Networking

Networking Contacts (/networking-contacts, in the Library group) is your career graph of humans — people you've met, contacts to keep warm, and amplifiers who can extend your reach — with dated touchpoints so you can see who's gone cold. Retained-search firms get a dedicated sibling page (below).

TL;DR — Add a contact, tag them Contact vs Amplifier, and log a touch when you reach out — the last-touched date keeps your follow-ups honest. Touches also feed your Insights cadence tracking and Goals metrics.

Search Firms at /search-firms is a tab within the Library top-nav — for retained-search relationships specifically, which have enough bespoke metadata (region, focus title, last contact) to warrant their own table.

Quick start

  1. Open Library → Networking from the sidebar (or the direct URL /networking-contacts)
  2. Click + Add contact
  3. Fill in the form: Name is required; Title, Company, Email, Phone, LinkedIn are all optional
  4. Optionally check Is amplifier if this person reshares / quotes your public work — that flag makes them appear on the Build Your Brand → Amplifiers tab
  5. Add notes — context, how you met, what you talked about
  6. Save

The list is sorted by last-contacted-at, then alphabetical by name. Click any row to open the detail drawer for editing.

Bare-domain URLs

The LinkedIn URL field accepts either a full URL (https://linkedin.com/in/jane-doe) or a bare domain (linkedin.com/in/jane-doe). The platform auto-prepends https:// when you save. Same applies to any other URL fields elsewhere in the app — www.equal.vc works, you don't need to type the protocol.

Tracking contact moments

Every time you click Mark contacted on a contact's detail drawer, the Last contacted timestamp updates and the row re-sorts to the top of the list. Use this when you reply to an email, hop on a call, or ping them on LinkedIn.

The intent is "when did I last touch this person" so you can spot who's gone cold. Open a row that's >90 days old and decide whether to ping or move on.

Amplifiers

Networking contacts you flag as Is amplifier show up on /brand/amplifiers as a filtered list. The optional Amplifier type field is free-form — common values:

  • journalist
  • podcast host
  • conference organiser
  • peer
  • executive coach
  • recruiter
  • client

Use whatever taxonomy makes sense for your network. The list is yours; the field is just a tag you can filter on later.

Bulk import

Click Import CSV on the page header. Expected columns:

fullName,title,company,email,phone,linkedinUrl,notes,isAmplifier

Header row required. Empty cells are fine. The platform de-dupes on email + LinkedIn URL — if a row matches an existing contact, it's skipped (with a warning in the import summary).

Up to 200 rows per import. Use multiple imports for larger lists.

Search firms vs networking contacts

Two separate surfaces because the metadata differs:

| Field | Networking | Search Firms | |---|---|---| | Region | — | yes | | Focus title (VP Eng / CMO / etc.) | — | yes | | Last contacted | yes | yes | | Notes | yes | yes | | Amplifier flag | yes | — | | Bulk CSV import | yes | yes (different format) |

If you're tracking a specific recruiter at a search firm, the person goes in Search Firms (with the firm's region + focus title captured). Generic networking — peers, friends, ex-colleagues — go in Networking.

Tips

  • Add notes when you save, not when you "have time later." The 90-day-old contact you can't remember is the most common networking failure.
  • Tag amplifiers liberally on first add. It's easier to remove the flag later than to remember everyone who's ever shared your work.
  • The list isn't a CRM. Don't try to track conversations, follow-up reminders, or pipeline stages here — use a real tool for that. This is "who do I know and when did I last touch them", nothing more.

Related

  • Library overview — sibling pages: Question Bank, Favorite Companies, Search Firms
  • Build Your Brand → Amplifiers — the filtered view of isAmplifier contacts
  • Goals — Networking-category goals (weekly deep contacts, monthly senior intros) draw from this table