attention, which improves cognitive function.

But in the last five years or so since COVID, sitting working alone or remotely in silos has become so normalised that it’s easy to forget there are other ways. A Harvard Graduate School of Education study a US colleague of mine sent me found that people between 30-44 years of age – peak ‘startup founder age’ – were the loneliest group. 29% of people in this age range said they were “frequently” or “always” lonely.

In the USA it could be said that networking is a more natural or even integral part of business life than it is here. But if we could take a small leaf out of their book, and consider a regular social connection, I think founders could greatly improve their wellbeing. By forming a habit of gathering weekly with no set agenda and no intention of doing ‘the big sell’, people quickly find they’re now part of a community of like-minded individuals. And people who feel supported are more likely to go on to succeed.

Unlike in the US where networking is fully embraced, people in the UK tend to view it as  something they can take or leave (and often they want to leave it, particularly after a long busy day, or when the weather’s against them). But few people would disagree that founders do tend to spend too long behind their screens, and not enough time interacting with their peers or other connections. Tech founders usually work in quite isolated environments I’ve noticed, even if they’re not working from home. A coffee shop may seem like a hubbub of activity and energy, as do workspaces – but in fact there may be little meaningful social interaction during the day. That state of ‘deep flow’ when founders work, headphones-in, and alone allows for some amazing work to be created, but if all our work is in silos I think people then become less likely to seek out connection.  

Another thing I think we can encourage is for more seasoned workers, who find face to face interactions a natural way to connect in business, to encourage younger people to network. This has to be something we pass down. I’ve often witnessed the benefits of connection in my two decades working for business organisations in the North West of England, which exist to connect founders to mentors and partners. Venture Cafe and other similar organisations and movements can provide the connective tissue between universities, startups, corporates and civic leaders.

So I say let’s say yes to invitations, to socialising and forming communities. Business networking, far from being a necessary evil, is something we should hold firm in the diary in the same way we would if it was a date with a good friend. Connection is good for us. It’s not a distraction from building a startup business, but an essential part of it.

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