“If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

While this saying may sound a bit superficial and cheesy on first sight it actually conveys a very important message: you cannot do everything on your own and sometimes need the help of others to exceed your limits and succeed.

Our own knowledge, whether it is concerning our business or life in general, is limited and there will occur obstacles we do not have an answer to. But it is likely that somebody else has been there before and knows how to overcome the given problem. Through the exchange with others we can broaden our knowledge, gain new perspectives and ideas, and establish cooperation generating mutual benefits. In this article, K. Fry identifies five reasons why networking is especially important for small and young businesses, including:

1. Identifying new business leads,
2. Identifying best practices and benchmarks
3. Discovering what the new trends in business or in your industry are
4. Increasing your self-confidence, and
5. Increasing the number of connections you know.

To put it in a nutshell, networking allows you access to opportunities you might not be able to find on your own. Your network has the potential to provide you with insights into different fields, information on what potential business partners look for and advice on how you can improve professionally.

Also make sure to check out this article by Forbes magazine in which 10 founders share their best advice on starting a business: https://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2020/03/10/10-entrepreneurs-share-the-best-advice-theyve-heard-about-starting-a-business/?sh=6eea329178e5