A good friend shared his story with me today. His first few years as a founder were tough. He was figuring it out and progressing steadily, but he didn’t know what he didn’t know. That changed once he got the right introduction into the right network. A few conversations with the right people opened his eyes to what he could be doing and helped him understand how to do it.

My friend is doing well and is a success by any measure, but it’s too bad that it took him years to get in the right network. I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if he’d been connected sooner. How much further along would he be now?

Matching is important for early-stage entrepreneurship. The best start-up ecosystems are efficient at matching early founders with the right people and resources. As my friend experienced, that can be a catalyst. Not getting into the right network won’t, by itself, cause you to fail, but it could lead to valuable time passing that you can’t get back.

Today’s conversation has me thinking about ways to improve the matching mechanism for early-stage entrepreneurs—especially given the distributed nature of the world post-pandemic.