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Thirded. "How to Talk To Anyone" is an excellent book. I need to read it again though as there are so many things to remember :-)

Leil Lowndes' "How to Talk to Anyone" is an excellent primer.

You could benefit by reading one or more of a few books: How to Win Friends and Influence People, How to Talk to Anyone, and Meta Talk.

Beyond that, start by taking notice of someone's clothing, hair, or other notable characteristics/behaviors. Look for anything that stands out to you, and pay them a polite comment about how you noticed it.

People tend to enjoy talking about things that interest them, especially things they choose to carry/wear. And people love hearing their own name, so use it when you address them if you can.

Sports and movies are two topics you can catch up and keep up on that will give you lots to engage with people over.

Asking about family is a common topic, and those family oriented types will love you for reminding them and inquiring about their loved ones.

As a general rule, listen 80% and speak 20%. People in general like to hear themselves talk, and if you give them the opportunity, they will think you're a better conversationalist, when it's really them doing 80% of it.

When someone says something, see if you can't resonate with what they're saying and reflecting it against your own experience.

For starters, I'd recommend 'How to win friends and influence people' by Dale Caregie and 'How to talk to anyone' by Leil Lowndes.

Freelancing to pay bills also turns out to be a big distraction. I'd recommend exploring other creative ways that don't take your focus off of your startup to pay (or avoid) your bills.

I believe I first encountered the description of this phenomenon in one of Leil Lowndes' books, "How To Talk To Anyone" IIRC.

And I encountered the phenomenon IRL a good few years back at a convention, where I had a really nice conversation with an actress who played a major role in a prominent SF series. Apparently, I was one of a few people who'd even just stopped to ask her how she was enjoying the show: everyone else was either staff, stewards or fanbois who only wanted her autograph, photo or both.

I got to sit with her and her retinue later that night in the hotel restaurant: a dinner date I'll never forget.

The Hot Girl effect is pretty real. And if you can get past that barrier of your own fears to approach the unapproachable, yet retain your humility as you do so, the rewards can often be awesome and memorable.

For #3, I strongly recommend Leil Lowndes's How to Talk to Anyone. It directly addresses those ways to make people comfortable that are typically not plainly laid out. Everything is in easy to digest chunks, the book can be read nonlinearly, and it's held up over time.

A few years ago I cracked it open again after having it read it very carefully many years before that. I was shocked how many techniques I had internalized to the point that I thought they were my own ideas, but paging through the book reminded me how much I learned. Thanks Leil!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/007141858X?pc_redir=1400207054...

If your theory is correct, and I think it is, you can easily assess someones skillset by talking to someone, and finding out what they (are) like (if you need a book for that I can recommend "how to talk to anyone").

If you know which skills are needed for the founding team, the missing skills are simply the difference between the two.

I think finding out which skills are needed might not be very trivial. They need to be close to the core directive of the startup, all the other required skills can be filled by employees. (as in, if your startup is highly technical the founders could be 2 engineers, as long as the first two employees are a CEO and a marketer)

I love the article btw, nice and direct. Hopefully someone in the comments disagrees completely :)

It's not just a game. Hosting a party takes some preparation, and preparation means things can take longer than expected. I sometimes arrive at parties at the moment they're scheduled to start and never has the host been anything but welcoming and gracious. But don't mistake, I'll be helping the host finish up the party decorations, set up the bowls of chips and arrange the beverages for the first 10-20 minutes.

Arriving to a party early is nonetheless a very good idea. It almost always means you get to intimately socialize with the host, a chance you might not get when the party has already started, especially if you're on the shy side of the spectrum.

Arriving early to parties is one of the tips in Leil Lowndes' "How to talk to anyone"[1] that I read and can recommend.

1] https://www.amazon.com/How-Talk-Anyone-Success-Relationships...

I don't know the parent commenter, but I am confident he or she would not characterize that as luck.

Here's a book that can help you stop thinking it has anything to do with luck:

How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships [1]

[1] https://amazon.com/How-Talk-Anyone-Success-Relationships/dp/...

This advice is perfect. Initially (and perhaps always) it is all about the quantity. I have a friend who went from having just a few geeky friends (including me right) to a thriving social life. He wanted to get a girlfriend so he gave it his all for two years. He read things like 'The Game' and cold started hundreds of conversations with strangers.

Don't let people convince you that it's weird or that this should come natural. In the modern world something like 80% of people are lonely, even if they have a partner they might fully dissociated from friends. Being social is not the norm and it takes effort to break from the norm.

Also, and this is just my personal opinion, don't let people convince you that reading literature about this is wrong. Every single book will tell you going out and meeting people is the most important activity, but books like 'The Game' give you tips and tricks on how to overcome anxiety and get more out of your efforts. Don't shirk the pick up artist community, just don't drink the koolaid and start believing oneitis is the bane of existence or that it's OK to insult women. It's actually a great resource if you can look past that.

Anyway, if you want to make this happen fast, make it your full time job. Literally invest 40 hours per week into it. It's what the popular kids did back in highschool, and now you're behind.

Edit: oh forgot, my personal favorite book is 'how to talk to anyone', by Leil something. It's a short book with reminders about social interaction.

How to talk to anyone was a good book. Tells you things that you can develop and put some effort on, like reading a bit of topics outside of your interests so you have higher chances of having a good question to ask.

Like say you meet someone that likes cars, if you don’t know anything about it, it’ll be hard to ask something non chitchat, but if you read a few news of motor sports, you might be able to ask something that sparks conversation.

“Cool, yeah I don’t know anything about them hehe”

Vs

“Oh I don’t know much about it but I heard that X class is really competitive, what do you think?”

Or something like that. Applies to anything really.

Im in the middle of readin "How to Talk To Anyone" by Liel Lowndes. I think it might be the solution to your "obnoxious" problem.

It puts together 92 tips for improving your body language and the impression you make on people. I've found it useful.

I enjoyed 'How to talk to anyone' - http://www.amazon.com/How-Talk-Anyone-Success-Relationships/... for general advice.

There is also Dale Carnegie's 'How to win friends and influence people' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influen...

Apart from that, maybe join some kind of regular group that is more oriented for social than physical? Toastmasters or something like that or even board game groups (most games have some social aspects to them). Wine tastings also come to mind. Just choose activities where you know you will have to speak with people.

I had somehow a similar experience.

At some point I identified it as a problem and learned to start and keep up conversations with new people. Slowly I started liking that and it became more or less natural.

I still have "recovery" periods when I am just too tired or have no interest to talk to people, so I simply don't.

But those are quite short (few days a month), and the rest I use for visiting meetups and networking with other people.

I can recommend a few books I appreciated the most:

1. "How to win friends and influence people" by Dale Carnegie - somewhat outdated but still gives a lot of basics.

2. "How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships" by Leil Lowndes - more modern but not necessarily perfect, although I found a few important things for myself.

3. "How to Talk to Absolutely Anyone: Confident communication in every situation" by Mark Rhodes - same as above. Not perfect, but has some interesting ideas

I suggest these all from personal experience and success (yes, these books have indirectly made me money):

* Tom Hopkins - How To Master The Art Of Selling (some of it is a bit American but the overall concepts learned here are priceless)

* Harry Beckwith - What Clients Want

* Leil Lowndes - How to Talk to Anyone (not directly sales, but this is a massive part of it nonetheless)

* Sam Horn - POP! Stand Out In Any Crowd (this will help you hone your message - learning to sell is good, but if your message sucks, so will the selling)

All of these are reasonably short, cpl hundred pages at most.

"I used "How to Win Friends and Influence People." These days it's terribly dated..."

People have been building relationships for millennia. HTWFAIP is barely 80 years old and a classic. I read it as a shy, introverted kid and it probably had a better effect on my life than any other book.

Something that had a huge effect was his theory that success is 15% professional knowledge and 85% communication skills. Didn't quite understand it as a kid but as I entered the professional world I saw how true that was. Not boot-licking, just the ability to explain concepts and show how what you're doing is useful to people puts you way above most, especially in heavily technical fields where communication is often lacking.

Leil Lowndes' "How to Talk to Anyone" is a more modern take on the subject that I found valuable.

- The Road to Character (David Brooks)

- Code (Charles Petzold)

- Soft Skills: The Software Developer's Life Manual (John Z. Sonmez)

- Zero Bugs and Program Faster (Kate Thompson)

- Daemon (Daniel Suarez)

- Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions (Brian Christian)

- How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships (Leil Lowndes)