One of the things I’ve come to appreciate more as I’ve built my own business is how much relationships compound over time.
For most of my career, I worked in consulting and professional services, where relationships are everything. You can have the best capabilities, the smartest people, and an impressive portfolio, but when someone is deciding who they want to trust with an important problem, those things only get you so far.
Trust is usually what closes the gap.
Think about how most of us make decisions in our own lives. If I need a lawyer, an accountant, a contractor, or someone to help me with something I don’t fully understand, my first instinct usually isn’t to search Google and pick the company with the best website.
I ask someone I trust.
And if that person says, “I’ve worked with this person. They’re really good,” something interesting happens: some of their trust gets transferred to that person.
That is especially powerful in consulting and service businesses because what we sell is inherently difficult to evaluate before someone buys it. A client doesn’t really know how good a consulting team will be until they’ve worked with them. They don’t know whether you’ll deliver when things get difficult, whether you’ll tell them the truth when something isn’t working, or whether you’ll actually care about the outcome.
So reputation matters. Relationships matter. And trust matters enormously.
Relationships Compound
I used to think about networking mostly as the number of people you knew. Over time, I’ve realized that the quality of those relationships matters much more.
One genuine relationship can lead to another. That person introduces you to someone else. You work together, do a good job, and build trust with that person too. A few years later, they move to another company and call you. Someone who worked alongside them remembers you and eventually does the same.
At some point, the network starts behaving less like a list of contacts and more like a web of trust.
That is where the compounding really starts.
This has been incredibly important as I’ve built ODS. A significant part of our growth has come through relationships built long before I ever started the company. Former colleagues became clients. Clients introduced us to other clients. Friends connected me with business owners who needed help. Partners introduced opportunities that I probably never would have discovered on my own.
And those new relationships created more relationships.
There was no master plan behind most of it. I certainly wasn’t meeting people ten years ago thinking, maybe this person will send business to my future company someday.
I was simply building relationships, trying to be useful, doing good work, and staying connected.
Years later, I’m benefiting from the compound interest.
The Best Networking Usually Doesn’t Feel Like Networking
I’ve also become somewhat skeptical of the way we traditionally talk about networking.
Going to an event, collecting twenty business cards, adding everyone on LinkedIn, and sending follow-up messages can certainly be useful. But the strongest relationships in my network rarely came from deliberately trying to “network.”
They came from working together.
Helping someone solve a problem. Introducing two people who could help each other. Sharing something useful without expecting anything in return. Having dinner. Traveling together. Building something difficult. Going through a stressful project and coming out the other side with mutual respect.
Those experiences create something a LinkedIn connection cannot: evidence.
You learn who follows through. Who is good at what they do. Who you can call when something goes wrong. Who gives good advice. Who treats people well. And, just as importantly, who you are comfortable attaching your own reputation to.
Because every introduction carries a little bit of your reputation with it.
When I recommend someone, I’m effectively saying, I trust this person enough to put my name behind them.
That is a much more valuable currency than simply knowing a lot of people.
Starting Again in Venezuela
I’m seeing this compounding effect happen again now as I spend more time thinking about Venezuela and the opportunities that could emerge there.
In some ways, I’m entering a new market.
I know the country deeply, of course, but knowing a country and having a professional network capable of building businesses, investing capital, navigating industries, and executing projects are very different things.
Earlier this year, I started having conversations with people who knew parts of the ecosystem much better than I did.
One conversation led to another. The network began compounding.
People I had just met started introducing me to people they trusted. Those people started making introductions of their own. Some of those conversations have already turned into potential partnerships, projects, investments, and ideas that I couldn’t have predicted when I started.
The fascinating part is that this network isn’t being built from zero either.
It is intersecting with relationships I’ve accumulated throughout my life.
Networks that once seemed completely unrelated are suddenly starting to overlap.
I’ll be back in Caracas in October, and I’m looking forward to continuing that process in person. I’m especially hoping to connect with entrepreneurs, operators, technologists, and other people who are thinking seriously about what could be built in Venezuela over the coming years.
Not necessarily with a specific deal or project in mind. In fact, that would probably miss the entire point of this article.
I simply want to meet more like-minded people, learn what they’re working on, share what I’m seeing, and see where those relationships lead.
You Can’t Really Predict the Return
I think that may be the biggest lesson for me.
Networking has one of the strangest return profiles of almost anything you can invest in.
You might help someone today and hear nothing from them for five years. You might meet someone for coffee with absolutely no agenda and eventually build a company together. A former coworker might introduce your biggest client. Someone you helped years ago might open a door in an industry you never expected to enter.
You cannot optimize every relationship for an immediate return.
And you probably shouldn’t try.
The better strategy is much simpler: meet interesting people, be genuinely curious about what they are building, help when you can, do good work when someone gives you an opportunity, stay in touch, and protect your reputation.
Then give it time.
Skills compound. Capital compounds. Knowledge compounds.
But I think relationships do too.
And after spending most of my career in consulting, building a service business of my own, and now beginning to explore an entirely new chapter in Venezuela, I’m realizing that the network you build over decades may ultimately become one of the most valuable things you own.
Not because of how many people you know. But because of how many people trust you.