How to network in a ‘non-icky way’

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1:39You have about 1 ,500 names to faces that your brain can remember. Your barista, the president of the United States, other celebrities. Like there's just all these people floating around. anyone beyond that roughly 1500 you don't remember them and that's just a reality of the human brain but that is where we think technology can augment your memory it doesn't need to take out the human thing you can still go and be your super connector self and make an introduction between that student and that startup executive but the search and the recall and the memory is something that we can use AI to help augment our human brain.

2:27This is Caroline Dell, co-founder and CEO of a new AI startup called GoodWord. They're developing a networking co-pilot. Think of it as your own personal super connector. It not only knows every single person in your network, but it also helps you build stronger relationships with them. I think being human means being in relationship with other humans. Harvard did a study that followed people for 85 years to see what was the number one predictor of longevity. And, you know, we think about things like don't smoke or have a healthy lifestyle, but the number one thing was the quality of your relationships.

3:12There's a lot of talk about how AI will make the world less personal. But on this episode, we explore how AI can actually bring people together. Caroline and I get into why professional relationships are more important than ever. How AI can help you build stronger connections and pro tips on networking. I'm Rana El-Khalyubi, and this is Pioneers of AI, a podcast taking you behind the scenes of the AI revolution.

3:49Caroline, I am so excited to have you on the show. We first met at the Masters of Scale Summit last year. How was that experience for you? Oh, it was fantastic and a great example of the power of connections, right? I was standing waiting for the shuttle bus with one of my existing investors, Leslie from Graham and Walker, and you walked by in a fabulous white suit and Leslie said, Ron and Caroline, have you met? And we went, we have not met. And here we are a few months later and it brought us together. It did bring us together. And I have to share that I got talking to Caroline and I just got enamored by what you're building at GoodWord.

4:30And I ended up investing just before the holidays. So very excited to be an investor and part of your journey. We're so happy to have you part of the cap table and your belief that we need to humanize technology before it dehumanizes us. It felt very much in line with what we're building at GoodWord. You spent a number of years building Chief, which is this network for women professionals to get together. I am curious, what did you take away from that experience that influenced what you're building at Goodward? Yeah, that's a great question. So Chief is a network for executive level women. And I joined as the head of strategy and operations in very early days when there were only 200 members in a single clubhouse in Tribeca and was with that business through our growth and scale to 20 ,000 members across the US.

5:22It was really incredibly magical when you brought people together and saw how career transforming those connections could be. That one of my favorite stories was a member who got her dream job and she said, I never even would have applied. Not only that I wouldn't have gotten it, I wouldn't have even have applied if someone in my coaching group at Chief Head and said, hey, I know the hiring manager. I'll put in a good word for you. And she applied and she got it. And so those stories were frequent, right? The magic of relationships. But there was also the tragedy in that those moments are hard to scale, right?

6:07And there was this feeling of, I'm part of this great community. How do I find the perfect person at the perfect moment. And I think that experience is what really lit the spark for GoodWord, the idea that, look, you're, you know, that corny saying, your network is your net worth. It's true, but nobody actually knows how to maintain and activate their network in the moments that matter. Yeah. All right. So I love this line, your network is your net worth. And And I want to unpack that. And specifically, what problem is Good Word trying to solve? Yeah, it's funny. I don't know whether I love it or whether I should cringe because it is true.

6:48And it's so it's cheesy, but true. And maybe that's what makes it memorable. But Good Word is solving this broad feeling that we all have of we're living in a time where we're more connected than ever before, right? We have more contacts. We have more LinkedIn connections. We have more people in our phone book or digital phone book. Yet we're feeling a growing gap in that human-to-human connection. There's a lot of people talking about the loneliness epidemic and how relationships are the number one predictor of longevity. And what's interesting is when people talk about that, you often think about friends and family.

7:32And friends and family, incredibly important. But as professionals, we actually spend most of our waking hours at work. And so what would a world look like if we were more connected in community, in stronger relationships with our professionals who maybe went on to be friends? and you work together again, or they refer someone, or they do put it in a good word, they make that introduction. And so that's what we're really building is technology that at its core strengthens human relationships. Yeah, and of course, people who know me will know that this is absolutely within my kind of investment thesis and things I really care about.

8:16It's this idea that we can use AI not to take away from human relationships, but to actually augment and amplify these human connections. So I would say I'm a super connector. I love connecting people. It literally gives me kind of this feeling of like fulfillment and joy, but it is a mess. So as you said, I actually have 30 ,000 connections on LinkedIn, which at some point I reached out to LinkedIn. I was like, I would have more connections. And they were like, this is the maximum. Yeah, this is the maximum number. And then I have my WhatsApp groups and my text messages and my calendars. It's a real mess.

8:48I love hopping on calls with people, especially young people who are like, you know, fresh graduates. And they're like, I am looking for a job opportunity at an AI startup in the healthcare space. I know a lot of these people, but it's so hard to actually summon the right introductions and the right. So how is GoodWord tackling this problem? Is this the problem? I guess the GoodWord is tackling. Yes, it is one of the main problems. And actually what you're describing, it's not just you, although you have a really big network built over many decades of work in this field, it's human psychology.

9:25And so if you've ever heard of Dunbar's theory, so Robin Dunbar is a psychologist out of Oxford, and he came up with, researched and kind of coined the term Dunbar's theory, which is that you only have about 150 friends. But what's interesting is that Your relationships actually exist in rings. And so it's 150 people you know, the common, oh, we had a wedding. It's 150 people. But you have people who are broader out. You have about 500 acquaintances. You have about 1 ,500 names to faces that your brain can remember. your barista, the president of the United States, other celebrities, like there's just all these people floating around.

10:10And then there are inner rings like your, you know, 15 champions or your five best friends, you know. And so we actually don't experience other humans as first degree, second degree, third degree. We experience them as much smaller concentric circles of relationships, closer or less close. The challenge that you're speaking to is anyone beyond that roughly 1 ,500, you don't remember them. It's impossible to recall them. So when you're doing that contextual search in your brain of like, okay, who do I know at an AI healthcare startup who might be hiring for a junior level? I'm sure you know lots of people, but can you perfectly recall them in that moment?

10:57No. And that's just a reality of the human brain. But that is where we think technology can augment your memory. It doesn't need to take out the human thing. You can still go and be your super connector self and make an introduction between that student and that startup executive. But the search and the recall and the memory is something that we can use machines and AI to help augment our human brain. Yeah. You know, the other piece of this too is there is no social network today or social platform today that encapsulates that degree of closeness, right? Like I have 30 ,000 first degree connections on LinkedIn, but I'm connected to you, which is very different than being connected to Gabby, who's my co-founder at Blue Tulip, and I've worked with her for a decade versus somebody I met once, right?

11:51Or maybe even didn't meet at all and just kind of accepted their request. LinkedIn doesn't know, right? They don't know. And that is something that we're building with GoodWord. So we are integrating with other platforms and tools that you use today, email, calendar, AI note takers, Excel, and you can actually import all of that data, you know, to bring it all into a single source of truth, right? And so we become your living, breathing memory, and then we organize the relationships. You have meetings with Gabby on your calendar every single day. That's a signal versus we talked a couple times one week when we were getting to know each other.

12:34And, you know, or you haven't talked to someone in six months. Maybe that's a moment for Goodward to say, hey, Rana, you haven't talked to this person in six months, but you used to talk to them every week. do you want to maintain that relationship? So that's where GoodWord can help service the right people, prompt action at the right time, and kind of fill that gap between huge amounts of volumes of people who there's so many opportunities to collaborate and connect and do work together. But remembering who those people are as they change careers, as you change careers, it's hard to like perfectly come together unless you have that kind of machine learning or that matching helping you surface those people.

13:23In a minute, how AI can help supercharge your networking game and what Anne Hathaway has in common with an AI co-pilot. Stay with us.

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14:37Welcome back to Pioneers of AI. You can also watch this episode by heading over to our YouTube channel. I'm a founding connector on GoodWord, which means I have access, early access to the product, and I've been using it and giving feedback on it as well. I take copious notes in my meetings, and so I've been dumping that into GoodWord. But it will say, here are the six people perhaps you want to reconnect with this week. And some of them, you know, some of them are spot on. Some of them are not. Some of them are really people that have kind of dropped off my radar. But I would love for you to share with us, kind of bring it to life.

15:12So say I've just been onboarded. What does this experience look like? And what are some of the use cases or workflows that GoodWord is implementing? Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'll take one step back and say when we designed GoodWord, we wanted to build something different than the existing set of tools out there. So instead of it being about automation, right, auto replies, mass outreach, lots of people, lots of volume, you know, scraping publicly available data, we believe that that's not what makes a relationship. Maybe that's a sales pipeline or a recruiting pipeline. And that's great. But our approach is that we don't need to automate relationship.

15:52We want to give people the context and the intelligence to show up in their relationships that they already have and want to strengthen or maintain or reconnect if they've forgotten about them. So when you join GoodWord, you come into the product. We have a mobile app or desktop. One of the features that our early founding connectors are really loving is this feature called recommendations. And what we're doing is we are taking everything we know about you. You tell us a little bit in onboarding about your goals, who you are, and everything we know about your network. And then we are using the AI to say, okay, who could be helpful for Rana in this moment?

16:40And it's suggestive. It's almost like the way a dating app would say, like, you could swipe through. There are some people that you're like, nah, I don't need to catch up with them right now. The matching actually gets better over time as you use it. But we've had a lot of users be like, oh, my God. Like, duh, of course, that person who I haven't thought about in years. And then they catch up and they're like, oh, I didn't know that they're also now a fractional consultant for startups. I'm also, you know, and so those, I think those are the magical moments. Yeah, I love that. So, you know, part of the, I guess, challenge, but also opportunity is a lot of our interactions are in the real world, right?

17:24Like you and I met at a conference, we were by the bus stop. And in an ideal world, I would have something that would capture that piece of information right there. And that, because I'm not going to pull up my laptop and like type in, you know, pull up my AI note taker and take notes. And then the picture that comes to mind, I've shared this before. I love the scene from The Devil Wears Prada when Anne Hathaway, you know, whispers into Meryl Streep's, into Miranda's ears, and she's like, oh, he's the ambassador and this is his new wife. How have you thought of it? Well, I've watched this movie like 15 times, so no judgment, please.

18:03How do you think about real world interactions? Can Good Word help there? Sure. We can. And that's actually in part why we launched with both a mobile app and a desktop. And that's different from what others are doing. Frankly, I didn't realize how hard it is to develop on mobile. It is still early building AI products in a mobile application, but we do have one for iOS and Android will be launching in the first half of this year, probably pretty shortly. And the idea is, as a professional, we're so busy. We're not going to come back to our desktops, open up our laptop, pull up our spreadsheet, enter them in, type the notes.

18:46This is how we met. This is the context. you need to brain dump, like truly just brain dump in that moment. So with GoodWord, you can open the app, hit a plus button, and you can type or just verbally brain dump. I met Rana at Masters of Scale. We were standing by the bus stop. Leslie introduced us. It sounds like we're really aligned in our vision of the world and where we're going with emotional intelligence and relational intelligence. I should probably follow up with her when I get back to New York. And that's it. done. And then Good Word will, partially because it's integrated with your calendar, it's like, hey, looks like you're back in New York.

19:25It's the time to remind you. I'm going to suggest that you reach back out to Rana and here's why. So that is the vision of giving you an extra brain, an extra memory, but also one that's proactive. And so it doesn't have to wait for something to happen to remind me to follow up. It's almost like a relationship chief of staff, right? It's got the Anne Hathaway kind of like whispering in your ear, like you really should follow up with Rana. Yesterday I had a conversation with a fellow GP at a fund and she's pregnant and due in April. I would love to make a note in Goodward and hopefully Goodward reminds me, you know, mid-April or whatever.

20:10Remind you in April. Yeah, exactly. To reach out and just check in and see if the babies here. It's these little authentic moments of connection that I think really build trust and a longevity of a relationship. Authenticity is probably the word we hear the most from people who join the waitlist to our users. They're like, I want it to be real. I don't want to outsource my relationships to the robot. I'm a human and I want to build a human relationship with the other person. It is, like you said, it's kids' names and pets and, your latest vacation and your daughter's going to college. And these are the things that we relate on as people.

20:51But where do you store that? Theoretically, you could set a calendar reminder for April, but I'm sure there's lots of things on your calendar. And so with Good Word, yes, if you put that note in, we will resurface it to you as an action for you to take at the right time because of the time sensitivity of that moment. Yeah. You know, the other use case, I think for professionals who tend to like be traveling a lot and meeting lots of people, I'll be in New York, you know, let's say next week. And I want something that where I'll say, I'm in New York for two days, who should I meet with? And is that something you guys are working on?

21:31Absolutely. That's a really common one because again, it's really very interesting. We have more digital connections than ever before. yet coming out of the pandemic, we're like, you know, it'd be nice to see you in person again. Like, I'd really love to see you when I'm in town. And that is a great trigger. How do you think about privacy in designing kind of the underlying architecture? And what I mean by that is there is a lot of information about each of us that's in the public domain, but a lot of these conversations can be private information that maybe a person does not want to share publicly.

22:06But it's important information in the context of the relationship. So how do you think about privacy? Privacy is one of the most important things we think about when designing GoodWord. And I actually think that that's where a lot of the power of your network is. It's in those private pieces of information. The pregnancy example is a great one, right? If she's due in April. Her employer probably knows she's due in April, but if it were six months earlier, she might not have shared that yet. And so that was a private piece of information. It's similarly, if you're changing jobs soon, maybe you haven't announced it.

22:47So our view is, yes, of course we can pull in all the publicly available information. And what we do is we create one global profile per person. So there's one Rana in Goodward and everything that's public we can share with any GoodWord user who's connected to Rana. But if I take a note in my GoodWord and I say, you know, Rana is investing in my company or we're chatting about her becoming an investor, that's probably not something I want on the internet, you know, before we're ready to announce. What we do is we built a security layer so that we know that is classified as private information.

23:28So for me, I see a different profile of Rana than somebody else. And that, again, is what we think makes it a relationship instead of just a connection. But privacy is at the core of that. So Caroline, earlier in my career, I thought the path to success was just to work harder and harder and harder. And I really did not prioritize time to go to meetups or events or conferences. I was just heads down doing my research, building my company. And then at some point I realized that, yeah, who you know is in a way more important than what you know. Absolutely. But it's been hard. It's been hard to break into these already existing networks of, say, tech investors who are usually, you know, they all were part of the same company and then they spun out and now they co-invest together.

24:20It's definitely a problem for women founders who are not part of these tech bro networks. Is this something you've experienced? And I guess, how could GoodWord be part of the solution? Yeah, absolutely. I think that experience is really common, especially for women, where we work really hard and then we think that someone will see us and we'll just get the promotion. We'll get the gold star. And unfortunately, I have also learned the hard way that often the promotion doesn't just come from hard work. It comes from sponsorship. And so who in the company is advocating on your behalf? Who have you built relationships with?

25:02Understanding that there's factors that work beyond just, you know, getting the job done. And so I think that's something many of us learn the hard way, right? And we do live in a world of haves and have-nots. It's something we've been talking about in the startup ecosystem with some founders raising enormously large rounds at AI hype bubble type valuations. Often without products. Often without products. And the folks, being a female founder, I have a lot of female founder friends who are not having that experience. About 80 % of my cap table are women, which is really, really cool, but also speaks to the need for more diverse check writers to invest in more diverse founders to build more diverse companies.

25:57And I was fortunate to have a network of incredibly successful women coming out of building chief and meeting so many female executives. But the stakes are higher than ever, right? It's like, it's not just what you know, it's who you know. And it is back to our earlier conversation. Well, will they go to bat for you? You know, will they put in a good word? Will they write you a check? Do you know people who have the ability to write you a check? I remember when I first heard about the friends and family round, I was like, I don't have any friends or family who can write me a check really, right?

26:36But I think part of it is that we are always part of a network, right? And if you're able to have that mindset, that might be helpful. We are. We are. And that's why I would say one of my biggest pieces of advice to founders is make other founder friends because maybe they're not your family, but they're someone's family, right? And if you've got a great founder friend, you know, that's happened to me before. I'm like, who are great angel investors on your cap table? Are you willing to make an introduction? And they're like, of course. And these are people who consistently angel invest. And then I get a chance to speak with them and maybe they'll angel invest in my company or maybe I'll refer them to another founder.

27:16And so you are part of a network. It's just so hard because we can't see it and feel it. It's intangible. I think where Good Word can help is identifying the people in your network who might be part of a network that you're not part of. So I hope it unlocks doors by saying like there's someone out there that is willing and ready and able to help you and we can help you find and identify who that person is. We're going to take a break. When we come back, Caroline shares five pro tips for building a stronger network.