How Telegram Is Reshaping Founder Networking And Community Building

Just a few years ago, startup founders networked on Twitter/X, LinkedIn, in media outlets, at conferences, and in private chats. Each served platform had a different purpose. For instance, founders used X to follow industry news or LinkedIn to reach out to investors. The system, gathering information from several channels worked, yet it was slow and required effort to constantly switch between them.

These two elements are critical for entrepreneurs, as missing time or directing effort elsewhere can have fatal consequences for startups. As such, without the information about market trends, a person risks building a product that does not solve real problems. Furthermore, without warm connections with fellow startupers, a person may miss valuable funding opportunities or fail to receive feedback from more experienced business leaders that could drive their new company’s success. 

Telegram’s features have improved the existing networking model. Now, the platform has become a place for followers to keep up with new product launches, founders to source talent, find fellow entrepreneurs, and reach out to investors instantly and seamlessly.

Maxim, a growth marketer and traffic acquisition expert, will shed light on why Telegram is essential for community building. The expert brings experience in organising several communities for startup founders on this platform: the global technology hub @tech, with 2.9 million subscribers, the more intimate BCN Startup Club, and offline formats such as the V3V <> Basejump Hacker House. 

From Formal Platforms To Direct Communities 

Maxim finds that the main reason why startup founders are switching to Telegram is the “networking fatigue.”

Besides slowness, there are other challenges they need to overcome. For instance, professional conferences are fantastic places for networking, but they require a travel budget and months of advance planning. Telegram, on the other hand, shortens the distance between a question and an answer by consolidating direct messaging, group chats, and channels into a single platform.

Only the Internet and an account are needed for users to access it. “New standard of networking is direct access. Before, founders had to wait two weeks for a formal introduction just to ask a simple question via email or LinkedIn, which was exceptionally demanding. Now, on Telegram, the same question can often be asked directly in a founder chat and answered almost in real time. That makes business processes faster and more efficient,” says Maxim. 

The expert added that this platform is also changing how professional trust is built. Earlier, speaking at a tier-1 conference or publication in a trusted media brand helped create it. Nowadays, trust is also built through communities in which founders can see who is worth working with by looking at their contributions. 

From Tech News Channel To Startup Ecosystem 

With 2.9M subscribers, Startup and Ventures is both a media platform and a business radar for founders. At the first level, the channel helps them keep up with AI trends and new product launches, providing a clear picture of the current market without spending days gathering information from multiple sources. This channel can be the starting point for those who want to build products at the intersection of technology and venture capital. 

“The content quality became even more important with the emergence of AI. @tech ensures that startup founders receive accurate news and business insights they need. The large audience and always ongoing conversations in the comment section highlight this fact.

Of course, there are other channels one can follow depending on their preferences”, explains Maxim. The expert added that without a verified market assessment, startup builders risk entering an oversaturated niche or creating weak product positioning, both of which are costly mistakes. 

The Balance Between Global Reach And Local Density 

Information channels provide founders with access to trends in their field, yet startups also need new employees, first users, trust and collaboration to grow. Local communities, such as BCN Startup Club, a Barcelona-based tech club with 4+K audience address this issue by serving as the second layer of the startup ecosystem.

Because these clubs are small and usually geographically dependent, it’s easy to meet the right people from the same place in real life to network. 

“It’s important to maintain the balance between participating in local and global communities. @tech provides scale and sparks one’s interest for tech and venture, but a local organisation like BCN Startup Cub offers quick introductions to people and a sense that you’re not alone in building a company. Digital reach becomes much stronger when it turns into real offline relationships”, says Maxim. 

Hacker Houses 

The third and the most practical layer of the Telegram network ecosystem is the V3V <> Basejump Hacker House.

If @tech attracts interest for technology and BCN Startup Club turns online business relationships into in-person ones, the hacker house provides the environment for those meetings and collaboration. Its concept is simple: the organisation selects up to 7 startups and provides them with 90 days’ access to a workspace at Tech Barcelona, a founder community, scholarships, and a path to up to €100,000 in follow-on investment to launch a product. 

“Entrepreneurs need a runway that can take the form of a workspace, people nearby, capital, and feedback.

The value of the Hacker House is that it removes unnecessary theory and helps people start building their startups,” explains the marketing expert. It was hard to imagine before: a person can join a local community and even launch a product within 90 days, and all through Telegram. Metaphorically, this multilayered Telegram ecosystem serves as a complete startup funnel for founder networks. 

Telegram As The Startup World’s New Operating Layer 

Use of Telegram for networking points to the fact that it is becoming more informal. It can also form in digital communities like Telegram, where the right people and information are already concentrated. Maxim, a professional in building them, shared with us that the platform nowadays is a place to follow tech news, meet relevant people, showcase expertise and move from a business idea to real-world execution.

As the expert said, all of this can be utilised for strategic startup growth, because better-connected entrepreneurs build profitable companies and create new opportunities for others in the industry.