Third places and neighborhood entrepreneurship (2024)

I really can't imagine how it could probably ever work. So one goes into Starbucks and start bugging other random people sitting there (with whatever topic, not just pushing their "elevator pitch" onto them)? If that happened people will start avoiding them just like they avoid places frequented by bums or beggars. No one wants that. People won't go where it is possible.

Typical mind fallacy. When I go visit places like this I do so with the explicit intention of meeting other people, otherwise I'd just stay at home.

Plus, isn't the claim literally that there is correlational evidence here? That lightly suggests your model of how the world works in this area is off.

Cultural observations are not instances of typical mind fallacy, you’re reading OP too literally.

I think a more likely scenario is that you schedule meetups with people that have similar interests.

Yeah. If I'm going to meetup with someone outside of a conference room or whatever (probably associated with some other event), it will probably be a coffeeshop. But I'm not going to be inclined to strike up a bunch of random conversations at one.

It's not a cultural observation. No society founded upon good commerce could possibly get by without the mechanism OP is describing being encouraged in at least some public or semi-public spaces. You need to actually intract with people to trade with them.

I used to work as a barista, and we had several entrepreneurs/small business owners who worked at the shop regularly. Most were friendly with one another. I'm not sure if any actually did business together, but they definitely chatted here and there.

The entrepreneurial people I know are incredibly social. They don't mind having, or striking up a conversation they weren't anticipating, or learning about strangers. It frequently isn't about business, but leads to networking regardless.

It isn't like they are bugging people, its more like they overhear a conversation or see something of interest and find a way to jump in, in a way that isn't intrusive. "I can't help having overheard, but are you planning to open a Taco truck on 5th?" That kind of thing.

You are right, but then they invented long distance electronic communications, like the telephone. Even pre internet you'd run a business, word of mouth via... phone calls, trade shows..., plus maybe advertising. It needs no public space for random people to meet.

I have manned a booth at a trade show twice in my younger days. When you’re a little fish at a trade show, you get people chatting with you not because they’re interested in your product, but to gather more data about where the industry is and where it is going. We actually tried not to engage them too much because it distracts from other people who might actually be interested.

Perhaps it was indeed my personal thing. Maybe it's just that i'm introverted? But i'd hate to be bugged when in a cafe and if it ever happened (it never did), i'd probably stop visiting that particular place seeing it as a magnet for obnoxious types.

And yes, i don't do any networking at all, literally never met any person i did business with, in 25 years of career.

Or maybe, that is my European perspective? Because i probably never seen people doing that. There is an old observation that "networking" is American only cultural phenomenon and it doesn't exist in Europe - maybe it's one of the ways it manifests itself?