The exact system I used to get Mark Cuban to invest, spend a week with Richard Branson, and end up on Tony Robbins’ stage seven times.
How does a kid from a small town in Eastern Canada who struggled in school and was in and out of jail and rehab by 17 end up in rooms like that?
One word. Relationships.
Everyone says your network is your net worth. Almost nobody shows you how to build one. So here’s the whole system, including how I reach people way out of my league without it feeling cringey.
Think in people, not problems
The average person asks, “How do I solve this?”
The most successful people I know ask, “Who has already solved this?” They default to the who, not the how.
Every problem you have, somebody out there has already solved. Build a relationship with them and you inherit the solution.
That’s why I moved to San Francisco at 28. Software people move to San Francisco. Media people are moving to Austin right now. Music goes to Nashville, finance goes to New York. Proximity is power, and most of what you need is caught, not taught.
The four invisible showstoppers
So if one relationship can change everything, why hasn’t it happened yet?
Usually it’s something I call an invisible showstopper. Small things you’re doing that kill the relationship before it starts. The worst part is nobody tells you that you blew it. You just secretly feel like other people get chances you don’t.
A guy spotted my car at the gym, figured out I was inside, and ran across the floor mid-workout in a full suit to ask me questions. I’m open to that. I love meeting people. So I told him we do a founder hike every Tuesday and he was invited. “For sure, man. I’ll be there.”
He didn’t show. That was three months ago and he still hasn’t.
About 98% of people who say they’ll be there don’t show up. That’s part of why I run the hike. It’s a filter, and most people fail it. If he’d just walked up that trail, whatever he wanted help with probably would have gotten a real conversation.
It travels, too. I was thinking about partnering with a guy, let’s call him Bobby. My buddy Mike found out and told me Bobby talks about people behind their backs. That was the end of it. Bobby never treated me poorly and never said a word about anyone in front of me. Bobby also has no idea why nothing ever happened.
Four behaviors do most of the damage:
1. Flaking/Being late. The people you want in your corner have to be surrounded by people who follow through 100% of the time. Fix: only commit when it’s a 100%. If life happens, text them.
2. Neediness. This one reeks of desperation. You start treating someone like they’ve got magic fairy dust, and if they sprinkle enough on you, you’ll be successful. Fix: act like a peer, not a fan. The people you admire want that, because the alternative makes them uncomfortable.
3. The instant ask. It gets an immediate no and makes the yes harder later. Fix: give first. Don’t ask, “want me to edit a video?” Edit the video. Send it.
4. Being transactional. If you only do things hoping to get something back, people feel it and keep their distance. Keeping score is not a relationship. Fix: be intentional instead. Gary Vee does this at scale every day. He treats relationships like investments.
The TRIBE framework
Cuban, Branson, Tony, all of it came out of this. I wasn’t born good at networking either. I was awkward and introverted, and I learned to code partly because I didn’t have to talk to anybody. Then I figured out business is about people, so I went and read the books and got good at it.
T is for target. Write out five specific things you want done before the end of the year. Then write the name of someone who’s already done it next to each one.
R is for realize you don’t need any one person. The second you say “I need this person to invest,” you’ve made them the gatekeeper of your dream. Make a list of a dozen. Make it a hundred. Nobody has to pick me for me to win.
I is for invest. The best way to invest in a relationship is to show up. When my book came out and I did my first event at my local bookstore, my buddy Jason Gaignard got on a plane from 2,000 miles away and stood in line for a copy. I asked what he was doing there and he said he came to support the book. That’s why I love the guy. He shows up. His book, Community Made, is worth buying 😉
B is for build a platform. A platform is anywhere you can invite people to collaborate with you. I started with dinners. Three local entrepreneurs who didn’t know each other, plus me, doing intros. If I didn’t know much about law, I invited the guy who owned the law firm. Didn’t know finance, invited the person running the accounting firm. And if I’m shy, great, they talk to each other. I create the room, they think I’m a master networker, and all I did was send an email. The hike is the same idea. It costs me nothing, I get my workout in, and thousands of people have come. (You’re invited, by the way, in case nobody ever formally told you.)
E is for edit. You have to put things down before you can pick things up, and that applies to your feed. Follow the people next to your goals. Mute everyone else, block them if they’re genuinely negative. My rule: if I’d run into them at the mall and pretend I didn’t know them, I’m not following them, and I don’t care that we sat next to each other in grade 8 English.
Most people build a network by accident. This way you do it on purpose. And it comes back to goodwill, which only gets created when you give more than you take off the table.
How to actually reach out
Information without action is just entertainment. So here’s the outreach.
Do your homework. Read their stuff, watch their videos. Never freestyle it. There’s nothing more insulting than getting asked something that’s the most publicly available fact about your life.
Show up in their world first. Follow them, leave real comments. And make sure your own profile isn’t randomname1234, because that’s not a good look.
Lead with something only a human could write. One very specific reference that proves you did the work, a mutual connection if you’ve got one. Short. No pitch.
Ask for advice, not a favor. Something specific and easy to answer, but not something they’ve already answered publicly. If you ask me how to start an AI company when there are 13 videos of me answering that, bad look. But “I’m debating Grok build versus Codex, which would you use?” is a question I have an opinion on and can answer in one line. Anything that sounds like can we collab, can you promote my thing, can you invest, gets filtered out.
Put your cell number in the email. One of my go-to moves. If I’m driving and you made it easy to reach you, I’m tapping the number and calling.
When they reply, tell them what you did with it. “Never heard of Grok build. Tried it, built the app, thank you.” Now they know their time was well spent. That’s a relationship starting.
Then offer help, ideally to their team. When I first moved to San Francisco I didn’t know anybody, so I found a woman named Cassie who ran the biggest events business in the city and offered to volunteer. I’d already sold a company. I was a multimillionaire. I still knew the fastest way into the right room was to volunteer. I asked if she needed someone to recruit speakers, she said yes, and I asked for her hit list. Now I’m reaching out to the top entrepreneurs in the city on her behalf, with permission, adding value before I ever asked for anything.
Get this right and you reach a point where you’ve got a money problem and you’ve got a guy. People problem, you’ve got a guy. Need to hire someone, you know the person.
When you can reach the best person in the world on any problem you have, you start to feel invincible. That’s the whole reason I do what I do, and the relationships end up mattering more than anything they ever get you.
So go pull out that list. Pick one name. Send one message today.
-DM