By: Eduardo Carrera
Edited by: KARA MCINTYRE
Published at: Entrepreneur
For countless entrepreneurs, the tried-and-true way of finding funders and staffing a startup is through cross-class connections — yet too few of them are properly focused on continually broadening their networks.
There are plenty of other important steps along the way to startup success: revenue growth, hiring the right talent, market knowledge, the list goes on. But there’s one metric that deserves considerable attention in that process: broadening your answer to the age-old adage, “It’s not always about what you know, but who you know.”
The “who you know” often includes the support systems that come pre-embedded among those in wealthier economic classes. These successful entrepreneurs have navigators — successful relatives who can offer introductions, former professors or classmates who can review business proposals, etc. — that lower-income entrepreneurs without robust social networks typically lack.
