428. Impress me 🤩
Thoughts on playing the name game in tech
Hi there 👋
Are you on Threads yet? I feel this question has been asked in every marketing team’s Slack channel at this point. I understand the excitement around a new, trending social network … and yet I also bristle at the compulsion to be even more online. I think I bristle at compulsion in general. You’ll see me bristling a lot more in this week’s newsletter essay below!
That being said, I am on Threads (reserving my space, lurking, watching it fill up with friends). Hit me up!
Wishing you a great week ahead,
Kevan
(ᵔᴥᵔ)
Thank you for being part of this newsletter. Each week, I share playbooks, case studies, stories, and links from inside the startup marketing world and my time at Oyster, Buffer, and more.
Say hi anytime at hello@kevanlee.com. I’d love to hear from you.
On belonging: Playing the name game in tech
When I first arrived in tech, as one of the early marketers at Buffer, I knew no one in the industry and knew nothing about the scene.
Yet I quickly found out that knowing people in the industry and knowing the scoop on this or that company were attributes to be celebrated. The more you knew, the more you signaled to others that you belonged.
Or so it felt.
I took this as a must-learn. I filled my brain with LinkedIn profiles and social media handles, with Crunchbase listings and TechCrunch news. I learned how to play the part. When talking with teammates or peers or recruiters or partners, I was able to hold a tech conversation and name-drop with the best of them. “Do you know person X?” “Of course I know person X! We’re connected on LinkedIn!”
In order to be an impressive person, I felt like I had to know the most impressive people and companies in my space. I had to keep my finger on the pulse of what was happening and who was making it happen, just in case someone asked me about it one day. I felt like a person without a TV, memorizing TV shows and actors, so I could participate in TV conversations and never be found out as a TV outsider.
What I’m probably describing is, quite simply, networking. And networking is certainly an important part of many different roles in business from founders to sales to business development and more — it’s even an enjoyable part of the job for a lot of people.
Are you a networker by default?
I’m not.
And what’s worse, I have felt over the years that my ability to network is tied to my ability to belong.
Thankfully, I no longer feel this pressure.
Multiple times now, I have been chatting with friends and teammates, and I slip into my networking mode where I’ll name-drop what I think is an impressive name or a cool new company.
And I am met with total indifference.
It is such a relief! 😅
These moments remind me that the networking game is just a game, and we can choose to play or not. I’m reminded that there are people I respect, admire, and love who choose not to play this game. And I don’t have to either! I would much rather talk about life than I would LinkedIn. I would much rather hang out than re-hash career histories.
If you have ever felt a similar compulsion to be “in the know” and to name-drop in order to belong, then please know that there are many of us who have been there, done that, and ain’t going to do it no more! When you find your people, you will belong - no strings attached.
If you are a networker at heart, great! There are plenty of people you will vibe with in tech.
But if you aren’t — you don’t have to become one. (Lesson learned the hard way.) There are plenty of us who aren’t wired to be plugged in to anything and everything, and we’re getting along just fine.
Like most things, this has been a process for me. I still find myself falling into habits of the name game, wanting to fit in. And sometimes I need the name game in order to succeed in my job — finding partners or sourcing candidates or building communities. I’ve learned that it’s not the name game that is the problem; the problem is when we let the name game become the primary way we choose who belongs and who doesn’t.
And thankfully, it’s not a game that needs to be played!
About this newsletter …
Hi, I’m Kevan, a marketing exec based in Boise, Idaho, who specializes in startup marketing and brand-building. I previously built brands at Oyster, Buffer, and Vox. Each week, I share playbooks, case studies, stories, and links from inside the startup marketing world. Not yet subscribed? No worries. You can check out the archive, or sign up below:
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